nt Betsey, with a shade of sorrow
momentarily crossing her kindly face. "Oh, I suppose you did not know
it! Your Uncle has gone to the war, with the rest of them. There have a
great many gone from Oneida--scarcely a family that does not miss one
member at least. Some of them will not come back, I suppose; and some
may. God shelter and keep your Uncle! It was a little hard to part with
him, after being together nearly all the time for so many years; but he
felt that he must go, and he knew his duty best."

"And you so cheerful about it that I did not even know till now that he
was gone!" said Joe, with surprise.

"Why yes," said her Aunt. "If _they_ have a duty to fight for the
country, _we_ have a duty to be patient while they are gone and do the
best we can with what they leave behind them!"

Bravely and truly said, wife of the Oneida soldier! If the battles of
the Union are lost, half the fault will lie with the women who have
preferred their own ease and the contentment of their own affections, to
the peril of their native land; and if those battles are won, no small
share of the credit will be due to those true-hearted descendants of
Molly Starke, who have emulated the self-sacrificing spirit of the women
of old Rome and sent off the husbands they loved and the sons upon whom
they leaned, to win their love and confidence over again on the
battle-field, or to die for the worshipped flag and the perilled nation!

"God shelter and keep him, indeed!" responded the young girl. "And he
will, without a doubt." No one could exactly understand why it should be
so, in conjunction with the dash and freedom of her character; but
hidden away somewhere among the dark glossy hair was a bump of
Veneration that recognized the Supreme Being with the most filial love
and trust, and in the heart there was a corresponding throb of
gratitude, confidence and childlike dependence.

"But what have you got, out-of-doors?" she asked, changing her manner
again to that of one who had no thought beyond the present. "I have not
quite forgotten how the old yard looks, with the smoke-house, close to
the back door, and the barn at the other end. Got any pigs and chickens?
And how's your cat?"

"The cat is well," said Susan, gravely--"that is, as well as could be
expected. She has quite a family. We have lots of chickens--you must
have seen some of them in the front yard as you came in. And pigs--a pen
full of them, but a little too big to suit