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 pedler, 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 tea-cup 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.
“Besides,” said his mother, drawing him towards her, “it wasn’t for themselves alone they did it. This is a great country, and it will be greater and greater: and it’s very important that it should have free and equal laws, because it will by and by be so great. This country, if it is a free one, will be a light of the world,—a city set on a hill, that cannot be hid; and all the oppressed and distressed from other countries shall come here to enjoy equal rights and freedom. This, dear boy, is why your father and uncles have gone to fight, and why they do stay and fight, though God knows what they suffer, and—” and the large blue eyes of the mother were full of tears; yet a strong, bright beam of pride and exultation shone through those tears.