He glanced; the old flag met his sight.

"Halt!"--the dust-brown ranks stood fast,
"Fire!"--out blazed the rifle-blast.

It shivered the window, pane and sash:
It rent the banner with seam and gash.

Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff
Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf;

She leaned far out on the window-sill,
And shook it forth with a royal will.

"Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,
But spare your country's flag," she said.

A shade of sadness, a blush of shame,
Over the face of the leader came;

The nobler nature within him stirred
To life at that woman's deed and word:

"Who touches a hair of yon gray head
Dies like a dog! March on!" he said.

All day long through Frederick street
Sounded the tread of marching feet:

All day long that free flag tost
Over the heads of the rebel host.

Ever its torn folds rose and fell
On the loyal winds that loved it well;

And through the hill-gaps sunset light
Shone over it with a warm good-night.

Barbara Frietchie's work is o'er,
And the Rebel rides on his raids no more.

Honor to her! and let a tear
Fall, for her sake, on Stonewall's bier.

Over Barbara Frietchie's grave,
Flag of Freedom and Union, wave!

Peace and order and beauty draw
Round thy symbol of light and law;

And ever the stars above look down
On thy stars below in Frederick town!

MRS. HETTY M. McEWEN.

Mrs. McEwen is an aged woman of Nashville, Tennessee, of revolutionary
stock, having had six uncles in the revolutionary war, four of whom fell
at the battle of King's Mountain. Her husband, Colonel Robert H. McEwen,
was a soldier in the war of 1812, as his father had been in the
revolution. Her devotion to the Union, like that of most of those who
had the blood of our revolutionary fathers in their veins is intense,
and its preservation and defense were the objects of her greatest
concern. Making a flag with her own hands, she raised it in the first
movements of secession, in Nashville, and when through the treachery of
Isham Harris and his co-conspirators, Tennessee was dragged out of the
Union, and the secessionists demanded that the flag should be taken
down, the brave old couple nailed it to the flag-staff, and that to the
chimney of their house. The secessionists threatened to fire the house
if it was not lowered, and t