“And now, if you please, Ladies and Gentlemen,” Tom had closed the door to upon the last of his party, “we will drive first to The Vermont House, a hostelry well known throughout the surrounding country, and conducted by one of Vermont’s best known and honored sons.”

“Hear!  Hear!” Jack Ward cried.  “I say, Tom, get that off again where Uncle Jerry can hear it, and you’ll always be sure of his vote.”

They had reached the rambling old hotel, from the front porch of which Uncle Jerry himself, surveyed them genially.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” standing up, Tom turned to face the occupants of the stage, his megaphone, carried merely as a badge of office, raised like a conductor’s baton, “I wish to impress upon your minds that the building now before you—­liberal rates for the season—­is chiefly remarkable for never having sheltered the Father of His Country.”

“Now how do you know that?” Uncle Jerry protested.  “Ain’t that North Chamber called the ’Washington room’?”

“Oh, but that’s because the first proprietor’s first wife occupied that room—­and she was famous for her Washington pie,” Tom answered readily.  “I assure you, sir, that any and all information which I shall have the honor to impart to these strangers within our gates may be relied upon for its accuracy.”  He gave the driver the word, and the Folly continued on its way, stopping presently before a little story-and-a-half cottage not far below the hotel and on a level with the street.

“This cottage, my young friends,” Tom said impressively, “should be—­and I trust is—­enshrined deep within the hearts of all true Wintonites.  Latterly, it has come to be called the Barker cottage, but its real title is ‘The Flag House’; so called, because from that humble porch, the first Stars and Stripes ever seen in Winton flung its colors to the breeze.  The original flag is still in possession of a lineal descendant of its first owner, who is, unfortunately, not an inhabitant of this town.”  The boyish gravity of tone and manner was not all assumed now.

No one spoke for a moment; eleven pairs of young eyes were looking out at the little weather-stained building with new interest.  “I thought,” Bell Ward said at last, “that they called it the flag place, because someone of that name had used to live there.”

“So did I,” Hilary said.

As the stage moved on, Shirley leaned back for another look.  “I shall get father to come and sketch it,” she said.  “Isn’t it the quaintest old place?”

“We will now proceed,” Tom announced, “to the village green, where I shall have the pleasure of relating to you certain anecdotes regarding the part it played in the early life of this interesting old village.”

“Not too many, old man,” Tracy Dixon suggested hurriedly, “or it may prove a one-sided pleasure.”

The green lay in the center of the town,—­a wide, open space, with flagstaff in the middle; fine old elms bordered it on all four sides.  The Vermont House faced it, on the north, and on the opposite side stood the general store, belonging to Mr. Ward, with one or two smaller places of business.