The First Capture; or, Hauling Down the Flag of England
escaping into the room by no means favored study or any other employment requiring the use of the eyes."

When Enoch followed his mother into the kitchen he saw there a well-filled table which had often made him hungry when he did not want anything to eat; but it had little effect upon him now. There was hot salt pork, vegetables, and bannocks,[3] which were all their simple tastes required. In the place of tea they had milk; for those one hundred and forty men had long ago thrown the tea overboard in Boston harbor, and all that Mrs. Crosby had left was some tied up in a paper and stowed away in one of her bureau drawers. Before they seated themselves at the table they took their stand behind their chairs with bowed and reverent heads, while his mother offered up thanks to the Giver of all good for the provisions set before them. This was a plan always followed in Enoch's home. When his mother was away, at a quilting bee or sitting up with a sick person, Enoch never forgot the custom, but offered up prayers himself.

"Now, boy, I should like to hear something about that fight," said Mrs. Crosby, seating herself in her chair. "Have we got to fight the King, sure enough?"

"The things indicate that fact," said Enoch, helping his mother to a piece of the pork and to a potato which had been baked in the ashes on the hearth. "King George has not acted right with us anyway. When young Snyder was killed in Boston because he happened to be near a mob who were throwing stones at Richardson, the King went and pardoned out Richardson, who had been put into prison for it, after he had been there for two years. That does not look as though he felt very kindly toward us, does it?"

"And then the tea," said his mother, who came as near being angry as she could whenever she thought of that. Like all old ladies she loved the "cup which cheers but does not inebriate," and she could not bear to have it taken away from her. "The King ought not to have taxed us for that."

"He might if he would allow us to be represented in Parliament," said Enoch, "but he would not do it. If we have got to be taxed to help carry on the government of Great Britain, we want some men of our own over there to see about it."

"Now tell me about the fight. You said we killed almost three hundred of them."

"Why, mother, you say 'we' as though you were there and helped shoot at those redcoats," said Enoch.

"Of course I 
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