"We'll have to all the time, I reckon, the weather bein' as hot as 'tis, but I know the boys'll be pleased to hear that you asked it."
"Oh, wouldn't I like to be a mouse in the corner to-night!" Grace said after she had laid away the very last of the supper dishes and dropped into a hammock-chair on the coolest side of the house. "A mouse in the corner, and hear the war-stories those veterans will tell! They looked so unlike themselves to-day."
"Possibly because of Caleb's bath-house," Philip suggested, "although I don't doubt that Caleb would be gracious enough to hint that the new uniforms also had some transforming effect."
"What do you suppose they will have to eat and drink in Caleb's room? I wish I dared make something nice and send it in. Let me see; we've a lot of the potted meats and fancy biscuits and other things that I ordered from the city a week or two ago, to abate the miseries of summer housekeeping. I could make half a dozen kinds of biscuit sandwiches in ten minutes, and I could give them iced tea with lemon and sugar, and oh—"
"Well?"
"There's been so much excitement to-day that I entirely forgot the grand surprise I'd planned for some of the farmers' wives. I declare 'tis too bad! Our ice-cream freezer came last week, you know, and this morning I made the first lot, and I was going to serve saucers of it to some of the women who came to the store—it seems that ice-cream is unknown in this country. But your surprise, of putting the Grand Army men into uniforms, put everything else out of my mind for the day. Let's bring it from the ice-house, and send it over to Caleb's room to the veterans!"
"My dear girl, the cream will keep till to-morrow, so do try to possess your soul in peace, and leave those veterans to their own devices. Old soldiers are reputed to be willing to eat and drink anything or nothing if they may have a feast of war-stories."
"When do you suppose they'll begin to sing?"
"Not having been a soldier, I can't say. Perhaps not at all, if Caleb's plan of keeping the drinking men from liquor has succeeded."
"Phil, don't be so horrid. Oh!—what is that?"