his Declaration, with a firm reliance on the
protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our
lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour."

Then as the crowd began to disperse, the girls climbed down and went
back to the cool garden, ignorant of the fact that in later years they
would have no more valued memory than that of the hot noon-day of July
7, 1776, when they saw and heard the Declaration of Independence read.

That was only one of the exciting events of those stirring days in which
Sally was living, for Philadelphia was then a war centre, and little
else was talked about except the movements of the armies and the battles
being fought. After the battle of Brandywine, when General Washington
made a brave fight to save Philadelphia, but was defeated by the British
general, Lord Howe, Sally Wister's father, feeling sure that the British
would now occupy Philadelphia, thought the time had come to send his
family out of the city. He at once despatched them to the Foulke farm,
on the Wissahickon creek, among the hills of Gwynedd, some fifteen miles
away from the storm centre of the city. The owner of the farm, Hannah
Foulke, was a relation by marriage of the Wisters, and evidently gave up
half of her home to them, retaining the other half for her own use, and
there the two families lived harmoniously during the following nine
months.

But to Mistress Sally the change of residence and the separation from
all her friends was not a happy one, and to while away some of its
lonely hours she began a series of letters in the form of a diary, for
Debby Norris's benefit, and that journal tells us much about the
happenings of that memorable epoch in American history, from a young
girl's point of view. Soon after the arrival of the Wisters at the farm
the peaceful quiet of the place was broken up, for the sights and sounds
of war began to be heard even in that remote location, as both armies
were marching towards Philadelphia. In the first letter to Debby Sally
informs us that on the 24th of September, two Virginia officers stopped
at the house, and informed them that the British army had crossed the
Schuylkill, and later another person called and said that General
Washington and Army were near Potsgrove, and Sally writes to Debby:

"Well, thee may be sure we were sufficiently scared; however, the road
was very still till evening. About seven o'clock we heard a great noise.
To the door we all went. A larg