Page:St. Nicholas (serial) (IA stnicholasserial321dodg).pdf/444

312 Pierson left school, when commencement day came, with a keenness for vacation and all its fun, but with an underlying determination to do something during the summer that would entitle him to that presidency.

The old farm-house down at Shrewsbury, in its grove of trees, that Uncle Bob had bought and rebuilt, was a delightful place to visit, and the country round was all attractive. There were historical memories to be raked up by a visit to Freehold, with its old church and graveyard, and the quaint, quiet street of old Shrewsbury town. And then when it suddenly dawned on Rob’s mind that a battle of the Revolution had been fought almost on the ground where he was living, even the soil took on a new interest.

“Where was the battle fought, Uncle Bob?” he asked one day.

“Over toward the southwest of us,” his uncle said. “If you 'll go up to the garret some day, and climb over the boxes and trunks there and look out of that funny little round cobwebby window, I think you can see two big trees that, according to the farmers round here, saw considerable fighting one hot June Sunday—if they were there a hundred and twenty five years ago.”

Upstairs and over boxes and trunks to the little round window was a short trip for an eager boy. The window certainly was cob-webby on the inside and streaming wet on the outside; but when he had corralled an old cloth and scrubbed it up a bit, he managed to see two big trees in the distance on a slight rise of ground.

“Oh, glory! I ’m done for now, that ’s sure!” he muttered as he caught his foot in the rope around a roll of old matting and stumbled head first into the boxes and bundles. One hand landed in a basket of last year’s—or last century’s—pine-cones, and the other went crashing against the wall and, woe indeed, right through it! The boards were old and dry and thin, and a good big hole showed where Rob’s muscular fist had struck.

Three beards were broken loose at the floor end and cracked and splintered about three feet up, so they hung loose. Light showed beyond, and Rob could easily grasp the evident fact that a small room was behind the wall. Peering through the hole, he saw that there was a dusty old window like the one through which he had been looking, but so cobwebbed and dusty that one could hardly see the wet gray sky rough it. Curiosity led him on, and with considerable scraping he got himself through the hole. Old broken chairs, boxes, and some barrels stood about—most of them empty. In