anging around, and I
warned him off; told him he'd better go home, if he'd got one
anywhere, and if not to join the army, of his king at Philadelphia."

"What did he say, pa?" asked Jack.

"O some tomfoolery or other about the man having nothing to eat but
hay for two days, and his brother dying over at the Forge. I didn't
stop to listen to the fellow, but sent him flying."

Jack touched his mother's toe in passing, and gave Becca a mysterious
nod of the head, as much as to say:

"He's the soldier from our hospital over there," but nobody made
answer to Mr. Blackstone.

Becca's eyes filled with tears as she sat down at the tea-table, and
sturdy Jack staid away until the last minute, taking all the time he
could at washing his hands, that he might get as many looks as
possible through the window in the hope that the bare-footed soldier
might be lingering about, but he gained no glimpse of him.

Farmer Blackstone had the rheumatism sometimes, and that night he had
it worse than ever, so that an hour after tea-time he was quite ready
to go to bed, and his wife was quite ready to have him go, also to
give him the soothing, quieting remedies he called for.

Becca was to sit up that night until eight-of-the-clock, if she made
no noise to disturb her father.

While her mother was busied in getting her father comfortable, she
thought, as it was such bright moonlight, she would go out to give her
turkeys a count, it having been two or three nights since she had
counted them.

Slipping a shawl of her mother's over her head, she opened softly the
kitchen door to steal out. The lowest possible whistle from Jack
accosted her at the house corner. That lad intercepted her course,
drew her back into the shadow, and bade her "Look!"

She looked across the snow, over the garden wall, into the orchard,
and there, beneath her apple-tree, stood something between a man and a
scarecrow, and it appeared to be looking up at the sleeping turkeys.
Both arms were uplifted.

"O dear! what shall we do?" whispered Becca, all in a shiver of cold
and excitement.

"Let's go and speak to him. Maybe it is our hospital man," said Jack,
with a great appearance of courage.

The two children started, hand in hand, and approached the soldier so
quietly that he did not hear the sound of their coming.

As they went, Becca squeezed her brother's fingers and pointing to the
snow over which they walked, whispered the word "Blood!"

"From his fee