is so hard to understand! But their bravery and democratic fervor cannot be missed. Forty or so examples are the guys who, on April 18, 1775, were ready to risk life and limb to warn their fellow Minutemen that British General Gates had sent troops to take the stored guns at Concord and to try to capture John Hancock and Samuel Adams. The most famous is Paul Revere, but William Dawes, Samuel Prescott, and Joseph Warren probably deserve at-least-equal billing.

Paul Revere’s Ride

Listen, my children, and you shall hearOf the midnight ride of Paul Revere,On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:Hardly a man is now aliveWho remembers that famous day and year.He said to his friend, — "If the British marchBy land or sea from the town to-night,Hang alantern aloft in the belfry-archOf the North-Church-tower, as a signal-light, —One if by land, and two if by sea;And I on the opposite shore will be,Ready to ride and spread the alarmThrough every Middlesex village and farm,For the country-folk to be up and to arm." Then he said good-night, and with muffled oarSilently rowed to the Charlestown shore,Just as the moon rose over the bay,Where swinging wide at her moorings layThe Somersett, British man-of-war:A phantom ship, with each mast and sparAcross the moon, like a prison-bar,And a huge, black hulk, that was magnifiedBy its own reflection in the tide. Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and streetWanders and watches with eager ears,Till in the silence around him he hearsThe muster of men at the barrack-door,The sound of arms, and