tell you about the war and the
flag."

"I'll remember. I love to hear about the war. Old Johnny Schlegelmilch
from way up the country comes to our place still to sell brooms, and
once last summer he came and it began to thunder and storm and pop said
he shall stay till it's over and then he told me all about the war. He
said our flag's the prettiest in the whole world."

"So it is," solemnly affirmed Old Aaron.

"I wonder if anybody it belongs to could help liking it," said the
child, remembering Granny's words.

"Well," the veteran answered slowly, "I knew a young fellow once, a nice
fellow he seemed, too, and his father a soldier who fought for the flag.
Well, the father was always talking about the flag and what it means and
how every man should be ready to fight for it. And one day the boy said
that he would never fight for it and be shot to pieces, that the old
flag made him sick, and one soldier in the family was enough."

"Oh!" Phoebe opened her eyes wide in surprise and horror.

"And the father told the boy," the old man went on in a fixed voice as
though the veriest details of the story were vividly before him, "that
if he would not take back those words he never wanted to see him again.
It was better to have no son, than such a son, a coward who hated the
flag."

Here Granny appeared with the lemonade and the story was abruptly ended.
Phoebe refrained from questioning the man about the story but as she sat
under the arbor and afterwards, as she started up the street of the
little town, she wondered over and over how a boy could be the son of a
soldier and hate the flag, and whether the story Old Aaron told her was
the story of himself and Nason.

CHAPTER III

LITTLE DUTCHIE

"AUNT MARIA said I dare look around a little," thought Phoebe as she
neared the big store on the Square. Her heart beat more quickly as she
turned the knob of the heavy door--little things still thrilled her,
going to the store in Greenwald was an event!

The clerk's courteous, "What can I do for you?" bewildered her for an
instant but she swallowed hard and said, "Why, we want twenty pounds of
granulated sugar; ourn is almost all and Aunt Maria wants to make some
strawberry jelly to-morrow. She said for Jonas to fetch it along on his
home road."

"All right. Out to Jacob Metz?"

"Yes, he's my pop."

"I see. Anything else?"

"Three spools white thread, number fifty."

"Anything else?"

She shook her head as