aturday night the old blankets were spread on the parlor floor.
Sunday morning, the 16th of April, they bade farewell to the household
and started for the farmer's house.

"As they were about to start away, the head of the family took from his
pocket a handful of odd silver pieces, and extending them to the guests,
told them it was all he had, _but they were welcome to half of it_.
Remembering that he had a wife and three or four children to feed, the
soldiers smiled through _their_ tears at _his_, bade him keep it all,
and 'weep for himself rather than for them.' So saying, they departed,
and at sundown were at the farmer's house, fourteen miles away.

"Monday morning, the 17th, they 'beat their swords (muskets in this
case) into ploughshares' and did the first day's work of the sixty which
the _simple_ farmer secured at a cost to himself of about half rations
for two men. Behold the gratitude of a people! Where grow now the shrubs
which of old bore leaves and twigs for garlands? The brave live! are the
fair dead? Shall time of calamity, downfall or ruin, annihilate
sacrifice or hatch an ingrate brood?"

End of Project Gutenberg's Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15), by Charles Morris

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