“It’s about time to quit trappin’ for this year,” said Job, as he slipped a skin onto the bow that he held between his knees. “They’re gettin’ a leetle off prime, though better’n they be in the fall an’ no kits as there is then,” and he fastened the skin in place, with a cut near its edge, into each horn of the bow. “Good land! What’s Gabe hullabalooin’ at now, I wonder?”
Nathan peered cautiously around the corner and whispered:
“It’s neighbor Newton. I’ll go up loft.” Accordingly he climbed the ladder and crept softly to the side of the loft above the door. Through the wide cracks of the loose flooring he could see a patch of the chip strewn, sunlit earth outside, with Job’s long legs stretching across it and his hands idle a moment as he called in the hound, who presently appeared, and behind him the stout stockinged legs of neighbor Newton.
“Job, have you heard the news?” Newton asked excitedly.
“News? What news?” Job’s knife stopped half-way in the slit it was making along a muskrat’s throat.
“There’s ben a fight down in the Bay Colony ’twixt our folks and the king’s troops and our folks whipped ’em.”
“Our folks a fightin’ the king’s troops?” said Job incredulously.
The other hastily related such particulars of the momentous conflict as he had learned. Nathan, whose heart was beating fast at the stirring news, saw the muskrat drop to the ground.
“I al’ys said them reg’lars, shootin’ breast high at nothin’, couldn’t stan’ agin our bushfighters, aimin’ to kill,” Job said exultantly; “but what next, Dan’l?”
“War—it means war. The country’s all a-risin’. Every man’s got to choose the side he’ll take. Which side is yourn, Job?”