couldn't catch him!"

"Polly," said Mrs. Porter, "don't you leave this house to-day without
my permission."

Poor Mrs. Porter! Truman, her eldest son, had gone. He was sixteen and
had been a "trained" soldier for more than six months; that, the
mother expected; but Ethel, only fourteen, and full of daring and
boyish zeal! Stephen also, the youngest, and the baby, being but ten
years old--he had not yet returned from "stirring up the Hotchkisses."
Had he followed Captain Gideon?

"Ethel is too far ahead," sighed Polly. "I couldn't catch him now,
even if mother would let me; but here comes Uncle Phineas in his
regimentals, and Aunt Melicent and Polly and little Melicent, and O!
what a crowd! I can't see for the dust! It's better than the
celebration. It's so _real_, so 'strue as you live and breathe and
everything."

Polly ran to the front door. At that day it opened upon a porch that
extended across the house front. This porch was supported by a line of
white pillars, and a rail along its front had rings inserted in it to
which a horseman could, after dismounting beneath its shelter, secure
his steed. Long ago, this porch was removed and the house itself was
taken from the roadside on the plain below, because of a great
freshet, and removed to its present location. The history of that
porch, of the men and women who dismounted beneath its shelter, or
who, footsore and weary, mounted its steps, would be the history of
the country for more than a century, for the men of Waterbury were in
every enterprise in which the colonies were engaged; but this is the
record of a single day in its eventful life, and we must return to the
porch, where Polly is welcoming Mrs. Melicent Porter with the words:
"Mother will be so glad you have come, Aunt Melicent, for Ethel has
gone off to New Haven and he's miles ahead of catching, and Stephen
hasn't got back yet from 'rousing the Alarm company. Mother wouldn't
_say_ a word, but she has got her mouth fixed and I know she's afraid
he's gone, too. I don't know what father will do when he finds it
out."

"You go, now," said Mrs. Porter, "and tell your mother that your
father staid to go to the mill. He will not be here for some time."

While Polly went to the kitchen with the message, Mrs. Melicent
alighted from her horse and, assisting her little daughter Melicent
from the saddle, said: "You are heavier to-day, Milly, than you were
when I threw you to the bank from my horse when it