stiff to go now."

"How old were you, gran'ther, when you went to the war?" asked Thomas,
with more moderation than he had exhibited before.

"Only sixteen, Thomas; but I was as tall as I am now," replied the
patriarch, dropping slowly and cautiously into the old-fashioned high-back
chair, by the side of the cooking stove.

"Well, I'm sixteen, and I mean to go."

"You, Thomas! You are crazy! You shan't do any thing of the kind,"
interposed Mrs. Somers. "There's men enough to go to the war, without such
boys as you are."

"You ain't quite stout enough to make a soldier, Thomas. You ain't so big
as I was, when I went off to York state," added gran'ther Greene.

"I should like to go any how," said Thomas, as he seated himself in a
corner of the room, and began to think thoughts big enough for a
full-grown man.

"Fort Sumter has surrendered," shouted John Somers, rushing into the house
as much excited as his brother had been.

"We've heard all about it, John," replied his mother.

"The President has called for seventy-five thousand men, and in my opinion
the rebels will get an awful licking before they are a fortnight older. I
should like to go and help do it."