uest
heroes, my boy."

"Ah, but mamma, didn't I hear you tell grandmamma how you were proud
of your hero. That's what you called papa when General Montgomery
wrote to you, with his own hand, how he drove back the enemy at the
head of his men, while the balls were flying and the cannons roaring
and flashing; and when his horse was shot under him how he struggled
out and cheered on his men, on foot, and the bullets whizzed and the
men fell all around him, and he wasn't hurt and"--Here the boy stopped
abruptly and sprang impulsively forward, for his mother's cheek had
suddenly grown pale.

"True grit!" remarked Abram to Basha, in an undertone, as she paused
in her walk to and fro by the spinning-wheel to join a broken thread.
"But there never was a coward yet, man or woman, 'mong the Heaths,
an' I've known 'em off an' on these seventy year. Now there was ole
Gineral Heath," he continued, holding up the axe helve and viewing it
critically with one eye shut, "he was a marster hand for fightin'. Fit
the Injuns 's though he liked it. That gun up there was his'n."

"Tell us about the 'sassy one,'" said Arthur, turning at the word gun.

"Youngster, 'f I've told yer that story once, I've told yer fifty
times," said Abram.

"Tell it again," said the boy eagerly. "And take down the gun, too."

Abram got up as briskly as his seventy years and his rheumatism would
permit, and took down the gun from above the mantel-piece. It was a
very large one.

"Not quite so tall as the old Gineral himself," said Abram, "but a
purty near to it. This gun is 'bout seven feet, an' yer gran'ther was
seven feet two--a powerful built man. Wall, the Injuns had been mighty
obstreperous 'long 'bout that time, burnin' the Widder Brown's house
and her an' her baby a-hidin' in a holler tree near by, an' carryin'
off critters an' bosses, an' that day yer gran'ther was after 'em with
a posse o' men, an' what did that pesky Injun do but git up on a rock
a quarter o' a mile off an' jestickerlate in an outrigerous manner,
like a sarcy boy, an' yer grand'ther, he took aim and fired, an' that
impident Injun jest tumbel over with a yell; his last, mind ye, and
good enough for him!"

"I like to hear about old gran'ther," said Arthur.

As Abram was restoring the gun to its place upon the hooks, a sound
was heard at the side door--a sound as of a heavy body falling against
it, which startled them all. The dog Caesar rose, and going to the door
which opened i