The Boy Patrol Around the Council Fire. Ellis Edward Sylvester

and agility so much admired by all rugged American youths. Many a time he would place a row of empty barrels beside one another and with little effort spring out of one into the other until he had completed the series. Standing beside a fence whose top rail touched his chin, he would rest one hand lightly on it and vault over as easily as a deer. One day, while a student at Yale, in a contest with his friends, he made so prodigious a leap that the bounds were carefully marked and preserved for years, the admiration and despair of all subsequent students.

      “But, extraordinary as was Nathan Hale’s athletic skill, his mental powers were more brilliant, while his social qualities made him a favorite with all. His simplicity, unfailing good nature and readiness to help others, no matter whom, justified the remark: ‘Every man, woman and child who knew him were his friends and among them not one was ever an enemy.’

      “He entered Yale College when fifteen years old and was graduated in due course with the highest honors. This fact attests his scholarship and ability. He was easily the most popular student, not only with his classmates, but with the tutors and the faculty of the college and the best families in New Haven.

      “Hale left college in 1773 and engaged in teaching. In 1774, he was made preceptor in the Union Grammar School at New London. The building is carefully preserved and is well worth a visit. The institution was of a high order, and its students were not only grounded thoroughly in an English education, but were prepared for college. Hale was its first preceptor, and his success was pronounced from the beginning. Boys like you have admired and always will admire physical prowess, and there was never one among them all who could approach their instructor in that respect. What a star football player he would have made in these later days! Added to this ability, his mental and social gifts and his profound religious nature explain his marked success among the youth of New London.

      “On the 21st of April, 1775, a rider dashed into the little town upon his foaming horse and shouted the news of Lexington and Concord. Pausing only long enough to rest his panting steed and to snatch a bit of food, he thundered away for New York with his momentous tidings.

      “Instantly New London flamed with excitement. The bells were rung and a ‘town meeting,’ the inalienable recourse of all New Englanders, was called at the court house for early candle light. Seemingly the whole town crowded thither. There were burning speeches and Hale’s was the most impassioned of all.

      “The talking being over, he wrote down his name as a volunteer. Others caught the contagion and elbowed one another in their eagerness to be among the first to enlist. The next morning, when the boys came together at the call of the school bell, their teacher offered up an earnest prayer for the success of the great struggle that had opened, commended his pupils to the care of their Heavenly Father, shook the hands of each lad in turn, uttered a few words of advice, and set out for Cambridge. Some time later, he came back to New London and resumed his duties in the school.

      “The young patriot, however, could not remain idle so long as his beloved country needed her sons. He enlisted as a lieutenant in Colonel Charles Webb’s regiment, which had been raised by order of the General Assembly of Connecticut for home defense and, if needed, for national protection. In September, the regiment marched to Cambridge and took part in the siege of Boston. Upon the departure of the British for Halifax, the American army went to New York. Some months later, when the team of his company’s enlistment expired, Hale offered to give the men his month’s pay if they would stay a little while longer.

      “The Continentals had been in New York but a short time when Hale became the hero of a daring exploit. A British supply vessel lay in the East River under the protection of a frigate of sixty-four guns. He obtained permission to attempt the capture of the sloop. Selecting a few men as brave as himself, they stepped into a whale boat, rowed silently out late at night and drew up beside the vessel undetected by the watch. Like so many phantoms, the boarders climbed over the side, seized the sentinel, fastened the crew below the hatches, lifted anchor and took the prize into Coenties Slip, without raising the slightest alarm. Day was breaking when Hale, holding the helm, was recognized by his friends, who received him with hurrahs. For once at least his comrades enjoyed a ‘square meal.’

      “In May, 1776, he became captain of a company of Continental Rangers attached to Lieutenant-Colonel Knowlton’s regiment, called ‘Congress’ Own.’ The young officer’s company was the best drilled and disciplined of all. Little is known of his actions during those eventful days, but it cannot be doubted that he did his duty well. Illness kept him in New York at the time the British invaded Long Island, and still weak and pale, he joined the troops who retreated toward Harlem Heights early in September.

      “This brings me back to the day when Lieutenant-Colonel Knowlton walked into the quarters of General Washington and introduced Captain Hale as the officer who had volunteered to serve him as a spy. The commander looked admiringly into the blue eyes of the handsome young athlete and took his hand. The great man was moved and feelingly thanked him for the inestimable service he hoped he would render his country. He saw without questioning that Hale was the ideal actor for so perilous a rôle. He gave him minute instructions, with a written order to the owners of all American vessels in Long Island Sound to take him to any point on Long Island where he might wish to go.

      “Captain Hale left camp the same evening. He took with him Sergeant Stephen Hempstead, a member of his company, who was devoted to the officer, and a servant, Ansel Wright. They had to walk fifty miles to Norwalk before they found a safe place to cross the Sound, because of the British cruisers that were ever moving to and fro. At this place, Hale took off his regimentals and donned a brown cloth suit and a broad-brimmed hat. He assumed the character of a Quaker school teacher, who had wearied of the society of the rebels in New York and had started out to find a situation among more congenial folk.

      “The captain instructed his companions to wait at Norwalk until the 20th, upon which day he expected to come back. They were to send a boat for him on that morning. He left with them his uniform, his commission and all other papers that might betray his identity. He crossed the Sound in a sloop and went ashore on the point of Great Neck in Huntingdon Bay, being rowed thither in a yawl. He landed near a place called ‘The Cedars,’ not far from a tavern kept by a widow named Chichester. She was a spiteful Tory and the inn was a lounging place for those of her neighbors who were of the same mind. In the gray light of early morning Hale walked past without being noticed. A mile beyond, he stopped at the farm house of William Johnson, and obtained breakfast and a bed for several hours’ rest. Thence he went directly into the nearest British lines, where he was received without suspicion. He was gone for about two weeks, but what he did, where he went, what adventures befell him and the various means he used to escape detection can never be known. It is certain that he visited all the enemy’s encampments near Brooklyn and twice passed their lines. He made drawings and notes of what he saw and learned; he went from Brooklyn, then only a ferry station, to New York City, which the British captured after his departure, and was equally thorough in every place. The drawings and memoranda, the latter written in Latin, were hidden under the loose inner soles of his shoes.