"Take three!" said Becca. "My pa never counts my turkeys."
"Better put these stockings on before you start, or father will track you to the camp," said Jack. "And pa told ma never to give you anything of his any more."
Never was weighty burden more cheerfully borne than the bag Jack helped to hoist over the soldier's shoulder as soon as the stockings had been drawn over the bleeding feet.
"Now I'm going. Thank you, and good night. If you, little girl, would give me a kiss, I'd take it--as from my little Bessy in Connecticut."
"That's for Bessy in Connecticut," said the little girl, giving him one kiss, "and now I'll give you one for Becca in Pennsylvania. Hurry home and roast the turkeys quick."
"Jack," said Becca, "if I'd told a lie to the turkeys where would they have been to-night, and Joseph? There are eight more. I wish I'd told him to come again. Pa's rheumatism came just right to-night, didn't it?"
"I reckon next year you won't have all the turkeys to give away to the soldiers," said Jack, adding quite loftily, "I shall go to raising turkeys in the Spring myself, and when Winter comes we shall see."
"Now, Jacky," said Becca, half-crying, "there are eight left, and you take half."
"No, I won't," rejoined Jack. "I'd just like to walk over to Valley Forge and see the soldiers enjoy turkey. Won't they have a feast! I shouldn't wonder if they'd eat one raw."
"Soldiers do eat dreadful things sometimes," he assured her with a lofty air. And then they went into the house, and the door was shut.
The next year there was not a soldier left above the sod at Valley Forge.
Now the soldiers are gone, the camp is not, the little girl has passed away, the apple-tree is dead, and only the hills at Valley Forge are left to tell the story, bitter with suffering, eloquent with praise, of the men who had a hundred years ago toiled for Freedom there, and are gone home to God.
HOW TWO LITTLE STOCKINGS SAVED FORT SAFETY.
"A story, children; so soon after Christmas, too! Let me think, what shall it be?"
"O yes, mamma," uttered three children in chorus.
Mrs. Livingston sat looking into the fire that flamed on the broad hearth so long, that Carl said, by way of reminder that time was passing: "An uncommon story."