THE CONTINENTAL SOLDIER.

[Illustration]


Did you ever see a Continental Soldier? I doubt it. Some twenty years
ago there used to be a few of them scattered here and there over the
country, but they must be nearly all gone now. About a year ago there
were but two of them left. Those whom some of us can remember were
rather mournful old gentlemen. They shuffled about their
dwelling-places, they smoked their pipes, and they were nearly always
ready to talk about the glorious old days of the Revolution. It was
well they had those days to fall back upon, for they had but little
share in the glories of the present. When they looked abroad upon the
country that their arms, and blood perhaps, had helped give to that
vigorous Young America which now swells with prosperity from Alaska to
Florida, they could see very little of it which they could call their
own.

It was difficult to look upon those feeble old men and imagine that
they were once full of vigor and fire; that they held their old
flintlocks with arms of iron when the British cavalry rushed upon
their bayonets; that their keen eyes flashed a deadly aim along their
rusty rifle-barrels; that, with their good swords quivering in their
sinewy hands, they urged their horses boldly over the battle-field,
shouting brave words to their advancing men; and that they laughed at
heat and cold, patiently endured hunger and privation, strode along