"'Where have you been, husband?'

"'Picking cherries,' replied Hezekiah--but he forgot to say that he had
first make cherries of the red-coats, by putting the pits into them."

"That old man was sure death," remarked Kinnison. "I knew the old fellow
well. He had the name of being one of the best shots around that part of
the country. I should never want to be within his range."

"The old man immortalized himself," said Hand.

"It served the 'tarnal rascals right," observed Hanson. "They only
reaped what they had sown. War's a horrible matter, altogether, and I
don't like it much; but I like to see it done up in that old man's
style, if it is done at all."

"I should like to have seen that royal officer that said he could march
through our country with three regiments," said Kinnison. "If he was
with Smith and Pitcorn that day, he saw there was a little of the
bulldog spirit in the Yankees."

"I think," observed Pitts, "we might have that old, heart-firing,
arm-moving tune called Yankee Doodle. Come, Brown, pipe."

"Ay," replied Brown, "that tune came out of this here fife
naturally--almost without my blowing it. For some time, I couldn't work
anything else out of it."

"Come, pipe and drum the old tune once more," cried Colson; and it was
piped and drummed by Brown and Hanson in the real old continental style.