Grace’s mother smiled, and said encouragingly, “And what then?”
“Why, he wanted me to throw up my bonnet and he his cap, and shout for Liberty; and then the wind took it and carried it off, and he said I ought not to be sorry if I did lose it; it was an offering to Liberty.”
“And so I did,” said Dick, who was standing as straight as a poplar behind the group; “and I heard it in one of father’s letters to mother, that we ought to offer up everything on the altar of Liberty! And so I made an altar of the wood-pile.”
“Good boy!” said his mother; “always remember everything your father writes. He has offered up everything on the altar of Liberty, true enough; and I hope you, son, will live to do the same.”
“Only, if I have the hoods and caps to make,” said Aunt Hitty, “I hope he won’t offer them up every week—that’s all!”
“O! well, Aunt Hitty, I’ve got the hood; let me alone for that. It blew clear over into the Daddy-ward pasture-lot, and there stuck on the top of the great rail; and I played that the rail was a fort, and besieged it, and took it.”
“O! yes, you’re always up to taking forts, and anything else that nobody wants done. I’ll warrant, now, you left Gracie to pick up every blessed one of them chips!”
“Picking up chips is girl’s work,” said Dick; “and taking forts and defending the country is men’s work.”
“And pray, Mister Pomp, how long have you been a man?” said Aunt Hitty.
“If I an’t a man, I soon shall be; my head is ’most up to my mother’s shoulder, and I can fire off a gun too. I tried the other day, when I was up to the store. Mother, I wish you’d let me clean and load the old gun; so that, if the British should come!”—