about. Dick and Tom explained that the two youths who had been floored
were Tories, and the sympathies of the crowd were at once with Dick
and Tom, more especially when they learned that the Tory boys had
picked the quarrel with the patriots.

"You did just right in knocking them down!" was the cry, and so
hostile were the looks, actions and words of the crowd, that Zeke and
Lem on scrambling to their feet, did not renew the fight. They shook
their fists at Dick and Tom, however, and muttered threats, as they
moved away through the crowd declaring that they would get even with
Dick and Tom.

The patriot youths received the congratulations and commendations of
the people in their vicinity with becoming modesty, and a little later
moved on up the street.

They walked about for an hour or more, after that, and then took up
their station as near the old State House as they could. There was
such an immense crowd there that it was impossible to get within half
a block of the building. In the steeple of the State House was a bell,
and the old bell-ringer sat beside it, waiting for the moment when his
son, stationed below, should give him word that the Declaration had
been adopted, when he would ring the bell. He had been stationed there
since morning, waiting, waiting, and as the day wore away and still
the word to ring came not, he shook his head and muttered that they
would never reach a favorable conclusion.

But he was mistaken, for when evening was almost at hand, his son came
rushing out of the State House and called up eagerly and excitedly: