r.

One morning the English woke up and rubbed their eyes hard, for there,
on a hill that overlooked the town, was a crowd of Americans. They had
been at work all night, digging and making earthworks to fight behind,
and now had quite a fort. The English officers did not like the look of
things, for the Americans could fire from that hill--Bunker Hill, they
called it--straight down into the town. They must be driven away or
they would drive the troops away.

I can tell you that was a busy and bloody day for Boston. The great
war-ships in the harbor thundered with their cannon at the men on the
hill. And the soldiers began to march up the hill, thinking that the
Yankees would run like sheep when they saw the red-coats coming near.
But the Yankees were not there to run.

"Don't fire, boys, till you see the whites of their eyes," said brave
General Prescott.

So the Yankee boys waited till the British were close at hand. Then they
fired and the red-coats fell in rows, for the farmers did not waste
their bullets. Those that did not fall scampered in haste down the hill.
It was a strange sight to see British soldiers running away from Yankee
farmers.

After a while the British came again. They were not so sure this time.
Again the Yankee muskets rattled along the earthworks, and again the
British turned and ran--those who were able to.

They could never have taken that hill if the farmer soldiers had not run
out of powder. When the red-coats came a third time the Yankees could
not fire, and had to fight them with the butts of their guns. So the
British won the hill; but they had found that the Yankee farmers were
not cowards; after that time they never liked to march against American
earthworks.

Not long after the battle of Bunker Hill General Washington came to
command the Americans, and he spent months in drilling and making
soldiers out of them. He also got a good supply of powder and muskets
and some cannon, and one dark night in March, 1776, he built a fort on
another hill that looked down on Boston.

I warrant you, the British were alarmed when they looked up that hill
the next morning and saw cannon on its top and men behind the cannon.
They would have to climb that hill as they had done Bunker Hill, or else
leave Boston. But they had no fancy for another Bunker Hill, so they
decided to leave. They went on board their ships and sailed away, and
Washington and his men marched joyfully into the town. That was