ncy.

"No," said Uncle Ike. "I might as well tell you the whole story, for you
seem bound to have it. I came down here in 1850, when I was about sixty.
Of course I knew what was going on, but I didn't take much interest in
the war, till a lot of soldiers went by one day. They stopped here; we
had a talk, and they told me a number of things that I hadn't seen in
the papers. I haven't read the daily papers for thirteen years, but I
take some weeklies and the magazines and buy some books. Well, the next
day I went over to Eastborough Centre and asked the selectmen how much
it would cost to send a man to the war. They said substitutes were
bringing $150 just then, but that I was over age and couldn't be
drafted, and there was no need of my sending anybody. I remarked that in
my opinion a man's patriotism ought not to die out as long as he lived.
It seemed to me that if a man had $150 it was his duty to pay for a
substitute, if he was a hundred. The selectmen said that they had a
young fellow named Lem Butters who was willing to go if he got a hundred
and fifty. So I planked down the money, but with the understanding that
he should take my name. Well, to make a long story short, I got killed
at Gettysburg and I wrote that out as a reminder."

"Don't you ever get lonesome alone here by yourself?" Quincy asked.

"Yes," said Uncle Ike. "I am lonesome every minute of the time. That's
what I came down here for. I got tired being lonesome with other people
around me, so I thought I would come down here and be lonesome all by
myself, and I have never been sorry I came."

Quincy opened his eyes and looked inquiringly at Uncle Ike.

"I don't quite understand what you mean by being lonesome with other
people around you," said he.

"No, of course you don't," replied Uncle Ike. "You are too young. I was
sixty. I was thirty-five when I got married and my wife was only
twenty-two, so when I was sixty she was only forty-seven. One girl was
twenty-three and the other twenty. I went to work at seven o'clock in
the morning and got home at seven at night. My wife and daughters went
to theatres, dinners, and parties, and of course I stayed at home and
kept house with the servant girl. In my business I had taken in two
young fellows as partners, both good, honest men, but soon they got to
figuring that on business points they were two and I was one, and pretty
soon all I had to do was to put wood on the fire and feed the office
cat. So you