"Is father coming home to dinner to-day?" asked Richard, a little later on, as he entered the kitchen with a pail of water which Nancy, the oldest of his three sisters, had asked him to draw from the well.
"I guess not," replied the girl. "His rheumatism hurt him so much he said he might not be able to walk from Dr. Melvin's new house."
"Ma put up his dinner," put in Grace, the second oldest.
"Then he won't be back," returned Richard, somewhat disappointed, for he had been calculating on broaching the subject of going to New York to his father after the midday meal.
"He said his shoulder hurt him awfully last night," added Grace. "I heard him tell ma he could almost feel the bullet worrying him in the flesh."
"It's mighty queer he doesn't get a pension," said Nancy. "I'm sure he deserves one. Didn't he ever apply, Dick? I read in a Philadelphia paper the other day about a man getting sixteen dollars a month allowed, and a whole lot of back pay—more than two or three thousand dollars!"
"Two or three thousand dollars!" cried Grace. "Oh, Nancy, it's a fortune!"
"But it's true, every word."
"I believe father has tried," replied Richard. "But it seems that he must have witnesses to prove his identity, and all that—"
"And can't he get them?" asked Grace, eagerly.