the glowing coals on the broad hearth.

As the little woman bent to take up the breakfast, Joe, intent on
doing some kindness for her in the way of saving treasures,
asked, "Shan't I help you, Mother Moulton?"

"I reckon I am not so old that I can't lift a mite of cornbread,"
she replied with chilling severity.

"Oh, I didn't mean to lift THAT THING," he made haste to explain,
"but to carry off things and hide 'em away, as everybody else has
been doing half the night. I know a first-rate place up in the
woods. Used to be a honey tree, you know, and it's just as
hollow as anything. Silver spoons and things would be just as
safe in it--" but Joe's words were interrupted by unusual tumult
on the street and he ran off to learn the news, intending to
return and get the breakfast that had been offered to him.

Presently he rushed back to the house with cheeks aflame and eyes
ablaze with excitement. "They're a coming!" he cried. "They're
in sight down by the rocks. They see 'em marching, the men on
the hill, do!"

"You don't mean that its really true that the soldiers are coming
here, RIGHT INTO OUR TOWN," cried Martha Moulton, rising in haste
and bringing together with rapid flourishes to right and to left,
every fragment of silver on the table. Uncle John strove to hold
fast his individual spoon, but she twitched it without ceremony
out from his rheumatic old fingers, and ran next to the parlor
cupboard, wherein lay her movable valuables.