doorway shouted the words, "Hide, hide away somewhere, Mother Moulton, for the Red-coats are in sight this minute!" She heard the warning, and giving one glance at Uncle John, which look was answered by another, "no, you won't have it," she grasped Joe Devins by the collar of his jacket and thrust him before her up the staircase, so quickly that the boy had no chance to speak, until she released her hold at the entrance to Uncle John's room. The idea of being taken prisoner in such a manner, and by a woman, too, was too much for the lad's endurance. "Let me go!" he cried, the instant he could recover his breath. "I won't hide away in your garret, like a woman, I won't. I want to see the militia and the minute men fight the troops, I do."
"Help me first, Joe. Here, quick now; let's get this box out and up garret. We'll hide it under the corn and it'll be safe," she coaxed. The box was under Uncle John's bed. "What's in the old thing any how?" questioned Joe, pulling with all his strength at it. The box, or chest, was painted red, and was bound about by massive iron bands. "I've never seen the inside of it," said Mother Moulton. "It holds the poor old soul's sole treasure, and I DO want to save it for him if I can." They had drawn it with much hard endeavor, as far as the garret stairs, but their united strength failed to lift it. "Heave it, now!" cried Joe, and lo! it was up two steps. So they turned it over and over with many a thudding thump; every one of which thumps Uncle John heard, and believed to be strokes upon the box itself to burst it asunder, until it was fairly shelved on the garret floor. In the very midst of the overturnings, a voice from below had been heard crying out, "Let my box alone! Don't break it open. If you do, I'll--I'll--" but, whatever the poor man MEANT to threaten as a penalty, he could not think of anything half severe enough to say and so left it uncertain as to the punishment that might be looked for. "Poor old soul!" ejaculated the little woman, her soft white curls in disorder and the pink color rising from her cheeks to her fair forehead, as she bent to help Joe drag the box beneath the rafter's edge. "Now, Joe," she said, "we'll heap nubbins over it, and if the soldiers want corn they'll take good ears and never think of touching poor nubbins"; so they fell to work throwing corn over the red chest, until it was completely concealed from view. Then he sprang to the high-up-window ledge in the point of the roof and took one glance out. "Oh, I see them, the Red-coats. True's I live, there go the militia UP THE HILL. I thought they was going to stand and defend. Shame on 'em, I say." Jumping down and crying back to Mother Moulton, "I'm going to stand by the minute men," he went down, three steps at a leap, and 

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