them at that place, and if successful march on to New Brunswick and take
or destroy his stores there.

"The great difficulty in the way was that the ground was too soft, from
a thaw, to make it safe and easy to move their forty pieces of cannon.

"But a kind Providence removed that hindrance, the weather suddenly
becoming so extremely cold that in two hours or less the roads were hard
enough for the work."

"As Lossing says," remarked Grandma Elsie, "'The great difficulty was
overcome by a power mightier than that of man. Our fathers were fighting
for God-given rights and it was by his help they at last succeeded.'"

"What's the rest of the story?" asked Walter. "How did Washington and
his army slip away without the British seeing them? For I suppose they
had sentinels awake and out."

"Washington had a number of camp fires lighted along his front," replied
Harold, to whom the question seemed to be addressed, "making them of the
fences near at hand. That made the British think he was encamped for the
night, and Cornwallis, when some one urged him to make an attack that
night, said he would certainly 'catch the fox in the morning.' The fox,
of course, was Washington, but he didn't catch him. It was not till dawn
he discovered that the fox had eluded him and slipped away, fleeing so
silently that the British did not know in what direction he had gone
till they heard the boom of the cannon in the fight here.

"Cornwallis thought it was thunder, but Sir William Erskine recognized
it as what it was and exclaimed, 'To arms, General! Washington has