"
At last, came Joe Devins, a lad of fifteen years--Joe's two
astonished eyes peered for a moment into Martha Moulton's
kitchen, and then eyes and owner dashed into the room, to learn,
what the sight he there saw, could mean.
"Whew! Mother Moulton, what are you doing?"
"I'm getting Uncle John his breakfast to be sure, Joe," she
answered. "Have you seen so many sights this morning that you
don't know breakfast, when you see it? Have a care there, for
hot fat WILL burn," as she deftly poured the contents of a pan,
fresh from the fire, into a dish.
Hungry Joe had been astir since the first drum had beat to arms
at two of the clock. He gave one glance at the boiling cream and
the slices of crisp pork swimming in it, as he gasped forth the
words, "Getting breakfast in Concord THIS morning! MOTHER
MOULTON, you MUST be crazy."
"So they tell me," she said, serenely. "There comes Uncle John!"
she added, as the clatter of a staff on the stone steps of the
stairway outrang, for an instant, the cries of hurrying and
confusion that filled the air of the street.
"Don't you know, Mother Moulton," Joe went on to say, "that every
single woman and child have been carried off, where the
Britishers won't find 'em?"
"I don't believe the king's troops have stirred out of Boston,"
she replied, going to the door leading to the stone staircase, to
open it for Uncle John.
"Don't believe it?" and Joe looked, as he echoed the words, as
though only a boy could feel sufficient disgust at such want of
common sense, in full view of the fact, that Reuben Brown had
just brought the news that eight men had been killed by the
king's Red-coats, in Lexington, which fact he made haste to
impart.
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