Speaking of the Revolutionary War...

...I just finished re-reading Johnny Tremain. I recall having read it when I was in the third grade (or thereabouts), but honestly the only part of the story that I actually remembered was the accident that resulted in his having to abandon his dreams of becoming a silversmith.

Favorite quote (p 283):

Robert Newman, suspected of having hung the lanterns in Christ's Church the night before, was thrown into jail, and John Pulling, merely suspected of having helped, was forced to hide in his grandmother's wine butt.

Now it turns out that in context, "butt" is nothing more than a large cask, or, alternatively, a unit of volume equal to two hogsheads (ha! more weird words: a hogshead is about 63 gallons).

But to contemporary ears, "wine butt" conjures up a whole different image ;)