"Well, I do say for it, Mike," said the other boy, after listening to the whole story, "you are just the queerest fellow that I ever saw or heard of."
"But don't you think that was about the best way to pay him off, after all?" asked Mike.
"Well," said the other boy, after a moment's pause, "I declare I don't know but it was, when I come to think of it."
And don't _you_ think it was the best way to pay him off, reader? I do, and I should be glad if every body would learn to pay such debts in very much the same way. It may be a very queer mode of taking revenge. But it seems to me quite a sensible one; and I am sure it is a thousand times better than the mode that people so often choose. If I am not greatly mistaken, indeed, it is just the mode that is recommended in the word of God, which says, "If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him to drink; for, in so doing, thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head."
You have heard a great deal about the Revolutionary War. You have heard what hardships our forefathers went through, while they were fighting the battles of liberty. But I doubt if you can form, in your own mind, any thing like a true picture of what those brave men suffered. Why, many of them had to go barefoot, for whole weeks at a time, right in the heart of winter. They could hardly get food to eat; and many and many a time, if it had not been for the thought that they were engaged in a good cause, and that God was on their side, they must have been discouraged, and given up all as lost. But they did not give up. They stood firm at their post, until they either fell before their enemies, or perished by fatigue and exposure.
When the tidings came to the neighborhood where Mike Marble lived, that Washington's noble band were suffering every thing but death at Valley Forge, every man and woman, that could boast of any thing in the shape of a heart, were moved with pity. And they were not the people to let their kind feelings go off in fog and smoke. They were not blustering people. They believed in _acting_, as well as in _talking_. When they had heard the sad news, the next question was, "Can we _do_ any thing?" That question was soon answered. The next was, "_What_ can we do?" Well, it was pretty soon found out that all could do something--that some could do one thing, and some another; but that every family in the parish could do something.