"Good-by," cried Jeremy, running out of Boston as fast as any British soldier of them all and a good deal more frightened. He burst into Aunt Hannah's house with the news that he had been to Boston, that the soldiers were all gone, that he had seen his mother, that she had the small-pox and sent him off in a hurry. "Tut! tut!" she cried. "It's wicked to tell lies, Jeremy Jagger." "I'm not telling lies. Every word is true. Please give me something to eat." But Aunt Hannah did not wait to give the lad food, nor even to speak the prayer of thanksgiving that went like incense from her heart. She went into the barn-yard and threw corn on the barn-floor, to which the hens and turkeys made haste. Closing the door, she summoned Jeremy to kill the largest and best of them. That Sunday afternoon the brick oven glowed with fervent heat, the white, fat offerings went in, and the golden-brown turkeys and chickens came out; and as each, in turn, was pronounced "done," Aunt Hannah repeated the words: "Hungry! hungry! hungry! Hungry all winter!" The big clothes-basket was full of lint for wounds that now never should be made. Gladly she tossed out the fluffy mass, and packed within it every dainty the house contained. It was nearly sunset when Aunt Hannah and Jeremy started forth, with the basket between them, to Mr. Wooster's house, hoping that he would carry it in his wagon up to Boston. He was not at home. "Get out the cart," said Aunt Hannah to Jeremy, when they learned no help was to be obtained. She sat by the roadside watching the basket until the cart arrived. "I'm going with you," she said, after the basket was in; she climbed to the seat beside the lad, and off they started for Boston. It was dark when they reached the lines, and no passes granted, the officers said, to go in that night. "But I've food for the hungry," said Aunt Hannah, in her sweetest voice, from the darkness of the cart, "and folks are hungry in the night as well as in the day." She deftly threw aside the cover from the basket and took out a chicken, which she held forth to the man, saying: "Take it. It's good." He hesitated a moment, then seized it eagerly. "I know you," spoke up Jeremy, at this juncture. "You went up the Neck with us this morning. I saw you." "Then you are the boy who got first into Boston this morning, are you, sir?" "I believe I did, sir." "Go on." The oxen went on. "Now, Jeremy, down with you and wait here for me. You haven't had small-pox," said Aunt Hannah. "But the oxen won't mind you," said Jeremy. Aunt Hannah was troubled. She never had driven oxen. At the moment who should appear but Mr. Wooster. He gladly offered to take the basket and deliver it at Mrs. Jagger's door. "Don't go in, mind! Mother's had small-pox," called Jeremy, as he started.