and his kinsfolk lost no appetite in listening to it--for
it was no sooner uttered than they all fell to--and not a word more was
spoken for five minutes at least, nor then perhaps, had not little Sam
Peabody cried out, with breathless animation, and delight of feature,

"The pigeons, grandfather!" at the same time pointing from the door to
the evening sky, along which they were winging their calm and silent
flight in a countless train--streaming on westward as though there was
no end to them; which put old Sylvester upon recalling the cheerful
sports of his younger days.

"I have taken a couple of hundred in a net on the Hill before breakfast,
many a time," he said. "You used to help me, William."

"Yes, I and old Ethan Barbary," said the merchant, "used to spring the
net; you gave the word."

"Old Ethan has been dead many a day. Ethan," continued old Sylvester, in
explanation, "was the father of our Mr. Barbary. He was a preacher too,
and carried a gun in the revolution. I remember he was accounted a
peculiar man. I never knew why. To be sure he used to spend the time he
did not employ in prayers, preaching and tending the sick, in working on
the farms about, for he had no wages for preaching. When there was none
of that to be had, he took his basket, and sallying through the fields,
gathered berries, which he bestowed on the needy families of the
neighborhood. In winter he collected branches in the woods about, as
fire-wood for the poor."

"That was a capital idea," said Oliver the politician. "It must have
made him very popular."

"Wasn't he always thought to be a little out of his head?" asked the
merchant. "He might have sold the wood for a good price in the severe
winters."

"I remember as if it were yesterday," old Sylvester went on in his own
way, not heeding in the slightest the suggestions of his sons, "he and
black Burling, who is buried in the woods by the Great Walnut tree, near
the pond, both fought in the American ranks, and had but one gun between
them, which they used turn about."

"You saw rough times in those days, grandfather," said the Captain.

"I did, Charley," old Sylvester answered, looking kindly on the Captain,
who had always been something of a favorite of his from the day he had
married into the family; "and there are but few left to talk with me of
them now. I am one of the living survivors of an almost extinguished
race. The grave will soon be our only habitation. I am one of th