Now Dick had been sent to said wood-pile, in company with his little sister Grace, to pick up chips, which, every-body knows, was in the olden time considered a wholesome and gracious employment, and the peculiar duty of the rising generation. But said Dick, being a boy, had mounted the wood-pile, and erected there a flag-staff, on which he was busily tying a little red pocket-handkerchief, occasionally exhorting Gracie “to be sure and pick up fast.” “O, yes, I will,” said Grace; “but you see the chips have got ice on ’em, and make my hands so cold!” “O! don’t stop to suck your thumbs!--who cares for ice? Pick away, I say, while I set up the flag of Liberty.” So Grace picked away as fast as she could, nothing doubting but that her cold thumbs were in some mysterious sense an offering on the shrine of Liberty; while soon the red handkerchief, duly secured, fluttered and snapped in the brisk evening wind. “Now you must hurra, Gracie, and throw up your bonnet,” said Dicky, as he descended from the pile. “But won’t it lodge down in some place in the wood-pile?” suggested Gracie, thoughtfully. “O, never fear; give it to me, and just holler now, Gracie, ‘Hurra for Liberty;’ and we’ll throw up your bonnet and my cap; and we’ll play, you know, that we were a whole army, and I’m General Washington.” So Gracie gave up her little red hood, and Dick swung his cap, and up they both went into the air; and the children shouted, and the flag snapped and fluttered, and altogether they had a merry time of it. But then the wind--good-for-nothing, roguish fellow!--made an ungenerous plunge at poor Gracie’s little hood, and snipped it up in a twinkling, and whisked it off, off, off,--fluttering and bobbing up and down, quite across a wide, waste, snowy field, and finally lodged it on the top of a tall strutting rail, that was leaning very independently, quite another way from all the other rails of the fence. “Now see, do see!” said Gracie; “there goes my bonnet! What will Aunt Hitty say?” and Gracie began to cry. “Don’t you cry, Gracie; you offered it up to Liberty, you know,--it’s glorious to give up everything for Liberty.” “O! but Aunt Hitty won’t think so.” “Well, don’t cry, Gracie, you foolish girl! Do you think I can’t get it? Now, only play that that great rail was a fort, and your bonnet was a prisoner in it, and see how quick I’ll take the fort, and get it!” and Dick shouldered a stick, and started off. * * * * * “What upon ’arth keeps those children so long? I should think they were making chips!” said Aunt Mehetabel; “the fire’s just a-going out under the tea-kettle.” By this time Gracie had lugged her heavy basket to the door, and was stamping the snow off her little feet, which were so numb that she needed to stamp, to be quite sure they were yet there. Aunt Mehetabel’s shrewd face was the first that greeted her, as the door opened.