d
taught them to ride and to cobble shoes.

He lived alone (for his wife had been set free years before, and lived
in Philadelphia). His room over "the old kitchen" was the boys'
play-room when he would permit them to come in. There were so many
odds and ends in it that it was a delightful place.

Then the boys played blindman's-buff in the house, or hide-and-seek
about the yard or garden, or upstairs in their den, a narrow alcove
at the top of the house.

The little willow-shadowed creek, that ran through the meadow behind
the barn, was one of their haunts. They fished in it for minnows and
little perch; they made dams and bathed in it; and sometimes they
played pirates upon its waters.

Once they made an extended search up and down its banks for any
fragments of Pharaoh's chariots which might have been washed up so
high; but that was when they were younger and did not have much
sense.

CHAPTER II.

There was great excitement at Oakland during the John Brown raid, and
the boys' grandmother used to pray for him and Cook, whose pictures
were in the papers.

The boys became soldiers, and drilled punctiliously with guns which
they got Uncle Balla to make for them. Frank was the captain, Willy
the first lieutenant, and a dozen or more little negroes composed the
rank and file, Peter and Cole being trusted file-closers.

A little later they found their sympathies all on the side of peace
and the preservation of the Union. Their uncle was for keeping the
Union unbroken, and ran for the Convention against Colonel Richards,
who was the chief officer of the militia in the county, and was as
blood-thirsty as Tamerlane, who reared the pyramid of skulls, and as
hungry for military renown as the great Napoleon, about whom the boys
had read.

There was immense excitement in the county over the election. Though
the boys' mother had made them add to their prayers a petition that
their Uncle William might win, and that he might secure the
blessings of peace; and, though at family prayers, night and morning,
the same petition was presented, the boys' uncle was beaten at the
polls by a large majority. And then they knew there was bound to be
war, and that it must be very wicked. They almost felt the "invader's
heel," and the invaders were invariably spoken of as "cruel," and the
heel was described as of "iron," and was always mentioned as engaged
in the act of crushing. They would have been terribly alarmed at this
c