the battles of liberty. But I doubt if you can form, in your
own mind, any thing like a true picture of what those brave men
suffered. Why, many of them had to go barefoot, for whole weeks at a
time, right in the heart of winter. They could hardly get food to eat;
and many and many a time, if it had not been for the thought that they
were engaged in a good cause, and that God was on their side, they
must have been discouraged, and given up all as lost. But they did not
give up. They stood firm at their post, until they either fell before
their enemies, or perished by fatigue and exposure.

When the tidings came to the neighborhood where Mike Marble lived,
that Washington's noble band were suffering every thing but death at
Valley Forge, every man and woman, that could boast of any thing in
the shape of a heart, were moved with pity. And they were not the
people to let their kind feelings go off in fog and smoke. They were
not blustering people. They believed in _acting_, as well as in
_talking_. When they had heard the sad news, the next question was,
"Can we _do_ any thing?" That question was soon answered. The next
was, "_What_ can we do?" Well, it was pretty soon found out that all
could do something--that some could do one thing, and some another;
but that every family in the parish could do something.

So they went to work. The mothers and daughters went to knitting
stockings, and making under garments for the soldiers. Every chest of
drawers, and wardrobe, and closet in the house was ransacked, to find
bed-quilts and blankets for the army. And the fathers and sons, they
went to work, with a right good will, to get shoes, and hats, and
coats, and other articles of wearing apparel, so as to have them ready
at the time the agent from the commander-in-chief should pass through
the place.

The younger branches of the families in that neighborhood, too, caught
the spirit of their fathers and mothers. I must tell you a story about
the agency of the little folks in furnishing supplies for the army.

Mike Marble asked his father, one day, if he might call a meeting of
the boys and girls at his house, to talk over war matters. The old man
laughed, and said he might, if he chose. "But what do you children
expect to do for the army, Mike?" he added. "What can you do, I
should like to know?"

"I don't know, father," was the reply, "but I guess we can all do
something; I'm pretty sure I can, for one."

Well, the meeting