Caddy Buddy books

Men were more particular about their apparel
in those days than we are now. They had great stateliness
of behavior, and admitted of little familiarity.
They had heard John Buttrick's order to fire, which marked
the moment when our country was born. The order was given
to British subjects. It was obeyed by American citizens.
Among them was old Master Blood, who saw a ball strike the
water when the British fired their first volley. I heard
many of the old men tell their stories of the Battle of Concord,
and of the capture of Burgoyne.
I lay down on the grass one summer afternoon, when old Amos
Baker of Lincoln, who was in the Lincoln Company on the 19th
of April, told me the whole story. He was very indignant
at the claim that the Acton men marched first to attack the
British because the others hesitated. He said, "It was because
they had bagnets [bayonets]. The rest of us hadn't no bagnets."
One day a few years later, when I was in college, I walked
up from Cambridge to Concord, through Lexington, and had a
chat with old Jonathan Harrington by the roadside.


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