to the dictionary, and there I found
the word, looking, for all the world, as if it were vastly at home.

"Egg-nog," says Doctor Webster, "a drink used in America, consisting
of the yelks of eggs beaten up with sugar, and the whites of eggs
whipped, with the addition of wine or spirits." The addition which
Webster speaks of, and which consisted of _spirits_ when I was a boy,
and not of _wine_, you will please to take notice, was considered a
very important addition, without which the liquor would be worthless.

Well, Samuel and Frederick, though they were strongly urged to "taste
of the nice egg-nog," and though they almost wished that they might so
far gratify their curiosity as to taste of it, succeeded in resisting
the temptation, and letting the stuff alone. Neither of them drank a
drop of it; though I should not wonder if they found it rather hard
work to refuse.

My young friend, perhaps you think these facts are hardly worth
noticing. But I look upon them in a very different light. These boys,
in my opinion, gained great victories that day--victories quite as
worthy of praise and honor as those of Alexander and Caesar. They had
the courage to _do right_, when they were tempted to _do wrong_. They
did right. And they had their reward, no doubt, when they heard the
voice of conscience in their own bosoms, whispering, "Well done."

CHAP. IX.

PATRIOTISM AND POWDER.

It was more than six months after the thanksgiving festival, before
the factory boys had another holiday. Time, who never stands still a
moment, went on, and by and by, the Fourth of July came round. Samuel
and Frederick were companions on that day, as well as on the preceding
thanksgiving festival. The first thing they did, after they got up in
the morning--for they were wakened very early by the ringing of all
the bells in Meadville, not excepting the one on the factory, which
was keyed on a very high note, and was cracked in the bargain, though
it made up in zeal and earnestness what it lacked in depth and
sweetness--the first thing they did was to climb the hill that
overlooked the village, where the men were firing a salute in honor of
the day. There seems to be something in the smell of gunpowder, and
the sound of a huge-mouthed cannon, which wakes up a good deal of
patriot feeling in the breast of a child.

How my little heart, when it was not much bigger than a chipping
squirrel's, used to throb with patriotism--or something else