"
"Yes!" Fred exclaimed, and upon that he turned free of mirth for the
moment. "That's the woman of it, I guess. Send the old men to do the
fighting! For the matter of that, I guess my father'd about a thousand
times go himself than see me and my brothers go; but Father's so fat he
can't stoop! You got to be able to stoop to dig a trench, I guess! Well,
suppose we sent our old men up against those Dutchmen; the Dutchmen
would just kill the old men, and then come after the boys anyway, and
the boys wouldn't be ready, and they'd get killed, too; and then there
wouldn't be anybody but the Dutchmen left, and that'd be one fine world,
wouldn't it?"
"Yes," said Ramsey. "Course I thought of that."
"Did you tell her?"
"No."
"What did you say?"
"Nothin'. I couldn't get started anyway, but, besides, what was the use?
But she didn't want the old men to go; she didn't want anybody to go."
"What did she want the country to do?" Fred asked, impatiently.
"Just what it has been doin', I suppose. Just let things simmer down,
and poke along, and let them do what they like to us.
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