Page:Leah Reed--Brenda's summer at Rockley.djvu/170

154 “Then I must take you down to the old Tucker House, built—” and Amy referred to her little note-book,—“about 1660.” Her mother had advised her to write a few dates and facts with which to refresh her memory, as she guided her friends around the town.

“Well, it isn’t much to look at,” said Brenda; “it’s shabby, and it is no more distinguished-looking than the  other old houses around here. The very oldest house ought to be different in some way.”

“Somebody told me that the very first settler, who came here in the winter of 1629, lived in a fish-hogshead which he  set up in a sheltered cove, near Peach’s Point. Now if that house had been preserved, I fancy that it would have suited  you. It would have been so unlike anything else here.”

Thus they wandered about, these four girls, each finding something that had some special interest for her. Julia was very much impressed by the fact that James Mugford’s  house was still to be seen (“the very house in which he and  his young wife set up housekeeping”); and when Brenda  and Nora admitted that they did not know what Mugford  had done to distinguish himself, she told them the story  which every patriotic boy and girl should know. She told how Mugford, in his little schooner “Franklin,” succeeded in the spring of 1776 in capturing the British transport “Hope,” loaded with ammunition and military stores  that were of the greatest value to the Americans. He took his prize safely into Boston, and then started for home. There was a British fleet lying then in Nantasket Roads, and of course they kept watch for Mugford. When part