



Produced by Annie R. McGuire








[Illustration: HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE]

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VOL. II.--NO. 80. PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. PRICE FOUR
CENTS.

Tuesday, May 10, 1881. Copyright, 1881, by HARPER & BROTHERS. $1.50 per
Year, in Advance.

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[Illustration: PAUL REVERE AT LEXINGTON.--DRAWN BY HOWARD PYLE.]




HOURS WITH THE OCTOGENARIANS.

BY BENSON J. LOSSING.


Between thirty and forty years ago I went on a pilgrimage to places
hallowed by events of the great and successful struggle of Americans for
freedom and independence.

I there found many things and persons remaining as mementos of that
contest. All were hoary with age, and some were crumbling and tottering
ruins. All were rapidly passing within the veil of human forgetfulness,
for houses, fortifications, battle-fields, and men and women would soon
become only pictures on Memory's wall.

From the lips of the venerable men and women whom I saw I heard
thrilling narratives of their experience in those days of strife. In
hidden recesses of memory and in written notes I preserved those
narratives for the entertainment and instruction of the youth of this
generation, hoping to be with them to tell the tales myself. Here I am,
and I propose to relate to the readers of YOUNG PEOPLE some of the
stories I then received from living lips. I will begin with the story of

  THE FIFER OF LEXINGTON.

Lexington! Concord! What American boy or girl has not heard of these two
little villages in Massachusetts, where the first blow was struck for
independence, and where the hot flames of the Revolution first burst
out, on the 19th of April, 1775? One of my first pilgrimages was to
these villages.

It was a bright, sunny morning in October, 1848, when I travelled by
railway from Boston to Concord--a distance of seventeen miles northwest
of the New England capital. There I spent an hour with Major Barrett and
his wife, who "saw the British scamper," and had lived together almost
sixty years. The Major was hale at eighty-seven, and his wife, almost as
old, seemed as nimble of foot as a matron in middle life. She was a
vivacious little woman, well-formed, and retained traces of the beauty
of her girlhood.

After visiting the place of the skirmish at Concord, I rode in a private
vehicle to Lexington, six miles eastward, through a picturesque and
fertile country, and entered the famous village at the Green whereon
that skirmish occurred, and where a commemorative monument now stands.
After a brief interview with two or three aged persons there, we drove
to the house of Jonathan Harrington, in East Lexington, who, a lad
seventeen years old, had opened the ball of the Revolution on the
memorable April morning with the war-notes of the shrill fife.

As we halted before the house of Mr. Harrington, at a little past noon,
we saw an old man wielding an axe vigorously in splitting fire-wood in
his yard. I entered the gate, and introduced myself and my errand. The
old man was the venerable fifer.

"Come in and rest yourself," he said, kindly, as he led the way into the
house.

Although he was then past ninety years of age, he appeared no older than
many men do at seventy. His form was nearly erect, his voice was firm,
his complexion was fair, his placid face was lighted by mild blue eyes,
and had but few deep wrinkles, and his hair, not all white, was very
abundant. I took a seat on a chintz-covered lounge, and he sat in a
Boston rocking-chair.

"I have come," I said, "to make some inquiries about the battle of
Lexington."

"It wasn't a battle," he answered; "only a skirmish."

"It was a sharp one," I said.

"Yes, pretty sharp, pretty sharp," he replied, thoughtfully. "Eight fine
young men out of a hundred were killed; two of them my blood-relations."

"I understand you played the fife on that morning," I said.

"As well as I could," he replied. "I taught myself to play the year
before, when the minute-men were training; and I was the only person in
Lexington who knew how to fife. That ain't saying much, though, for then
there were only eight or ten houses in the village besides the
meeting-house."

"Did you belong to the minute-men?" I asked.

"I was a minute-_boy_. They asked me to fife, to help Joe Burton make
music with his drum for Captain Parker's company. Poor Joe! His
drum-head was smashed, and he lost a little finger in the fight. Captain
Parker's company was drilled the night before the fight, for Sol Brown,
our nearest neighbor, came from Boston at sunset, and said he had seen
nine British soldiers in overcoats walking toward Lexington. Sam Adams
and John Hancock were at Parson Clark's house, where Dorothy Quincy,
Hancock's sweetheart, was staying. Gage wanted to catch and hang 'em,
and it was believed the soldiers Sol had seen had been sent out to seize
'em that night. A guard of eight men