s Harding," he said. "While he's young
I don't dispute, he's big for his age and can handle that rifle pretty
well. You must let him go up to Bennington next week and drill with the
other young fellows. There will be no need of his going on any raids
with the older men. We shall keep the boys out of it, and most of the
beech-sealin' will be done by the men who hain't got no fam'blies here
and are free in their movements. But the drill will be good for him and
the time may come when all this drillin' will pay."

"You really look for serious trouble with the Yorkers, Master
Bolderwood?" she asked.

"I reckon I do. With them or--or others. Things is purty tick'lish--you
know that, widder. The King ain't treatin' us right, an' his ministers
and advisers don't care anything about these colonies, 'ceptin' if we
don't make 'em rich. Then they trouble us. And the governors are mostly
all alike. I don't think a bit better of Benning Wentworth than I do of
these 'ere New York governors. They don't re'lly care nothin' for us
poor folk."

So the widow agreed to allow Enoch to go to Bennington; and when the day
came for the gathering of those youths and men who could be spared from
the farms, to meet there, he mounted the old claybank mare, his shoes
and stockings slung before him over the saddle bow that his great toes
might be the easier used as spurs, and with a bag of corn behind him to
be left for grinding at the mill, trotted along the trail to the
settlement. Before he had gone far on the road he saw other men and boys
bound in the same direction. Remember Baker passed him, with Robbie, his
boy, perched behind on the saddle, and clinging like a leech to his
father's coat-tails as the horse galloped over the rough road. Enoch saw
Robbie later, however, and invited him to the stump burning which was to
take place the following week. He saw Lot Breckenridge, too, at the
Green Mountain Inn, and invited him to come, and sent word to other boys
and girls in the Breckenridge neighborhood.

Lot's mother would not let him carry a gun, but he had come to look on
and see the "greenhorns" take their first lesson in the manual of arms.
Stephen Fay, mine host of the "Catamount" Inn as the hostlery had come
to be called--a large, jocund individual who was a Grants man to the
core and earnest in the cause of the Green Mountain Boys--made all
welcome and the old house was crowded from daylight till dark. In the
gallery which ran along the