erily for all that.

In summer he went barefoot. He did not have to turn out at every
mud-puddle, and he could plash into the mill-pond and give the frogs a
crack over the head without stopping to take off stockings and shoes.
Paul did not often have a dinner of roast beef, but he had an abundance
of bean porridge, brown bread, and milk.

"Bean porridge is wholesome food, Paul," said his grandfather. "When I
was a boy we used to say,--

'Bean porridge hot,
Bean porridge cold,--
Bean porridge best
Nine days old.'

The wood-choppers in winter used to freeze it into cakes and carry it
into the woods. Many a time I have made a good dinner on a chunk of
frozen porridge."

The Pensioner remembered what took place in his early years, but he lost
his reckoning many times a day upon what was going on in the town. He
loved to tell stories, and Paul was a willing listener. Pleasant
winter-evenings they had in the old kitchen, the hickory logs blazing
on the hearth, the tea-kettle singing through its nose, the clock
ticking soberly, the old Pensioner smoking his pipe in the arm-chair,
Paul's mother knitting,--Bruno by Paul's side, wagging his tail and
watching Muff in the opposite corner rolling her great round yellow
eyes. Bruno was always ready to give Muff battle whenever Paul tipped
him the wink to pitch in.

The Pensioner's stories were of his boyhood,--how he joined the army,
and fought the battles of the Revolution. Thus his story ran.

"I was only a little bigger than you are, Paul," he said, "when the
red-coats began the war at Lexington. I lived in old Connecticut then;
that was a long time before we came out here. The meeting-house bell
rung, and the people blew their dinner-horns, till the whole town was
alarmed. I ran up to the meeting-house and found the militia forming.
The men had their guns and powder-horns. The women were at work melting
their pewter porringers into bullets. I wasn't o'd enough to train, but
I could fire a gun and bring down a squirrel from the top of a tree. I
wanted to go and help drive the red-coats into the ocean. I asked
mother if I might. I was afraid that she didn't want me to go. 'Why,
Paul,' says she, 'you haven't any clothes.' 'Mother,' says I, 'I can
shoot a red-coat just as well as any of the men can.' Says she, 'Do you
want to go, Paul?' 'Yes, mother.' 'Then you shall go; I'll fix you out,'
she said. As I h