3stalwarts by Unknown Read Free Book Online

gives a damn for the Stamp Tax, come to think of it? How much money have you paid out to it yourself?”
    “That’s so,” said Gil, wonderingly. “It ain’t bothered me.” He looked up at the captain. “Why do we have to go and fight the British at all?”
    “Because, now the war’s started, people like the Butlers and Johnsons will be in power if they win and they’ll take it out of our hides, the cost of it.”
    Gil said, “Yes.” As far as he could see, though, they were just about where they had started. Captain Demooth had risen and there seemed to be nothing more to say. He felt the captain take his arm as he went towards the door.
    “Don’t get scared,” the captain said. “And don’t let your wife get nervy, either. I’ve got people of my own, patrolling west and north of here. You know Blue Back, don’t you?”
    “The old Indian who traps the Canadas in winter?”
    “Yes. Mr. Kirkland’s guaranteed him. He’s got the northern beat, and if there’s any trouble this year, I imagine it would come from there.”

3. The Farm
    When he reached his own place, Gil Martin found that Mrs. Reall had come over to borrow some soft soap. “I don’t know how I come to be out of it.” She had the baby under one arm. “I don’t know what a person can do anyway with a family like mine.”
    “Make some of your own and quit borrowing everything all your life,” was what Gil wanted to say. Instead he stood beside the door frowning down at the frowsy woman and gloomily watched Lana measuring out some soap in a chipped cup.
    “Gil’s just been down to Mr. Demooth’s,” Lana said brightly, in an effort to make them all easy. She knew that Gil did not approve of her lending so many things to Mrs. Reall.
    Mrs. Reall perked up at once.
    “It’s a pity,” she remarked, “that a nice man like Mark Demooth hasn’t got a decent woman to look out for him.”
    “Did you see Mr. Demooth, Gil?” Lana asked hurriedly.
    “Yes,” he said. “He’s getting ready to go down valley this morning. He said muster day was Wednesday.”
    Mrs. Reall looked surprised.
    “Why didn’t you step over to our place? It’s shorter, and Kitty would have told you. He keeps all such things wrote down in a book. He’s such a methody man.”
    Gil was nettled.
    “I knew when it was. I wanted to see him about something else.”
    “Well, that wasn’t what you said first,” said Mrs. Reall with perfect good humor. “Of course you needn’t tell me what you did go down for. I don’t mind.” But she made no move to get up.
    Gil knew that she was likely to stay till noon if the humor seized her. With strained facetiousness, he said, “I went down to see if he didn’t think we had ought to leave a bodyguard for all you women.”
    Mrs. Reall laughed heartily.
    “My, my,” she said, dabbing the baby’s nose with the front of her blouse. “Bodyguard! Why, I’m always that relieved when Kitty goes to muster! I figure he’s safe enough for one day. If he don’t break his legs coming home drunk the way he does. It’s one strange thing about a God-fearing man like Kitty, the way he gets drunk muster days. But then, as he says, war is war, and religion is religion, and both is pretty well concerned with hell.”
    “What did Mr. Demooth say, Gil?” asked Lana.
    “He said we ought to go down. He didn’t think there was any trouble coming for a while.”
    Gil wheeled and went out through the door. Mrs. Reall rose and said, “Thank you for the soap, Lana dearie. I’ll return you some the next time I get around to making it.”
    Lana watched her go, then started after Gil. Gil had begun work on clearing a three-acre strip along the creek behind the place. He was felling the trees in windrows widthwise of the land, preparatory to the au-tumn burning. The sound of his axe in the heavy August air had no ring, but when she found him he was laying savagely into a tree, sinking half the blade at every stroke.
    She watched him