“Wal,” said Sam, “I was in Cambridge that day and saw it all. Ye see, the army was drawn up under the big elm there; and Ike Newel and I, we clim up into a tree, and got a place where we could look down and see. I wa'n't but ten year old then; but, if ever a mortal man looked like the angel of the Lord, the gineral looked like it that day.”
“Some said that there was trouble about having Gen. Ward give up the command to a Southern man,” said my grandfather. “Gen. Ward was a brave man and very popular; but everybody was satisfied when they came to know Gen. Washington.”
“There couldn't no minister have seemed more godly than he did that day,” said Sam. “He read out of the hymn-book the hundred and first Psalm.”
“Laws, boys! I know it by heart,” said Sam, “I was so impressed hearin' on him read it. I can say it to you:--
I 'll search the land, and raise the just
Shall hold their peace, or quit the land;
Where I have power, shall be suppressed.'”
“He trusted in the Lord, and the Lord brought him to honor,” said my grandmother. “When he took the army, every thing was agin' us: it didn't seem possible we should succeed.”
“Wal, he was awful put to it sometimes,” said Sam Lawson. “I 'member Uncle David Morse was a-tellin' me 'bout that are time down in New York when the' Massachusetts and Connecticut boys all broke and run.”
“Massachusetts boys run? How came that Sam?” said I.
“Wal, you see, sometimes fellows will get a-runnin'; and it jest goes from one to another like fire, and ye can't stop it. It was after the battle of Long Island, when our men had been fighting day after day, and had to retreat. A good many were wounded, and a good many of 'em were sick and half-sick; and they'd got sort o' tired and discouraged.
“Well, Lord Howe and the British came to make a landing at Kipp's Bay round by New York; and the troops set to guard the landing began to run, and the Massachusetts and Connecticut men were sent to help 'em. Uncle David says that the fellows that run spread the panic among 'em; and they looked ahead, and saw an ox-drag on top of a hill they was to pass, and they thought 'twas a cannon pintin' right at 'em; and the boys, they jest broke and run,--cut right across the road, and cleared over the fence, and streaked it off cross-lots and up hill like a flock o' sheep. Uncle David, he run too; but he'd been sick o' dysentary, and was so weak he couldn't climb the fence: so he stopped and looked back, and saw Gineral Washington cantering up behind 'em, shouting, and waving his sword, looking like a flamin' fire. Oh, he was thunderin' mad, the gineral was! And, when he see the fellows skittering off cross-lots, he jest slammed his hat down on the ground, and give up. 'Great heavens!' says he, 'are these the men I've got to fight this battle with?'