Year: 1876

A hundred years ago the winds OF March
were blowing.


To-day the same winds rush Ivy the stone
memorials and sweep across the low
mounds that securely cover the men and
the women that then were alive TO chill
blast and stirring event. Even the lads
who gathered at sound Of drum and fife on
village green, wishing, as they saw the
troopers march, that they were men, and
the little girls who hung about fathers
neck because he was going off to war, who
watched the post riders on their course,
wishing they knew the news he carried,
are no longer with us.


For nearly two years Boston had been the
lost town of the people. 1t had been TAX
en- from the children by an unkind father
and given 10 strangers. You have been
told how British ships came and closed the
harbor so that food aud raiment could not
enter. You know how grandly the young
sister towns behaved toward stately, hun
cry Boston; how they marched up the mar
row neck Of land that holds back the town
from The sea, each and every one bearing
gifts to the beloved town, until there came
that sad and fatal day wherein British mil
itary lines turned back the tide of offerings
and closed the gate of entrance.


Then it was that friends began TO gather
across the rivers that wound their waters
around Boston. Presently an army grew
up and stationed itself, with leaders and
banners and forts.


Summer came. The army waited through
the long warm days. The summer went I;
all the leaves fell the chill winds and the
cold .sea-fugs wound into and out of the
poor little tents, and struck the brave men
who, having no tents, tried TO be strong and
endure.


Every child knows, or ought 10 know,
the story of that winter, how day by day
all over New England, men were striving
to gather firearms and powder wherewith
to take back from the foe poor Boston. But,
alas there was not powder enough in all
the land to do it,.


The long wearying winter had done its
worst for the prisoned inhabitants within
the town; and truly it had tried and pinch
ed the waiting friends who stood at the
gates.


At last, in March, in the night, the brave
helpers climbed the hills, built on them
smaller hills, and by the light fthe morn
ing were able to look over into the town, at
which the patriots were glad and the Brit
ish commander frightened.
A little after nine of the clock on Sun
day morning, the 18th of March, l776, three
Narraganset ponies stood before Gen.
Washington's headquarters at Cambridge.


"Go with all possible speed to Governor
Trumbull," said Washington, delivering
dispatches to a well-known aHd trusted
messenger, who instantly mounted one OF
the ponies in waiting-Sweeping Wind by
name-snd rode away, with many sharp
AM inquirng glance back at city and riv-
or and camp.


1t was four of the clock in the afternoon,
and the messenger had not stopped since
he set forth longer than to give Sweeping
Wind water TO drink, when, on the high
way in the distance, he saw red cloak
nultering and flying before,


II was Pussy Dean who wore the cloak.
She was fifteen, fair aud lovely, brave and
patriotic as any soldier in the land.
At first she was angry ut the law by
which she was denied a new cloak that
winter made of English fabric, but when
wrapped in the coveted broadclOth of scar
let belonging to her mother, she was more
than reconcled.


On this Sunday Pussy had been at the
Westinghouse on the hill two miles from
home, at both morning and afternoon ser
vice, and allerward had fingered little t.
gather up bits of news from camp and tow
to take home TO her mother, and so 1t hat
happened that she was guile alone on thu
highway.


Pussy Glanced to look back 10 the sum
nit of the hill down which she had walked
and she saw the express coming.


"Now," she thought, "if could onl.
stop himi wonder If can't. I'll try
and then, ,"--swiuging her silken bag"
shall have news TO carry home, the yer!
latest, too."


AS she swung the bag she suddenly re
membered that she had something wllhlI
II TO offer the rider.


"of course can" she went on saying l.
herself. "Post-riders are always hungry
and it's lucky for him that didn't have L
eat my dinner myself to-day. Now, II
only had a basketful of clover heads o
roses to give that pony, I'd find out al
about Boston while 1t was eating"
| The only roses within sight weUo bloom