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know if he was going to school.

William actually stared at him. "Halloa, Johnny, what's .he matter with you this morning? Yes, I'll go, if it were only to see how astonished the boys will look to see you coming so early and looking wide awake too."

How far William's expectations were realized, I will not stop to tell you, I will only say that John was astonished to find how much he enjoyed the play before school, and the hard study in school. To be sure the latter was rather tedious sometimes, and he was often tempted to lay down his book and resort to cutting his desk with his penknife, or any other of the thousand amusements of idle school-boys. But he did not, and he was more than repaid for his self-denial, by the consciousness of having done right, and it seemed to him that the voice of the master saying, "You have done very well, to-day, Master John," was the pleasantest he ever heard.

After dinner he was about to throw himself upon the sofa, according to custom, but he checked himself and tried to think of something which he could do to help his mother. Just at that moment his sister Lucy, a pretty little child of four years, asked if she might not go out into the garden. Her mother told her that she must not go alone, but she might if she could persuade her brother William to go with her.

"I'll go with Lucy," said John, and soon they were both in

the garden, engaged in a fine frolic. John was certainly unusually active. He ran races with her in the paths, picked flowers for her from the beds, tumbled in the grass and hid in the summer-house for her amusement; and when they went into the house with their cheeks glowing with the exercise they had taken, he told his mother that he never knew before how well Lucy could play.

In the evening he took his books and sat down to his lessons as soon as the tea-things were removed, instead of waiting as usual until he was actually commanded to do so by his mother, and after these were faithfully learned, he enjoyed his play for half an hour much more highly than usual. It was noticed that at prayers he was much more attentive and serious than usual, and that to-night his voice joined with the others in singing their evening hymn.

From that day a gradual but decided improvement took place in his character. Every morning he rose before sunrise, and went into the garden, not to appear again until breakfast time. This excited the curiosity of the family not a little, but his father would ask no questions, and forbad William, who was strongly inclined to follow him for the purpose of finding out his secret, to trouble his brother by his curiosity, and the employment of his morning hours remained a profound secret.

One morning, as Mr. Morton was pruning a favorite fruit tree in one corner of the garden, he

saw, in a little arbor, which was
seldom visited by any of the
family, his son. He hesitated
whether or not he should enter,
and, while he was deliberating,
John looked up and saw him.
"Good morning, John," said
Mr. Morton,
you see I have
found out your secret. Do you
come here to study or to read?”
"To read, father," said John;
and as he put the book he had
been reading, into his father's
hands, he saw that it was the
Bible.

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I see, my son," said his father, "I see now the cause of the improvement in which your mother and myself have lately rejoiced, rejoiced with trembling, for we knew not that you sought strength to resist temptation from the Giver of all strength."

"Oh, father," said John, "I could never have persevered had it not been for this morning hour. When I was tempted, it was the thought of the prayers I had offered here, which reminded me to seek aid from God, and I have here learned from this book," and he took it from his father as he spoke, "a great deal that I never knew before." JANE.

THE SCHOOL-BOYS'

PAPER.

stream, which flowed close by our school-house. The bridge, the broad extended basin, and the narrow eddying strait each had their name, and their shallows and soundings were known to every school-boy pilot.

As fair weather at last set in, and as boating had begun to be a worn-out pleasure, some lasting amusement was sought for. Some one, of a more literary turn than the rest, and moreover a scribbler of those school-boy times, proposed a Newspaper. The proposal was agreed to, at least by one, who, rather ambitious, agreed to be joint Editor with the original proposer. This, too, was agreed to; and as the former lacked money, and the latter lacked brain, the one was to furnish paper, and the other to furnish matter.

The paper was published, not printed, weekly, on a half sheet of letter paper, with its title conspicuously placed at the top, or namented with as much dexterity, as the Editor's skill in chirography would admit of. It was read, we believe, by one of the Editors, to the school, who convened themselves early on the morning of the day of publication to hear it.

In a short time, however, it be came evident, that it was not NEWS- listened to with great attention. The poetry was utterly above comprehension; the prose utterly without meaning; and the advertisements every body knew of, before they were inserted.

'Twas fine weather for winter, and amusement was the order of the day. During every hour of recess from studies, king boats and fairy vessels were plying in the iceless waters of a little

Now, a boat was advertised as lost, which every one had hunted for the preceding day, till the

a

school bell rung; then a meeting which no one attended, knife to be sold, which had been offered to every boy on the playground.

To relieve the Editor of the task of filling the paper by his own labors, correspondents were respectfully solicited, but were not obtained. The Editors made several applications in person, to distinguished characters of the school, but all without effect.

Newspaper writing was soon found to afford no more lasting sources of amusement, than the navigation of toy boats. The Editors were tired, the one of furnishing matter that was read with no interest, and the other of furnishing paper which no one paid for. Vacation drew near, and its important events banished from every mind all thoughts of the Newspaper.

STORIES OF A REVOLUTIONARY OFFICER.

No. 11.

The contents of this chapter will prove, what, in my preface to the preceding one, I supposed might be the case namely, that the events which I should record, by transferring to paper, the words of a man of eighty-three years, would not be given to the public in articles according to the order of their occurrence; but, just as they should come up in the memory, and fall from the lips of the narrator; as these were of a date antecedent to those before related, their time being the year '75, and '76.

When thinking of his advanced age, and the many dangers to which his life has been exposed, the good old man often makes an expression of wonder and gratitude that he has been spared to this day, while the earthly existence of so many thousands around him has begun and ended.

While they have come, and passed away like the changes of the forest's leafy garment, and he is still left to "fight the good fight of faith," he does it with the cheerfulness of one, who knows that the meek are invincible; and that the longer his crown is held back by the hand that has shielded him through all the perils, and led him thus safely through all the windings of a long life, the richer will be its value, and the more perfect its finish.

He reads the newspapers of the day attentively, and marks in his mind the death of every one of his old fellow-soldiers, that he finds therein announced. When he comes to the name

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of one who was with him in any particular action or scene, it is not so often known by his words, as by the sound of a suppressed sob, and his being obliged to take off his spectacles, and wipe the moisture from them.

The other evening, he saw in the obituary list, the name of a man, who, he said, was with him in '75, when at Cambridge, and in the escape on Charlestown neck, at the time of the Bunker-Hill battle.

Taking this as the end of a thread by which to draw forth another little narrative, I asked some questions which led him into the following relation.

H.

VARIOUS SCENES AND EVENTS.

CAMBRIDGE AND BUNKER-HILL.

After the battle of Lexington, where a ball tore out the piece that left this little scar by my ear, I enlisted and went to Cambridge as a sergeant.

Our location was not far from the border of Mystic. We had one fort on Winter-Hill, and another on Prospect-Hill; and while here, I made, for the latter, the first chevaux-de-frise that was used in our army. It was made as a sort of gate, to the fort, to open in the day, and shut at night.

Old General John Whitcomb undertook to show me how to make it. He went into the woods with me to select the timber; and when we got it ready for the holes to be bored, the old gentleman took hold of the auger, and went to work with such earnestness, that his wig grew troublesome in his stooping position, and he caught it by the locks and threw it on the ground, and then held on to the auger, and worked as if his life depended in the force of its operations.

It was by the side of his brother, Col. Asa Whitcomb, that I went when he marched over the neck to engage in the battle of Bunker-Hill, where we met our army retreating, and found ourselves suddenly assailed on each side by the enemy's floating batteries that came up close to us, and completely hemmed us in, except in the little narrow strip of neck by which we had to escape.

As Col. Whitcomb went foremost, and I at his side, we were fair marks for the British, who afterwards reported that they over-shot us. But they did not. They under-shot us; for, as we went, one of their balls furrowed the ground at my feet;

and, in a moment, a second cut such a trench that it made me stumble and pitched me forward so as nearly to fall.

At this moment, General Putnam rode up to Col. Whitcomb, just from the battle ground, and spoke a word or two which I did not hear; but, while I was watching the muzzles of cannon, to see how they aimed, I did not know that all our party of about five hundred men, had turned, and were fleeing, (they being all behind me ;) till I looked round and found myself left alone amid the smoke of the cannon and the dusty clouds.

As I turned and ran, I was, as it were, a single mark for the enemy. They fired after me several times, before I got to the fence, which I jumped over, close by the ridge of ground near Charlestown Hotel.

As I made for this ridge, a ball flew by me, and lodged in the side of it; another took my gun out of my hand, and then I thought it time to drop myself. I think it was just on the spot where the Hotel now stands, and the rising ground that was levelled to make way for it, that I threw myself down, just as a flash came from the cannon; and a ball passed directly over my back, and fell at some distance beyond me.

When I think of my escape in so critical a moment, it seems as if nothing short of a miracle could have saved my life.

When General Putnam rode up to Col. Whitcomb on the neck, he showed that he did not quit the battle ground in so great haste as not to gather up his tent; for he had it with him on his horse when he met us.

I was sorry to see, a few years ago, that something had been written to lessen his merits as an officer in the public estimation, and to tarnish his name with respect to that day's action; for, I do not believe that he, or any one else could have done better than he did through the whole scene.

The British sent a good many of their bombs from Boston with such force that they reached our forts at Cambridge. I remember a great laugh that was turned on one of our men, who went without the barrack one dark night; and came running back in a fright at one of the shells that had fallen and was throwing out its fire close by him.

When General Lee came on, and joined us at Cambridge, the house that he made his quarters, was a very old, ruinous looking building, that stood in the hollow between Winter-Hill and Prospect Hill. On account of its antique and dilapidated appear.. ance, he humorously gave it the name of Hobgoblin-Hall.

Not long after he stationed himself here, there arose some confusion in the camp, on account of a falling out between two

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