"Don't believe it?" and Joe looked, as he echoed the words, as though only a boy could feel sufficient disgust at such a want of common sense, in full view of the fact, that Reuben Brown had just brought the news that eight men had been killed by the king's Red Coats in Lexington, which fact he made haste to impart. "I won't believe a word of it," she said, stoutly, "until I see the soldiers coming." "Ah! Hear that!" cried Joe, tossing back his hair and swinging his arms triumphantly at an airy foe. "You won't have to wait long. _That signal_ is for the minute men. They are going to march out to meet the Red Coats. Wish I was a minute man, this minute." Meanwhile, poor Uncle John was getting down the steps of the stairway, with many a grimace and groan. As he touched the floor, Joe, his face beaming with excitement and enthusiasm, sprang to place a chair for him at the table, saying, "Good morning," at the same moment. "May be," groaned Uncle John, "youngsters _like you may_ think it is a good morning, but _I don't_. Such a din and clatter as the fools have kept up all night long. If I had the power" (and now the poor old man fairly groaned with rage), "I'd make 'em quiet long enough to let an old man get a wink of sleep, when the rheumatism lets go." "I'm real sorry for you," said Joe, "but you don't know the news. The king's troops, from camp, in Boston, are marching right down here, to carry off all our arms that they can find." "Are they?" was the sarcastic rejoinder. "It's the best news I've heard in a long while. Wish they had my arms, this minute. They wouldn't carry them a step further than they could help, I know. Run and tell them that mine are ready, Joe." "But, Uncle John, wait until after breakfast, you'll want to use them once more," said Martha Moulton, trying to help him into a chair that Joe had placed on the white sanded floor. Meanwhile, Joe Devins had ears for all the sounds that penetrated the kitchen from out of doors, and he had eyes for the slices of well-browned pork and the golden-hued Johnny-cake lying before the glowing coals on the broad hearth. As the little woman bent to take up the breakfast, Joe, intent on doing some kindness for her in the way of saving treasures, asked, "Sha'n't I help you, Mother Moulton?" "I reckon I am not so old that I can't lift a mite of corn-bread," she replied with chilling severity. "Oh, I didn't mean to lift _that thing_," he made haste to explain, "but to carry off things and hide 'em away, as everybody else has been doing half the night. I know a first-rate place up in the woods. Used to be a honey tree, you know, and it's just as hollow as anything. Silver spoons and things would be just as safe in it--" but Joe's words were interrupted by unusual tumult on the street and he ran off to learn the news, intending to return and get the breakfast that had been offered to him.