Little Sim Cutts, who broke the silence that night when the post-man threw down the "Boston Gazette," was an old man of eighty-five when they all got the news of the shots at Fort Sumter. The old man was as hale and hearty as are half the men of sixty in this land to-day. With all his heart he encouraged the boys who volunteered in answer to the first call for regiments from Maine. Then with full reliance on the traditions of the "Fighting Twenty-seventh," he explained to the fishermen and the coasters that Uncle Abraham would need them for his web-footed service, as well as for his legions on the land. And they found out their ways to Portsmouth and to Charlestown, so that they might enter the navy as their brothers entered the army. And so it was, that, when Christmas came in 1861, there was at Tripp's Cove only one of that noble set of young fellows, who but a year before was hauling hemlock and spruce and fir and pine at Christmas at the girls' order, and worked in the meeting-house for two days as the girls bade them work, so that when Parson Spaulding came in to preach his Christmas sermon, he thought the house was a bit of the woods themselves. Only one! And who was he? How did he dare stay among all those girls who were crying out their eyes, and sewing their fingers to the bones,--meeting every afternoon in one sitting-room or another, and devouring every word that came from the army? They read the worst-spelled letter that came home from Mike Sawin, and prized it and blessed it and cried over it, as heartily as the noblest description of battle that came from the pen of Carleton or of Swinton. Who was he? Ah! I have caught you, have I? That was Tom Cutts,--the old General's great-grandson,--Sim Cutts's grandson,--the very noblest and bravest of them all. He got off first of all. He had the luck to be at Bull Run,--and to be cut off from his regiment. He had the luck to hide under a corn crib, and to come into Washington whole, a week after the regiment. He was the first man in Maine, they said, to enlist for the three-years' service. Perhaps the same thing is said of many others. He had come home and raised a new company,--and he was making them fast into good soldiers, out beyond Fairfax Court-House. So that the Brigadier would do any thing Tom Cutts wanted. And when, on the first of December, there came up to the Major-General in command a request for leave of absence from Tom Cutts, respectfully referred to Colonel This, who had respectfully referred it to General That, who had respectfully referred it to Adjutant-General T'other,--all these dignitaries had respectfully recommended that the request be granted. For even in the sacred purlieux of the top Major-General's Head-quarters, it was understood that Cutts was going home for no less a purpose than the being married to the prettiest and sweetest and best girl in Eastern Maine.