the light beyond it the men leaning on their guns and arranged themselves in a circle around the minister � a group of indian men and women had gathered and stood on one side listening reverently the minister prayed and wept to the last of his long good life he was marked by a sensibility that forth in sympathy for all his people the just and unjust � saints and all shared a heart wide enough for all the boy of whom we have spoken was permitted by his mother to go out and listen to the service no wonder the scene never passed from his memory that war was thus begun in the self devotion and self sacrifice of thoughtful fathers faithful husbands brothers and sons and by the prayers of holy men which was for self government an equality of rights and privileges � the freedom and happiness of all the battle was fought on their mother earth about their own on the other side the soldiers were a good part and from the household for which they fought and for the most part ignorant and men a home scene i have no time to give any directions said william to his sister a tall gaunt elderly woman you know full as well as i how to take care of every thing � the horses cattle pigs and you ll give them all plenty to eat for that s your nature and that s the main chance ben will be a boys always are but he being a tradition you won t feel it so much don t humour him too much don t go out as you did last winter in the snow and feed the horses that he went to bed and forgot take care i don t tie up the yet i want to put this in what is it brother asked who kept her head averted that her brother might not see the tears that were pouring down her cheeks well its s that cut for me last week � it is only an outline but i can fill it up with blue eye and round cheeks and a sweet little fair child s face you think i am foolish � i more than forty i no no brother don t i set by her almost as much as you poor little dove yes and that is a comfort to me now if it tore my heart in two to leave and i should go but now i go cheerfully for i know you will always consider for them i confide them to you and go in peace is a helpless little thing but it is my fault she was so young when we married that she has always seemed to me like a child oh never mind brother it is easy to care for her � truly the pleasure and comfort of my life � i have no words to thank you but words are nothing between you and i i have bid her good bye it has taken the strength out of me it makes me feel like a poor soldier and he wiped away his tears as he added this little woman makes such a child of me i left her with on her lap both sobbing i hear them now by the way i have forgotten to tell you that i have engaged to teach will to teach brother is but six i have a heard that mr is a finished scholar sorely he is not a suitable teacher for maybe not but is halting about his profession he is fallen under suspicion as a tory and he would like to stay quietly here and mind his books so i offered him his board for teaching but if it will be a trouble to you to me what trouble can it be to me to get for four instead of three no truly i am glad he is coming he will be company for � poor little dove i a wagon drove to the door william threw in his turned and looked around for the last time every object was on his heart he kissed his sister s coarse cheek as fervently as if she were the loveliest woman in creation and knocking with his iron on his wife s bed room door he said in a cheering tone � � god bless you dear dearest little dashed off his tears and departed as our story has little to do with the military career of the commander of the little from l but is confined to the domestic incidents of his life we must take � william s body mind and heart were in that state which in our present phrase would be called normal capricious nature � no this is but vulgar � nature is but another name for the great creator of perfect works not nature then but the wrongs done to her so often effect such combination as a heart of infinite in a half developed body a gigantic intellect like pope s napoleon s or alexander s a in a almost frame that when the world has assurance of a man in the highest intellectual and moral attributes with their fitting majestic he receives as william did the tribute of trust and love and reverence was of a good old english stock but the branch in this country had bj adverse accidents been reduced to an humble condition of life and william and his sister four or five years older than himself were left at an early age with no inheritance but a farm on the cold sea shore of this they for one in better position and condition in a lovely valley in the most western county of the same state this by the joint management of brother and sister improved rapidly in value and as it was the good custom of those times for 