CHAPTER I
THE NORSEMEN
His name wasn't Sam and he wasn't their real uncle, but everybody else called him Uncle Sam, so Joe and Lucy followed their example.
He was tall and thin and had a sharp face. A funny little tuft of hair grew on his chin and when he was thinking deeply he was fond of stroking this tuft with his big bony hand.
His clothes always seemed to be old-fashioned. When the neighbors were speaking of him they would sometimes say, "How much he looks like the newspaper pictures of 'Uncle Sam.'"
"Whenever I meet him, he somehow makes me think of America," said Joe's father. "I never knew anyone who loved his country as dearly as he does. He is perfectly happy whenever he can get anyone to listen to stories of our great men and the things that happened here long ago."
It was for these reasons that people began calling him Uncle Sam before Joe and Lucy were born.
His real name was Ebenezer Wilkins, but the children had to stop and think before they could remember it. He lived in a cosy little cottage at the end of the village and kept house there all alone from one year's end to another.
Everybody loved him. His kind blue eyes looked tenderly upon each child in the place. If measles or chicken-pox shut a boy or girl away from playmates, Uncle Sam was sure to hear of it. Then, when his day's work was done and he had eaten his supper of bread and milk, he would visit the sick child and make him forget his troubles as he told stories of boys and girls who lived in the early days of the white people in America.