“Well, so I did,” said Aunt Lois. “The truth is the truth, and I 'll stick to it.”
“But, Aunt Lois, would you have told him, and let him break up all those barrels?”
“No, I shouldn't,” said Aunt Lois. “I should have done just as Cap'n Tim did; but I should have done wrong. Right is right, and wrong is wrong, even if I can't come up to it always.”
“What would you have done, grandfather?” said I.
My grandfather's mild face slowly irradiated, as when moonbeams pass over a rock.
“Well, boys,” he said, “I don't think I should have let him break up those barrels. If it was wrong to do as Cap'n Wheeler did, I think most likely I should 'a' done it. I don't suppose I'm any better than he was.”
“Well, at any rate,” said Aunt Lois, “what folks' do in war time is no rule for ordinary times: every thing is upset then. There ain't any of the things they do in war time that are according to gospel teaching; but, if you boys were to do just as Cap'n Wheeler did, I should say you lied by speaking the truth.”
“Well, well,” said my grandmother, “those were dreadful times. Thank the Lord that they are past and gone, and we don't have such awful cases of conscience as we did then. I never could quite see how we did right to resist the king at all.”
“Why, the Bible says, 'Resist the devil,'” said Aunt Lois.
A general laugh followed this sally.