PAUL REVERE AT LEXINGTON.—Drawn by Howard Pyle.

HOURS WITH THE OCTOGENARIANS.

BY BENSON J. LOSSING.

Between thirty and forty years ago I went on a pilgrimage to places hallowed by events of the great and successful struggle of Americans for freedom and independence.

I there found many things and persons remaining as mementos of that contest. All were hoary with age, and some were crumbling and tottering ruins. All were rapidly passing within the veil of human forgetfulness, for houses, fortifications, battle-fields, and men and women would soon become only pictures on Memory's wall.

From the lips of the venerable men and women whom I saw I heard thrilling narratives of their experience in those days of strife. In hidden recesses of memory and in written notes I preserved those narratives for the entertainment and instruction of the youth of this generation, hoping to be with them to tell the tales myself. Here I am, and I propose to relate to the readers of Young People some of the stories I then received from living lips. I will begin with the story of

The Fifer of Lexington.

Lexington! Concord! What American boy or girl has not heard of these two little villages in Massachusetts, where the first blow was struck for independence, and where the hot flames of the Revolution first burst out, on the 19th of April, 1775? One of my first pilgrimages was to these villages.

It was a bright, sunny morning in October, 1848, when I travelled by railway from Boston to Concord—a distance of seventeen miles northwest of the New England capital. There I spent an hour with Major Barrett and his wife, who "saw the British scamper," and had lived together almost sixty years. The Major was hale at eighty-seven, and his wife, almost as old, seemed as nimble of foot as a matron in middle life. She was a vivacious little woman, well-formed, and retained traces of the beauty of her girlhood.

After visiting the place of the skirmish at Concord, I rode in a private vehicle to Lexington, six miles eastward, through a picturesque and fertile country, and entered the famous village at the Green whereon that skirmish occurred, and where a commemorative monument now stands. After a brief interview with two or three aged persons there, we drove to the house of Jonathan Harrington, in East Lexington, who, a lad seventeen years old, had opened the ball of the Revolution on the memorable April morning with the war-notes of the shrill fife.

As we halted before the house of Mr. Harrington, at a little past noon, we saw an old man wielding an axe vigorously in splitting fire-wood in his yard. I entered the gate, and introduced myself and my errand. The old man was the venerable fifer.

"Come in and rest yourself," he said, kindly, as he led the way into the house.

Although he was then past ninety years of age, he appeared no older than many men do at seventy. His form was nearly erect, his voice was firm, his complexion was fair, his placid face was lighted by mild blue eyes, and had but few deep wrinkles, and his hair, not all white, was very abundant. I took a seat on a chintz-covered lounge, and he sat in a Boston rocking-chair.

"I have come," I said, "to make some inquiries about the battle of Lexington."

"It wasn't a battle," he answered; "only a skirmish."

"It was a sharp one," I said.

"Yes, pretty sharp, pretty sharp," he replied, thoughtfully. "Eight fine young men out of a hundred were killed; two of them my blood-relations."

"I understand you played the fife on that morning," I said.

"As well as I could," he replied. "I taught myself to play the year before, when the minute-men were training; and I was the only person in Lexington who knew how to fife. That ain't saying much, though, for then there were only eight or ten houses in the village besides the meeting-house."

"Did you belong to the minute-men?" I asked.

"I was a minute-boy. They asked me to fife, to help Joe Burton make music with his drum for Captain Parker's company. Poor Joe! His drum-head was smashed, and he lost a little finger in the fight. Captain Parker's company was drilled the night before the fight, for Sol Brown, our nearest neighbor, came from