and I understand.

"'Faithfully yours,

"'A. Lincoln.'

"When a couple of weeks ago, in the midst of all this turmoil, his son Willie died, I waked up in the night from dreaming of Mary and little Marygold, and thought that Mary wanted me to write something. So I says I guess I'll write Lincoln that I'm sorry, and that I understand his trouble because of Mary's leaving me ten years ago, and Marygold the next year, and how the Lord, through my crooked leg, won't let me join them quick by way of battle. I put it down right then and there and sent it the next morning, never thinking of a reply.

"Saturday, this came," and Gilbert unfolded the second letter:—

"'Washington, March 3, 1862.

"'Oliver G. Gilbert:

"'My Friend:—

"'It seems that we understand each other. I thank you for your letter. If the Lord's Will has stayed your joining in this conflict, be sure that He will find some other wrong for you to right, by your own door.

"'Gratefully,

"'A. Lincoln.'

"Now, Morse, you can see why I haven't spoken of these letters and why I shouldn't brag of them, for they are not from the President, but from man to man.

"My grandfather, whose musket hangs up there, fought through the Revolution. That picture of Washington is framed in a piece of oak wood from this house that was set on fire by Arnold's men. Grandsir' revered Washington next to God, and later, when he saw him as President, he wrote a long letter, that cost eight shillings to deliver, to my grandmother, telling her of his visit to Mt. Vernon. One part I've always remembered, I've heard it read so often; it ran thus: 'His whole demeanor was so full of dignity that he assuredly is great enough to hold his own with kings, and be one in their company; yet though I desired to have speech with him, as others did, I dared not take upon myself to begin it. As he did not, I presently came away, much disappointed.'

"Don't shake your head, neighbor Morse, I'm drawing no comparisons, for there's no man fit to pair with either of them; but, mind you, if Washington was fit to match with kings, Abraham Lincoln is humble enough to be a man, a brother of the Man of Sorrows, who well knew loneliness in the midst of a multitude, saying, 'Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has not where to lay his head.'"

A shout came down the street. Hastily pushing his treasures into their drawer, the postmaster locked it with fingers that trembled, and reached the door with his old friend, in time to see the little procession crossing the road, the red lantern, held by a rake, swinging gayly above 'Lisha Potts's head.

"It's a true victory!" he called; "we've got the paper. Shouldn't wonder if next month saw the war end. Hey, Gilbert, now's the chance to run your big flag up with the little one atop, unless the halyard's frozen fast."

"Now, boys, bunch the lamps," said Gilbert, presently, as he cleared a place on his work table, adjusted his spectacles, and spread out the coveted sheet. The newspaper being fully three feet in length, the print very small, and the large captions of to-day lacking, it took Gilbert some time to locate the desired news. Meanwhile the boys pressed closer and closer until, as he stopped for the second time to adjust his glasses, 'Lisha Potts, peering over his shoulder, read at the top of his voice: "Naval Engagement in Hampton Roads—Loss of the Frigates Cumberland and Congress—Great Success of the Ericsson Battery!"

"That'll do, 'Lisha," said Gilbert, with some asperity. "I believe that I'm reading this paper—

"First Edition—Fortress Monroe, March 9.—The Monitor arrived at 10 P.M. yesterday and went immediately to the protection of the Minnesota lying aground just below Newport News. At 7 A.M. to-day the Merrimac, accompanied by two wooden steamers, the Yorktown and Jamestown, and several tugs, stood out toward the Minnesota and opened fire. The Monitor met them at once and opened fire, when the enemies' vessels returned, except the Merrimac. The two ironclads fought part of the time touching each other, from 8 A.M. until noon, when the Merrimac retreated—"

"Never mind the whole story now, get the finish first," chorused the audience.

"Here on the next page," cried 'Lisha.

"Second Edition," read Gilbert, deliberately. "The side of the Merrimac pierced by the Monitor! The Ericsson battery finally succeeded in forcing a long hole in the port side of the Merrimac and she retired with the whole rebel fleet to Norfolk about one o'clock!"

Cheers drowned Gilbert's voice, and the paper passed from hand to hand, each man reading some particular phrase that pleased him, while Seth Moore, one of the retired sea-captains of which every coast town at this period had its quota, banging on the floor with his cane, cried: "It isn't only a blow to the rebels but to wooden ships as well; I didn't think so much scrap-iron could keep afloat. Mark my words, first thing we know even the passenger liners will all want their iron trim, and the Lord knows but what even the coastwise service'll come to it some day!"

It was after ten o'clock before, discussion ended, the men went their various ways. The storm had ceased, and the intense blue black of the sky set with stars seemed only a degree less cold and burnished than the ice-coated earth over which the "boys" went home, slipping and sliding; the younger making a frolic of the matter, the older clinging to the fence rails.

"It's going to be a mean walk for me to-night, three miles straight up hill and against the wind," said 'Lisha Potts to Gilbert, as he helped him fix the inside bars on the shutters, preparatory to closing the office.

"Then why not stop with me?" questioned the postmaster. "I couldn't think of sleeping for a couple of hours yet, and somehow, the idea of reading don't come natural to-night, though I've been mighty interested getting into the workings of the wars of the ancients, all about the way Xenophon managed to get those ten thousand Greeks to retreat across country, without really skedaddling. Ever heard about it? Mebbe you'd like I should read it to you."

'Lisha, a man of the remoter farming country and timber land, used to the big open spaces of life that some call loneliness, shook his head in an emphatic denial that almost amounted to alarm, and began to button his heavy frieze top-coat.

"Well, well, I won't, so don't get scared," laughed Gilbert, indulgently. "If folks don't thirst for knowledge, there's small use choking it down their throats. Not that the best of learning comes out of books, for you learned your trade of reading the ground and the weather 'n' hunting and tracking all out o' doors."

"I tell you what we'll do, go over back into the house, light all the lamps I've got, and set them in the windows for a victory illumination. Then we'll cook up a nice little supper for our two selves and have a smoke by the fire. I don't often do it these days, haven't felt peart enough; but to-night, somehow, I feel skittish, like I did forty years ago when a pair of yearling steers I'd trained got first premium at the Old Haven Fair. To-night a pipe between my teeth's not a bad habit as the parsons preach, 'Lisha, but a necessity, yes, a bare, vital necessity."

This proposition being in the direct path of 'Lisha's own desires, he gave a cheerful whistle of consent and followed Gilbert through the partly roofed grape arbor that made a passageway between the post-office and the sloped roofed house of Gilbert's forefathers, that stood well back in the garden with its porch facing the hill road.

"Nobody'll see the lights this time of