240 EARLY DAY STORIES. 



place and play ''Button, button, who's got the button ?" Or. 

 if there was an old soldier present — and there were old sol- 

 diers then same as now, only they were soldiers of the war 

 of 1812, he would perhaps be prevailed upon to tell a story of 

 the war, or my mother might tell how her father was taken 

 prisoner at the battle of Long Island during the war of the 

 Revolution — how he was kept on board a prison ship for 

 six weeks in New York harbor, and finally when exchanged, 

 was made by his British captors to pass directly by a man 

 who was all broken out with small pox. This man was sit- 

 ting right by the gangway where all the prisoners as they 

 came up from the hold of the ship, had to pass within a foot 

 or so of him. How many of them took the disease it is not 

 known, but my grandfather caught it and came near dying 

 after he returned home. Stories of the Revolutionary war 

 and of the war of 1812 were very popular in those days. 

 The old hatred against Great Britain on account of the war 

 of the Revolution and of 1812 had not then died out to any 

 great extent and the children were taught by their fathers, 

 especially if the fathers were old soldiers, to hate the ''red 

 coats" as the British soldiers were called. 



But to come back to the subject. Sometimes in sum- 

 mer the fire went out, in spite of pains taken to keep it alive, 

 and then fire had to be borrowed from a neighbor. Neigh- 

 bors were plenty and some of them were near. As I re- 

 member it, there were eleven families living within a mile 

 of my mother's, when I was ten years old. As I was the 

 oldest of the younger boys, it generally fell to my lot to 

 go for fire whenever it went out. It never happened, in so 

 far as I remember, that more than one fire in the neighbor- 

 hood went out at the same time — so there was no difficulty 

 in borrowing fire. But supposing a family lived two or 

 three miles from the nearest neighbor, what would be done 

 in that case? They would take great care that the fire 

 should not go out. If it did go out they would have a way 



