The First Capture; or, Hauling Down the Flag of England
cigarettes in their hands.

These sprucely dressed young fellows were Tories of the worst description, but they followed in the footsteps of their fathers. One was a "passive" Tory and the other was an "aggressive" Tory. How these two men differed in opinion and actions shall be told further on.

CHAPTER III.

ZEKE LEWIS.

Have you ever met a New England man whom your grandparents used to regard as the very personification of all that was utterly worthless so far as the labor with his hands was concerned? We do not mean by saying this that Zeke Lewis was lazy—the old folks had a milder term for it. He was always at work at something, but he was shiftless. Nothing that he could do appeared to get him ahead any. Work always looked for him; he never looked for work. If anybody wanted a pair of shoes mended Zeke was always the man looked for. He was generally to be found at the tavern (Zeke did not drink any, we'll say that much for him), or loafing around the corner grocery, and he was always "lying on his oars," that is, ready to pull in any direction in which work was to be found. Zeke would work early and late upon those shoes until he got them done, and he carried his money straight to his wife, who had the faculty of making a shilling go farther than he would. If a vessel was ready to sail, either up or down the coast or on a fishing trip, Zeke always got the first berth. He could do more work in less time and with less trouble than any two men you could find. And he was brave, too. No one ever saw Zeke refuse to go where duty called him.

He was just such a man as you would expect to see after this description of his way of doing business. He was tall, and so round-shouldered that he did not look as though he had any chest at all; he was strong; so strong that when he got hold of a rope everybody knew he was there. There were two things about him that were noticeable—his smiling, good-natured face and his queue, which was always freshly combed and looked as though it had come from the hands of a dresser. But then his wife always attended to that. She took it down and combed it every day.

Zeke was always in straits where money was concerned. No matter how hard he worked or how little money he spent upon himself he never could make both ends meet. One night he came home after a hard day's work in the hay-field. He found his wife sitting in the kitchen engaged in knitting, but she made no efforts at all to get supper for her husband. Zeke thought she looked a little paler 
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