ted and destroyed, as it would have been if Rodney and his friends
could have got their hands upon it. He gave it to me because he knew it
would some day be something to feel proud over, and said he hoped to
hear that it had been run up again."

"But, Marcy, you dare not hoist it here," exclaimed Mrs. Gray.

"Not now; but there may come a time when I shall dare do it. The other
flag--well, the other was made by a Union girl in Barrington, who had to
work on it by stealth, because her sister, and every other member of her
family except her father, were the worst kind of secesh. Rodney thought
sure he was going to put the Stars and Bars on the tower when the Union
colors were stolen, but our fellows got mine up first, and would have
kept it there if they had had to fight to do it. But I'll put them in
the stove if you think best."

"You need not do anything of the kind," said Mrs. Gray, whose patriotism
had been awakened by the simple narrative. "I shall not permit a party
of beardless boys to show more loyalty than I am willing to show
myself."

"Bully for you, mother!" cried Marcy. "We'll see both of them in the air
before many months more have passed over our heads. Now, think of some
good hiding place for them, and I'll put them there right away. Not in
the ground, you know, for if the Union troops should ever come marching
through here, we should want to get them out in a hurry."

"How would it do to sew them up in a bed-quilt?" said Mrs. Gray,
suggesting the first "good hiding place" that came into her mind.

"That's the very spot," replied Marcy. "Put them in one of mine, and
then I shall have the old flag over me every night."

No time was lost in carrying out this decision, and in a few minutes
mother and son were locked in the boy's room, and busy stitching the
precious pieces of bunting into one of the quilts. It never occurred to
them to ask what they would do or how they would feel if some half-clad,
shivering rebel should find his way into the room and walk off with that
quilt without so much as saying "by your leave." Probably they never
dreamed that the soldiers of the Confederacy would be reduced to such
straits.

CHAPTER III.

BEARDSLEY BETRAYS HIMSELF.

Never before had the hours hung as heavily upon Marcy Gray's hands as
they did at the period of which we write. There was literally nothing he
could do--at least that he _wanted_ to do.