“Poor fellow! he wa'n't to blame,” said my grand-mother. “Soldiers have to go as they're bid. War's an awful thing.”
“Then they shouldn't have begun it,” interposed Aunt Lois. “'They that take the sword shall perish by the sword.'”
“Well, grandpapa,” said I, “what were the stores they went up to get?”
“They were stores laid up to enable us to go to war, and they were 'round in different places. There were two twenty-four-pounders that they spiked, and they threw about five hundred pounds of ball into the river or wells, and broke up sixty barrels of flour, and scattered it about.”
“Wal,” said Sam triumphantly, “there was one lot they didn't get. Cap'n Tim Wheeler had about the biggest lot o' wheat, and rye-flour, and corn-meal stored up in his barn, with some barrels of his own. So when this 'ere fine jay-bird of an officer came to him all so grand, and told him to open his barn and let him look in, the cap'n, he took his key, and walked right out, and opened the barndoor; and the officer was tickled to pieces. He thought he'd got such a haul!
“'If you please, sir,' says the cap'n, 'I'm a miller, and got my living by grinding grain. I'm a poor man. You can see my mill out there. I grind up a lot o' grain in the winter, and get it ready to sell in the spring. Some's wheat, and some's rye, and some's corn-meal; and this wheat is mine, and this rye is mine, and this corn-meal is mine;' and, when he spoke, he put his hand on his own barrels.
“'Oh! if this is your private property,' says the officer, 'we sha'n't touch that: we don't meddle with private property.' And so he turned on his heel, and the cap'n, he locked up his barn.”
“Was that telling the truth?” said I.
“Wal, you see it was true what he said,” said Sam. “Them bar'ls he laid his hands on was hisn.”
“But Aunt Lois told me yesterday it was as bad to act a lie as to speak one,” said I.