"Fort Sumter has surrendered!" shouted the indignant young patriot again,
as his mother looked up from the blessed volume.

"You don't say so!" exclaimed Mrs. Somers, as she closed the Bible, and
removed her spectacles.

"Yes, mother. The infernal rebels hammered away at the fort for two days,
and at last we had to give in."

"There'll be terrible times afore long," replied the old lady, shaking her
head with prophetic earnestness.

"The President has called for seventy-five thousand volunteers, and I tell
you there'll be music before long!" continued the youth, so excited that
he paced the room with rapid strides.

"What's the matter, Thomas?" asked a feeble old gentleman, entering the
room at this moment.

"Fort Sumter has surrendered, gran'ther," repeated Thomas, at the top of
his lungs, for the aged man was quite deaf; "and the President has called
for seventy-five thousand men to go down and fight the traitors."

"Sho!" exclaimed the old man, halting, and gazing with earnestness into
the face of the boy.

"It's a fact, gran'ther."

"Well, I'm too old to go," muttered gran'ther Greene; "but I wa'n't
older'n you are when I shouldered my firelock in 1812. I'm too old and