“You are a good fellow—a real good fellow; just the same as you always were,” continued Martha tenderly. “Oh! I often think of our old frolics together, Elisha.”
“Do you, really? Well, Martha, I often think of them too. What happy days those were!”
“Yes, much happier than these. O Elisha! you can’t think how changed everything is since this dreadful war began. Not a sloop sails up the creek now; no carriages pass along the road; no bees, no husking parties—everybody is gloomy. First this man’s barn is burnt, then that man’s; and chickens and horses and cattle are stolen. In short, between the Skinners and the Cowboys poor Westchester County is fast becoming a desert.”
“Well, for all that it is a glorious war, and will end in freeing us from England,” said Elisha, thumping his fist upon his knee.
“Ay, to be sure it will. God save our liberties! Hurrah for the Continental Army!” cried Uncle Pete, waddling into the house. Then, as he opened a cupboard which contained a number of bottles of rum and cherry-bounce: “Tell me, ‘Lisha, how you like Dolly Dumplings.”
“Like her? Why, Uncle Pete, she’s just the best animal that ever was shod. Nothing can catch her—not even the wind.”
“Right, my boy! Colonel Livingstone, who imported her sire from England, and who sold the mare to me five years ago, declared that she has in her veins the blood of the Flying Childers, and you know he ran a mile a minute.”
“Father, Popgun is calling,” said Martha, with a disturbed air.
“Is he?” And Van Alstyne hurried away as fast as possible; but before you could count ten he was back again.
“Too bad, ‘Lisha,” he said, “that you must quit us so soon—hardly time to take one drink. But some enemy’s cavalry are in sight and they’re on a trot.” Then out he went again to fetch Dolly Dumplings.