Under the Liberty Tree Part 13

"I want to be with some one who is friendly," and Master Piemont's a.s.sistant spoke in a tone of such dejection that Amos's heart was touched.

"Where do you live?"

"Nowhere now. Master Piemont declares I shall not stay in the house another hour--you know the terms of my apprentices.h.i.+p were that he should give me a home."

"Then what do you intend to do, Hardy?" and now Amos began to display some concern.

"I shall walk to Salem, where my parents live, if I cannot find other work here. I am afraid when people know it was through me that the trouble began at the Custom House, they will feel as Master Piemont does, and refuse to hire me."

"You can't walk to Salem to-night. Where will you sleep?"

"That makes no difference. If you will only be friendly with me, Amos, I can get along somehow."

"You shall go home with me, Hardy, and after the excitement has died away people will begin to realise that you are not as much to blame as now appears. Even Jim Gray will see the matter in another light, as soon as his grief has subsided."

With this reconciliation it is necessary, because the purpose of this book is finished, to bid adieu to the boys whom we have met under the Liberty Tree, for in nowise would the incidents of their lives interest the reader, until after the lapse of many months, when we may, perchance, meet them again, while relating certain events connected with the Siege of Boston.

The following is taken from Arthur Gilman's "Story of Boston."

"Before the troops could be removed, on the following Thursday, March 8th, the funerals of the slain were celebrated with all the pomp that Boston was capable of displaying at the time. The a.s.semblage was the 'largest ever known'; the bells were tolled in Boston, Cambridge, Roxbury, Charlestown; the bodies of Caldwell and Attucks, the friendless ones among the victims, were taken to Faneuil Hall, Maverick's was borne from his mother's home, on Union Street, and that of Gray from his brother's on Royal Exchange Lane. The four hea.r.s.es formed a junction on the fatal King Street, and thence the procession continued, six deep, to the Middle, or Granary Burying-ground, where the bodies were solemnly laid in a single grave. Thus, the last view that the retreating soldiers had of King Street was marked by the pa.s.sage of thousands of Bostonians, doing honour to the men whose taunts and insults had goaded them beyond endurance, and they felt the humiliation of their situation as they gave way before the successful 'bullies' of the little town, who had put them to flight. It was not 'ignominious' in Dalrymple, however, to take his men away from an infuriated populace; there were then thousands of st.u.r.dy New Englanders in the towns about, ready to crowd into Boston at the proper signal; and what were two single regiments to do if they had come? It was foolhardy in Hutchinson to resist the demand of the determined gathering at the Old South. He had been wise the evening before, but on that day his sagacity deserted him. When Lord North, the unwise minister of King George, heard of the circ.u.mstances, he was interested in every detail, and the picture of Adams before Hutchinson impressed him so deeply that he afterwards called the Fourteenth and the Twenty-ninth 'the Sam Adams regiments.'"

"In August, 1775, the name of Liberty having become offensive to the tories and their British allies, the tree was cut down by a party led by one Job Williams. 'Armed with axes they made a furious attack upon it. After a long spell of laughing and grinning, sweating, swearing, and foaming, with malice diabolical, they cut down the tree, because it bore the name of Liberty.' (Ess.e.x Gazette, 1775.) Some idea of the size of the tree may be formed from the fact that it made fourteen cords of wood. The jesting at the expense of the Sons of Liberty had a sorry conclusion; one of the soldiers, in attempting to remove a limb, fell to the pavement and was killed."

--_Drake's "Old Landmarks of Boston."_

THE END.