The people of Pittsburg had no tea to throw overboard. The Stamp Act bore lightly on them. They could brew good beer, they could distil whiskey and make passable wine. Fish and game were in abundance, the fields laughed with riotous harvests, so what if a few did go to war? Sandy relented after a little and they took up the evenings of card-playing, with the cider or beer and doughnuts, or a brittle kind of spice cake that Mrs. Bradin could make in perfection. They had arguments, to be sure: Marc Bradin was on the side of the Colonies, and he had taken pains to keep informed of the causes of disaffection. It was going to be a big country and could govern itself since it must know better what was needed than a king thousands of miles away! Sandy held his spite against the French sufficiently in abeyance to learn to play piquet with great-grandfather. It interested him wonderfully, and since two could play a game the women could knit and sew and gossip. News came infrequently. Bradin often went to the Fort to hear. If there were reverses, he held his peace in a cheerful sort of way--if victories, there was rejoicing among themselves. For they tried not to ruffle Sandy Carrick unnecessarily. Daffodil went often to see grandad and Norry, as they called the merry-hearted second wife, who nearly always had some tidbit for her. And grandad took her on journeys sitting in front of him on an improvised pillion, teaching her to sit astride and buckling a strap around both bodies. "For you'll have to be my boy, Dilly. My other boy'll never come back to us." "Where will he go?" in her wondering tone. "The Lord only knows, child." CHAPTER II A JOYFUL RETURN "It is so good to get out among you all," Barbe Carrick said, as she was pillowed up in a big high-backed chair and wrapped in a soft gray blanket. Her hair was gathered in a pretty white cap with a ruffle of lace about the edge, framing in her rather thin face. "So good! And the good news! Why, I feel almost well." It had been a slow autumnal fever, never very serious, but wearing. Mrs. Bradin knew the use of many herbs and was considered as good as a doctor by most of the settlers. The room would have made a fine "Interior," if there had been a Dutch artist at hand. It was of good dimensions, or the great fireplace would have dwarfed it. Marc Bradin was a handy man, as not a few were in those days when new settlers could not encumber themselves with much furniture. There were some of the old French belongings, a sort of escritoire that had drawers below and shelves above and was in two pieces. But the tables and chairs and the corner cupboard were of his fashioning. There was china, really beautiful pewter ware, some pieces of hammered brass, candlesticks, and one curious lamp. The rafters were dark with age and smoke, but they were not ornamented with flitches of bacon, for there was a smoke-house out one side.