Quincy said interrogatively, “Did you lose a son in the war?”

“No,” was the reply.  “I never had a son.  That was my substitute.”

“Strange that your substitute should have the same name as yourself.”

“Yes, it would have been if he had, but he didn’t.  His right name was Lemuel Butters.  But I didn’t propose to put my money into such a name as that.”

“Were you drafted?” asked Quincy.

“No,” said Uncle Ike.  “I might as well tell you the whole story, for you seem bound to have it.  I came down here in 1850, when I was about sixty.  Of course I knew what was going on, but I didn’t take much interest in the war, till a lot of soldiers went by one day.  They stopped here; we had a talk, and they told me a number of things that I hadn’t seen in the papers.  I haven’t read the daily papers for thirteen years, but I take some weeklies and the magazines and buy some books.  Well, the next day I went over to Eastborough Centre and asked the selectmen how much it would cost to send a man to the war.  They said substitutes were bringing $150 just then, but that I was over age and couldn’t be drafted, and there was no need of my sending anybody.  I remarked that in my opinion a man’s patriotism ought not to die out as long as he lived.  It seemed to me that if a man had $150 it was his duty to pay for a substitute, if he was a hundred.  The selectmen said that they had a young fellow named Lem Butters who was willing to go if he got a hundred and fifty.  So I planked down the money, but with the understanding that he should take my name.  Well, to make a long story short, I got killed at Gettysburg and I wrote that out as a reminder.”

“Don’t you ever get lonesome alone here by yourself?” Quincy asked.

“Yes,” said Uncle Ike.  “I am lonesome every minute of the time.  That’s what I came down here for.  I got tired being lonesome with other people around me, so I thought I would come down here and be lonesome all by myself, and I have never been sorry I came.”

Quincy opened his eyes and looked inquiringly at Uncle Ike.

“I don’t quite understand what you mean by being lonesome with other people around you,” said he.

“No, of course you don’t,” replied Uncle Ike.  “You are too young.  I was sixty.  I was thirty-five when I got married and my wife was only twenty-two, so when I was sixty she was only forty-seven.  One girl was twenty-three and the other twenty.  I went to work at seven o’clock in the morning and got home at seven at night.  My wife and daughters went to theatres, dinners, and parties, and of course I stayed at home and kept house with the servant girl.  In my business I had taken in two young fellows as partners, both good, honest men, but soon they got to figuring that on business points they were two and I was one, and pretty soon all I had to do was to put wood on the fire and feed the office cat.  So you can see I was pretty lonesome about eighteen hours out of the twenty-four.”