MOULTON, you MUST be crazy."

"So they tell me," she said, serenely. "There comes Uncle John!"
she added, as the clatter of a staff on the stone steps of the
stairway outrang, for an instant, the cries of hurrying and
confusion that filled the air of the street.

"Don't you know, Mother Moulton," Joe went on to say, "that every
single woman and child have been carried off, where the
Britishers won't find 'em?"

"I don't believe the king's troops have stirred out of Boston,"
she replied, going to the door leading to the stone staircase, to
open it for Uncle John.

"Don't believe it?" and Joe looked, as he echoed the words, as
though only a boy could feel sufficient disgust at such want of
common sense, in full view of the fact, that Reuben Brown had
just brought the news that eight men had been killed by the
king's Red-coats, in Lexington, which fact he made haste to
impart.

"I won't believe a word of it," she said, stoutly, "until I see
the soldiers coming."

"Ah! Hear that!" cried Joe, tossing back his hair and swinging
his arms triumphantly at an airy foe. "You won't have to wait
long. THAT SIGNAL is for the minute men. They are going to
march out to meet the Red-coats. Wish I was a minute man, this
minute."