“They were stores laid up to enable us to go to war, and they were 'round in different places. There were two twenty-four-pounders that they spiked, and they threw about five hundred pounds of ball into the river or wells, and broke up sixty barrels of flour, and scattered it about.” “Wal,” said Sam triumphantly, “there was one lot they didn't get. Cap'n Tim Wheeler had about the biggest lot o' wheat, and rye-flour, and corn-meal stored up in his barn, with some barrels of his own. So when this 'ere fine jay-bird of an officer came to him all so grand, and told him to open his barn and let him look in, the cap'n, he took his key, and walked right out, and opened the barndoor; and the officer was tickled to pieces. He thought he'd got such a haul! “'If you please, sir,' says the cap'n, 'I'm a miller, and got my living by grinding grain. I'm a poor man. You can see my mill out there. I grind up a lot o' grain in the winter, and get it ready to sell in the spring. Some's wheat, and some's rye, and some's corn-meal; and this wheat is mine, and this rye is mine, and this corn-meal is mine;' and, when he spoke, he put his hand on his own barrels. “'Oh! if this is your private property,' says the officer, 'we sha'n't touch that: we don't meddle with private property.' And so he turned on his heel, and the cap'n, he locked up his barn.” “Was that telling the truth?” said I. “Wal, you see it was true what he said,” said Sam. “Them bar'ls he laid his hands on was hisn.” “But Aunt Lois told me yesterday it was as bad to act a lie as to speak one,” said I. “Well, so I did,” said Aunt Lois. “The truth is the truth, and I 'll stick to it.” “But, Aunt Lois, would you have told him, and let him break up all those barrels?” “No, I shouldn't,” said Aunt Lois. “I should have done just as Cap'n Tim did; but I should have done _wrong_. Right is right, and wrong is wrong, even if I can't come up to it always.” “What would you have done, grandfather?” said I. My grandfather's mild face slowly irradiated, as when moonbeams pass over a rock. “Well, boys,” he said, “I don't think I should have let him break up those barrels. If it was wrong to do as Cap'n Wheeler did, I think most likely I should 'a' done it. I don't suppose I'm any better than he was.” “Well, at any rate,” said Aunt Lois, “what folks' do in war time is no rule for ordinary times: every thing is upset then. There ain't any of the things they do in war time that are according to gospel teaching; but, if you boys were to do just as Cap'n Wheeler did, I should say you lied by speaking the truth.” “Well, well,” said my grandmother, “those were dreadful times. Thank the Lord that they are past and gone, and we don't have such awful cases of conscience as we did then. I never could quite see how we did right to resist the king at all.” “Why, the Bible says, 'Resist the devil,'” said Aunt Lois. A general laugh followed this sally.