then have wakened
but for the fact that Archie and Silas were standing by my bedside, both
doing their best to arouse me into wakefulness.

I understood without being told that they were come to accompany me to
Master Warren's house so we might deliver the reply to the message sent
to Colonel Barrett, and promising my mother that I would speedily come
back to breakfast, I hurried away with the lads, wondering how it was I
could have slept so long when such an important question was to be
settled; for, if you remember, we had agreed to leave the matter of
raising a company of Minute Boys to Doctor Warren himself.

If at the home of Samuel Hadley we were treated with scant courtesy, and
if Colonel Barrett had seemed to believe that which we had done was
nothing remarkable when performed by three lusty lads, we surely had no
reason to complain when we met the doctor, for on the instant we
presented ourselves before him he exclaimed in surprise that we had
been able to return so speedily. It almost seemed as if he never would
have done with praising us for our industry in behalf of the Cause.

"It turned out a simple matter, which anyone might have worked out," I
said, striving to belittle our work even when believing it should be
praised. "We had no opportunity of coming to grief on the way, however
careless might have been our movements, for, except at the outset, when
the guard-boat passed just as we were getting under way, we have met
none who appeared friendly to the king."

"I shall remember the service rendered, and it may be that sometime in
the future I can repay you," the doctor said with one of his kindly
smiles which always went deep into my heart when bestowed upon me.

"You may repay us now in full, if it so pleases you," Archie made bold
to say.

"In what way, young master?"

"By deciding whether or no ten or twenty lads of this city by binding
themselves together under, perhaps, the high-sounding name of Minute
Boys, could be of service to the Cause?"

"And why might they not be of service?" the doctor asked quickly. "Think
you that if such a company was enrolled, composed of boys who were to be
trusted in every way, they could not do much in aid of the Cause? Even
though called upon to perform only such work as you have just finished,
they would be of valuable assistance, for now when Boston is in the
hands of the enemy, and, as I hope, may soon be besieged by our friends,
lads could come and go w