bless us!"

Which all the family reechoed.

"God bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all.

XXVII

CHRISTMAS IN SEVENTEEN SEVENTY-SIX[S]

ANNE HOLLINGSWORTH WHARTON

"On Christmas day in Seventy-six,
Our gallant troops with bayonets fixed,
To Trenton marched away."

CHILDREN, have any of you ever thought of what little people like you
were doing in this country more than a hundred years ago, when the cruel
tide of war swept over its bosom? From many homes the fathers were
absent, fighting bravely for the liberty which we now enjoy, while the
mothers no less valiantly struggled against hardships and discomforts in
order to keep a home for their children, whom you only know as your
great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers, dignified gentlemen and
beautiful ladies, whose painted portraits hang upon the walls in some of
your homes. Merry, romping children they were in those far-off times,
yet their bright faces must have looked grave sometimes, when they heard
the grown people talk of the great things that were happening around
them. Some of these little people never forgot the wonderful events of
which they heard, and afterward related them to their children and
grandchildren, which accounts for some of the interesting stories which
you may still hear, if you are good children.

The Christmas story that I have to tell you is about a boy and girl who
lived in Bordentown, New Jersey. The father of these children was a
soldier in General Washington's army, which was encamped a few miles
north of Trenton, on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River.
Bordentown, as you can see by looking on your map, if you have not
hidden them all away for the holidays, is about seven miles south of
Trenton, where fifteen hundred Hessians and a troop of British light
horse were holding the town. Thus you see that the British, in force,
were between Washington's army and Bordentown, besides which there were
some British and Hessian troops in the very town. All this seriously
interfered with Captain Tracy's going home to eat his Christmas dinner
with his wife and children. Kitty and Harry Tracy, who had not lived
long enough to see many wars, could not imagine such a thing as
Christmas without their father, and had busied themselves for weeks in
making everything ready to have a merry time with him. Kitty, who loved
to play quite as much as any frolicsome Kitty of to-day, had spe