84 
CAPE COD. 
There was a strange mingling of past and present in 
his conversation, for he had lived under King George, and 
might have remembered when Napoleon and the mod¬ 
erns generally were born. He said that one day, when 
the troubles between the Colonies and the mother country 
first broke out, as he, a boy of fifteen, was pitching hay 
out of a cart, one Doane, an old Tory, who was talking 
with his father, a good Whig, said to him, Why, Uncle 
Bill, you might as well undertake to pitch that pond into 
the ocean with a pitchfork, as for the Colonies to under¬ 
take to gain their independence.” He remembered well 
General Washington, and how he rode his horse along 
the streets of Boston, and he stood up to show us how he 
looked. 
He was a r—a—ther large and portly-looking man, 
a manly and resolute-looking officer, with a pretty good 
leg as he sat on his horse.” — “ There, I ’ll tell you, this 
was the way with Washington.” Then he jumped up 
again, and bowed gracefully to right and left, making 
show as if he were waving his hat. Said he, That 
was Washington.” 
He told us many anecdotes of the Revolution, and 
was much pleased when we told him that we had read 
the same in history, and that his account agreed with the 
written. 
“O,” he said, ‘‘I know, I know! I was a young 
fellow of sixteen, with my ears wide open; and a fel¬ 
low of that age, you know, is pretty wide awake, and 
likes to know everything that’s going on. O, I 
know 1 ” 
He told us the story of the wreck of the Franklin, 
which took place there the previous spring: how a boy 
came to his house early in the morning to know whose 
