the game of bowls here, but not that it was the heart of the old Dutch town. As Ullmann says: "There the children played, there the youths and maidens danced around the May pole, there the soldiers paraded, and there on Sundays the country wagons were gathered while the people were at church. There, too, after a bloody war with the Indians, a great assembly of chiefs took place, the pipe of peace was smoked, and the tomahawk buried as a sign of peace.' "Now let us walk up to the City Hall Park. This used to be known as The Common, and it has a history quite as interesting and important as the Boston Common, and for the same general reason, trouble between the Americans and the British soldiers. "Over on the Broadway side, somewhere between Warren and Chambers Streets, the Sons of Liberty, organized to resist the obnoxious Stamp Act, set up a liberty pole. The British soldiers came at night and chopped it down. Another was set up and that was chopped down, too-then a third and a fourth." "I say, Uncle Jack," said Ben, “I should like to be a Son of Liberty, if there were any nowadays." "So long as you are fighting the wrong, Ben, you are a present-day Son of Liberty. To go on: "Then Isaac Sears and a companion caught the soldiers the morning after the fourth pole was chopped down- posting up bills that were offensive to the Sons of Liberty. This started a fight. More soldiers came up to help. The Mayor called upon the soldiers to disperse. They retreated, followed by the citizens. When they reached what is now the corner of John and William Streets the soldiers were reinforced by the Sixteenth Foot. But the citizens persisted in their attack. The soldiers fired, and here, not in King Street, Boston, was shed the first blood of the Revolution. The Battle of Golden Hill (though many do not dignify it with the name of 'battle') occurred on January 17, 1770, two months before the Boston massacre. A tablet in the corridor of the Post Office commemorates the event. "Some say that it was on this Common that Nathan Hale was executed as a spy. That statue just east of the City Hall is to his memory. On its base you may see inscribed his last words: MY ONLY REGRET IS THAT I HAVE BUT ONE LIFE TO GIVE FOR MY COUNTRY "The best authorities, however, agree that the Common was not the scene of the martyr's death, but that the hanging occurred somewhere near what is now First Avenue and Forty-fifth Street, then called Turtle Bay,-a deep notch in the rocky shore extending from Fortieth to Forty-eighth Streets. Many hangings of lawbreakers and political prisoners did occur on the Common, how ever. "I regret that we have not time to go over to Brooklyn to see a monument in Prospect Park. It commemorates the courage of a little group of Maryland men at the battle of Long Island. They held the British at bay-though it cost them their lives until the American army had made its escape. "I should like, too, to take you up to Pell's Point in the Bronx. An important battle was fought there in October, 1776. We had but seven hundred and fifty men, and the British had four thousand. The fight lasted all day, our men fighting from behind the stone walls on each side of the road. We lost six killed and thirteen wounded. The British loss in killed, wounded, and missing was almost a thousand men, nearly as great as their loss at Bunker Hill, where they lost one thousand and fifty-four men, a number almost equal to the attacking party. "And near Pell's Point is Hunt's Point, where is buried a great American poet. If you will sit down on this bench, I will tell you his story of THE AMERICAN FLAG." When freedom from her mountain height She tore the azure robe of night, Flag of the seas! on ocean wave In triumph o'er his closing eye. Flag of the free heart's hope and home! Thy stars have lit the welkin dome, And all thy hues were born in heaven. Where breathes the foe but falls before us, And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us. -Joseph Rodman Drake "And now," concluded Uncle Jack, "we must go back to the hotel. It is almost time for dinner, and we must not keep Father and Mother waiting for us." "No. That wouldn't be right, would it, Uncle Jack?" said May, as they got on the car. TO THE PUPIL: 1. Copy and memorize the first stanza of "The American Flag." 2. Make a list of the adjectives on page 19. 3. Bronze is an alloy (mixture) of copper, tin, and zinc; vertical means upright, plumb; revenue, the money yield of taxes, excise, customs, duties, etc., which a government receives into the public treasury; citizen, here an inhabitant of the city; azure, blue; baldric, a broad belt, worn over one shoulder, across the breast, and under the opposite arm; symbol, emblem; careering, |