"ElizaLeeFollen-WhoSpokeNext" - читать интересную книгу автора (Follen Eliza Lee)

William and I, on that never-to-be-forgotten day; but, in the midst
of the battle, a shot wounded William's right arm, and he let me
fall.

His uncle led him off the field and sent him home to his mother. A
countryman, who had nothing but an oak stick to fight with, seized
me as I lay on the ground, and here I met with the first
mortification of my life--he actually used me to dig with. This was
a contemptible feeling in me, and I have since learned to be ashamed
of it, and to know that all labor is equally honorable, if it is for
a good end. They had not tools enough for making entrenchments, and
they actually used the bayonet, of which I had been proud, for this
purpose. In the confusion after the battle, I was forgotten. I was
left at the bottom of the works in the mud.

It was a hard thing for me to be parted from William, and to feel
that I should never be restored to my corner in his mother's room
behind the old clock; but I had a conviction that I had taken part
in a great work, and I enjoyed our triumphs greatly.

This, you will think, no doubt, was glory enough for one musket; but
a greater still was in reserve for me. It is with muskets as with
men, one opportunity improved opens the way for another, and every
chance missed is a loss past calculation; for every gain that might
have grown out of that chance is lost too.

Every one should remember that, as he fights his way through the
battle of life; and, when tempted to slacken his fire, think of what
the old revolutionary spirit, speaking through my muzzle, taught on
that day,--'hold on, and hold fast, and hold out. Never stop, stay,
or delay, but make ready!--present!-- fire!--and, again and again,
make ready!--present!--fire!--till every round of ammunition is
gone.'"

Here the dry, rusty, unmodulated tone, in which the old king's arm
had, up to this time, spoken, suddenly changed; and it seemed as if
a succession of shots had been let off. Then, bringing himself down
to the floor with a DUNT off of the little tea chest full of old
shoes, on which he had stood leaning against the brick chimney,
exactly as he used to do grounding arms seventy years ago, he
quietly dropped back into the drowsy tone of narrative, and
proceeded:--

"Yes--never flag nor hang back. The greater the danger, the more do
you press up to the mark. So we did at Trenton in the Jerseys, on
that most glorious day of my life of which I am now about to tell
you.

I must tell you that I had the honor of fighting under General
Washington; for I had been marched down to Trenton with a stout-