E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) ALL THE BROTHERS WERE VALIANT * * * * * * The MacMillan Company New York · Boston · Chicago · Dallas Atlanta · San Francisco MacMillan & Co., Limited London · Bombay · Calcutta Melbourne The MacMillan Co. of Canada, Ltd. Toronto * * * * * * ALL THE BROTHERS WERE VALIANT by BEN AMES WILLIAMS New York The MacMillan Company 1919 All rights reserved Copyright, 1919, by The Ridgway Company Copyright, 1919 by The MacMillan Company Set up and electrotyped. Published, May, 1919 ALL THE BROTHERS WERE VALIANT ALL THE BROTHERS WERE VALIANT I The fine old house stood on Jumping Tom Hill, above the town. It had stood there before there was a town, when only a cabin or two fringed the woods below, nearer the shore. The weather boarding had been brought in ships from England, ready sawed; likewise the bricks of the chimney. Indians used to come to the house in the cold of winter, begging shelter. Given blankets, and food, and drink, they slept upon the kitchen floor; and when Joel Shore's great-great-grandfather came down in the morning, he found Indians and blankets gone together. Sometimes the Indians came back with a venison haunch, or a bear steak ... sometimes not at all. The house had, now, the air of disuse which old New England houses often have. It was in perfect repair; its paint was white, and its shutters hung squarely at the windows. But the grass was uncut in the yard, and the lack of a veranda, and the tight-closed doors and windows, made the house seem lifeless and lacking the savor of human presence. There was a white-painted picket fence around the yard; and a rambler rose draped these pickets. The buds on the rose were bursting into crimson flower. The house was four-square, plain, and without any ornamentation. It was built about a great, square chimney that was like a spine. There were six flues in this chimney, and a pot atop each flue. These little chimney pots breaking the severe outlines of the house, gave the only suggestion of lightness or frivolity about it. They were like the heads of impish children, peeping over a fence....