“Well, if you are so big and grand, just lift me out that table, sir,” said Aunt Hitty, “for it’s past supper-time.”
Dick sprung, and had the table out in a trice, with an abundant clatter, and put up the leaves with quite an air. His mother, with the silent and gliding motion characteristic of her, quietly took out the table-cloth and spread it, and began to set the cups and saucers in order, and to put on the plates and knives, while Aunt Hitty bustled about the tea.
“I’ll be glad when the war’s over, for one reason,” said she. “I’m pretty much tired of drinking sage-tea, for one, I know.”
“Well, Aunt Hitty, how you scolded that pedlar, last week, that brought along that real tea.”
“To be sure I did! S’pose I’d be taking any of his old tea, bought of the British? Fling every teacup in his face first!”
“Well, mother,” said Dick, “I never exactly understood what it was about the tea, and why the Boston folks threw it all overboard.”
“Because there was an unlawful tax laid upon it, that the Government had no right to lay. It wasn’t much in itself; but it was a part of a whole system of oppressive meanness, designed to take away our rights, and make us slaves of a foreign power!”
“Slaves!” said Dicky, straightening himself proudly. “Father a slave!”
“But they would not be slaves! They saw clearly where it would all end, and they would not begin to submit to it in ever so little,” said the mother.
“I wouldn’t, if I was they,” said Dicky.