"Don't forget," said Mrs. Walden, "that we want some pepper, spice, cinnamon, nutmegs, cloves, and some of the very best Maccaboy snuff. Oh, let me see! I want a new foot-stove. Our old one is all banged up, and I am ashamed to be seen filling it at noon in winter in Deacon Stonegood's kitchen, with all the women looking on, and theirs spick and span new." "Father and mother have told me what they want, and now what shall I get for you, Rachel?" Robert asked of his sister. "Anything you please, Rob," Rachel replied with such tender love in her eyes that he had half a mind to kiss her. But kissing was not common in Rumford or anywhere else in New England. Never had he seen his father give his mother such a token of affection. He had a dim recollection that his mother sometimes kissed him when he was a little fellow in frock and trousers, sitting in her lap. He never had kissed Rachel, but he would now, and gave her a hearty smack. He saw an unusual brightness in her eyes and a richer bloom upon her cheek as he stepped into the wagon. "I'll get something nice for her," he said to himself as he rode away. Besides the other articles in the wagon, there was a bag of wool, sheared from his own flock. Years before his father had given him a cosset lamb, and now he was the owner of a dozen sheep. Yes, he would get something for her. The morning air was fresh and pure. He whistled a tune and watched the wild pigeons flying in great flocks here and there, and the red-winged blackbirds sweeping past him from their roosting in the alders along the meadow brook to the stubble field where the wheat had been harvested. Gray squirrels were barking in the woods, and their cousins the reds, less shy, were scurrying along the fence rails and up the chestnut-trees to send the prickly burrs to the ground. The first tinge of autumn was on the elms and maples. Jenny had been to market so many times she could be trusted to take the right road, and he could lie upon his sack of wool and enjoy the changing landscape. Mrs. Stark was blowing the horn for dinner at John Stark's tavern in Derryfield when Jenny came to a standstill by the stable door.[1] Robert put her in the stall, washed his face and hands in the basin on the bench by the bar-room door, and was ready for dinner. Captain Stark shook hands with him. Robert beheld a tall, broad-shouldered man, with a high forehead, bright blue eyes, and pleasant countenance, but with lines in his cheek indicating that he could be very firm and resolute. This was he under whom his father served at Ticonderoga and Crown Point. [Footnote 1: John Stark, tavern-keeper in Derryfield, was the renowned Indian fighter and captain of the corps of Rifle Rangers in the war with France. (See Biography by Jared Sparks.) The tavern is still standing in the suburbs of the city of Manchester, N. H.]