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“Good morning, Mother,” said Major Pitcairn, raising his hat.

“Good morning, gentlemen and soldiers,” returned Martha Moulton. “You will pardon my not meeting you at the door, when you see that I was occupied in rendering service to the Lord of all.” She reverently closed the book, laid it on the table, and arose, with a stately bearing, to demand their wishes.

“We’re hungry, good woman,” spoke the commander, “and your hearth is the only hospitable one we’ve seen since we left Boston. With your good leave I’ll take a bit of this,” and he stooped to lift up the Johnny-cake that had been all this while on the hearth.

“I wish I had something better to offer you,” she said, making haste to fetch plates and knives from the corner-cupboard, and all the while she was keeping eye-guard over the well. “I’m afraid the Concorders haven’t left much for you to-day,” she added, with a soft sigh of regret, as though she really felt sorry that such brave men and good soldiers had fallen on hard times in the ancient town. At the moment she had brought forth bread and baked beans, and was putting them on the table, a voice rang into the room, causing every eye to turn toward Uncle John. He had gotten down the stairs without uttering one audible groan, and was standing, one step above the floor of the room, brandishing and whirling his staff about in a manner to cause even rheumatism to flee the place, while at the top of his voice he cried out:

“Martha Moulton, how dare you feed these–these–monsters–in human form?”

“Don’t mind him, gentlemen, please don’t,” she made haste to say; “he’s old, very old; eighty-five, his last birthday, and–a little hoity-toity at times,” pointing deftly with her finger in the region of the reasoning powers in her own shapely head.

Summoning Major Pitcairn by an offer of a dish of beans, she contrived to say, under cover of it:

“You see, sir, I couldn’t go away and leave him; he is almost distracted with rheumatism, and this excitement to-day will kill him, I’m afraid.”

Advancing toward the staircase with bold and soldierly front, Major Pitcairn said to Uncle John:

“Stand aside, old man, and we’ll hold you harmless.”

“I don’t believe you will, you red-trimmed trooper, you,” was the reply; and, with a dexterous swing of the wooden staff, he mowed off and down three military hats.

Before any one had time to speak, Martha Moulton, adroitly stooping, as though to recover Major Pitcairn’s hat, which had rolled to her feet, swung the stairway-door into its place with a resounding bang, and followed up that achievement with a swift turn of two large wooden buttons, one high up, and the other low down, on the door.

“There!” she said, “he is safe out of mischief for a while, and your heads are safe as well. Pardon a poor old man, who does not know what he is about.”

“He seems to know remarkably well,” exclaimed an officer.

Meanwhile, behind the strong door, Uncle John’s wrath knew no bounds. In his frantic endeavors to burst the fastenings of the wooden buttons, rheumatic cramps seized him and carried the day, leaving him out of the battle.

Meanwhile, a company of soldiers clustered about the door. The king’s horses were fed within five feet of the great brass knocker, while, within the house, the beautiful little old woman, in her Sunday-best-raiment, tried to do the dismal honors of the day to the foes of her country. Watching her, one would have thought she was entertaining heroes returned from the achievement of valiant deeds, whereas, in her own heart, she knew full well that she was giving a little, to save much.

Nothing could exceed the seeming alacrity with which she fetched water from the well for the officers: and, when Major Pitcairn gallantly ordered his men to do the service, the little soul was in alarm; she was so afraid that “somehow, in some way or another, the blue stocking would get hitched on to the bucket.” She knew that she must to its rescue, and so she bravely acknowledged herself to have taken a vow (when, she did not say), to draw all the water that was taken from that well.