Myths and Legends
had been beaten, continued to regard them with an unfavorable eye. On reaching Dalton, Massachusetts, the Hessians agreed among themselves to put their valuables into a howitzer, which they buried in the woods, intending that some of their number should come back at the close of the war and recover it. An Indian had silently followed them for a long distance, to gather up any unconsidered trifles that might be left in their bivouacs, and he marked the route by blazes on the trees; but if he saw the burial of this novel treasury it meant nothing to him, and the knowledge of the hiding-place was lost. For years the populace kept watch of all strangers that came to town, and shadowed them if they went to the woods, but without result. In about the year 1800 the supposed hiding-place was examined closely and excavations were made, but, as before, nothing rewarded the search.
A tree of unknown age—the Old Elm—stood on Boston Common until within a few years. This veteran, torn and broken by many gale and lightning-stroke, was a gallows in the last century, and Goody Glover had swung from it in witch-times. On tempestuous nights, when the boughs creaked together, it was said that dark shapes might be seen writhing on the branches and capering about the sward below in hellish glee. On a gusty autumn evening in 1776 a muffled form presented itself, unannounced, at the chamber of Mike Wild, and, after that notorious miser had enough recovered from the
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