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[Illustration: "COLONEL TAKE YOUR COLORS!"]




THE SOCK STORIES,

BY "AUNT FANNY'S" DAUGHTER.

RED, WHITE, AND BLUE

SOCKS.

Part First.

BEING

THE FIRST BOOK OF THE SERIES.

BY

"AUNT FANNY'S" DAUGHTER,

THE AUTHOR OF "THE LITTLE WHITE ANGEL."

WITH AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER,

BY "AUNT FANNY" HERSELF.

          NEW YORK:
          LEAVITT & ALLEN, 21 & 23 MERCER ST.
          1863.




   Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862, by

  S. L. BARROW,

   In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States
     for the Southern District of New York.

  JOHN F. TROW,
  Printer, Stereotyper, and Electrotyper,
  60 Greene Street, New York.




CONTENTS OF VOL. I.


                                           PAGE

  INTRODUCTION--THE STORY OF THE SOCKS,      7


  COLONEL FREDDY; OR, THE MARCH AND
    ENCAMPMENT OF THE DASHAHED ZOUAVES,

  CHAP. I.--RAISING A REGIMENT,             35
       II.--"MARCHING ALONG,"               55
      III.--CAMP LIFE,                      76




DEDICATION.


MY DEAR LITTLE COOLEY AND GEORGIE:

WHEN you see that this book is dedicated to you, I hope your bright eyes
will sparkle with pleasure; but I am afraid your pretty curly heads will
hardly retain a recollection of a little personage who once lived close
to your beautiful home on Staten Island. She remembers _you_, however,
and sends you this soldier story with her very best love--the love she
bears in her inmost heart for God and little children. And now she asks
you to hunt in every corner of those same precious little heads for a
kindly remembrance of your affectionate friend,

                                           "AUNT FANNY'S" DAUGHTER.




THE STORY OF THE SOCKS.

BY AUNT FANNY.


"OH dear! what _shall_ I do?" cried George, fretfully, one rainy
afternoon. "Mamma, do tell me what to do."

"And I'm _so_ tired!" echoed Helen, who was lazily playing with a kitten
in her lap. "I don't see why it should rain on a Friday afternoon, when
we have no lessons to learn. We can't go out, and no one can come to see
us. It's too bad, there!"

"Helen, do _you_ know better than _God_?" asked her mother, speaking
very gravely. "You forget that He sends the rain."

"I suppose I was thoughtless, mamma," answered the child; "I did not
mean to be wicked, but, dear me, the time passes _so_ slowly, with
nothing to do."

"Have you and George read all your books?"

"Oh yes! two or three times over," they both answered; "and oh, mamma,"
continued Helen, "if the one who wrote 'Two Little Heaps,' or the
'Rollo' book writer, or the author of 'The Little White Angel,' would
only write some more books, I, for one, would not care how hard it
rained. If I was grown up and rich, I wouldn't mind giving a dollar a
letter for those stories."

"Nor I," shouted George in an animated tone, quite different from the
discontented whine he had favored his mother with a few moments before;
"the best thing is to have them read aloud to you; that makes you
understand all about it so much better. I say, mamma, couldn't you write
a letter to one of those delightful people and beg them to hurry up with
more stories, especially some about bad children;--not exactly wicked,
you know, but full of mischief. _Then I am sure that they are all true._
Only wait till I'm a man! I'll just write the history of some jolly
fellows I know who are always getting into scrapes, but haven't a scrap
of meanness about them. That's the kind of book I like! I'll write
dozens of them, and give them to all the Sunday school libraries."

His mother smiled at this speech, and then said quietly, "I know a
gentleman who likes the story of 'The Little White Angel,' as much as
you do, and he has written a letter to request the author to write six
books for him."

"Six! hurrah!" shouted George, "how glad I am!" and he skipped up to
Helen, caught her by the hands, and the two danced round the room,
upsetting a chair, till Helen, catching her foot in the skirt of her
mother's dress, they both tumbled down on the carpet together.

"If you cut up such violent capers," said the kind mother, laughing,
"at the first part of my information, it may be dangerous to tell you
what the author replied."

"Oh no, do tell us!" cried the children. "We'll be as still as our
shadows;" and while they made violent efforts to look grave and stand
quiet, their mother told them that the author had consented, the six
books were to be written, and she would buy them the very first day they
were published. "Perhaps," she continued, "mind, only perhaps, I may get
them for you _before_ they are ever printed."

"Why, how, mamma?" they both asked.

"Well, suppose you make some very good resolutions--let me see," and
she took a pencil out of her pocket, and drawing a sheet of paper toward
her, began to write:

"1st. To endeavor to say your prayers morning and evening without a
_wandering thought_.

"2d. To try to keep faithfully 'the Golden Rule.'

"3d. To obey your parents immediately, without asking 'why?'

"4th. (A little rule, but very important.) To keep your teeth, nails,
and hair scrupulously clean and neat.

"5th. To bear disappointments cheerfully.

"There, I think that will do. They are all hard rules except the fourth.
I do not keep them well myself, my dear children. No one can, without
constant watchfulness and prayer for help from above; but you can try,
will you?"

"I will, mamma," said Helen, in a low, earnest tone, her blue eyes
filling with tears.

"And you, George, will you?"

"Yes, mamma, I will try. I can't be a very good boy, as you know. I get
so tired of being good sometimes, that I feel like jumping over the
house to get the badness out of me, instead of sitting down quietly and
thinking about my duty, as papa says I must. When papa locked me up in
his dressing room last summer, and I kicked the door as hard as ever I
could, which made him call out that I should stay there two hours
longer, I was mad enough, I tell you! but I did not cut my name with a
knife on his rosewood bureau _because_ I was angry. It was because I was
almost crazy with doing nothing but think what a bad boy I was. That
made me worse, you see. The best way to punish me is to see you crying
about my conduct. I can't stand that," and the boy put his arms round
his mother's neck, and kissed her fondly.

"My dear boy," said his mother, returning the caress, "there is One whom
you grieve more than me. I wish you would think oftener of that. I know
that different children require different sorts of punishment, and as
neither your father nor I approve of beating you like a dog, and you
say that shutting you up with nothing to do only makes you worse, I
shall advise him the next time you are naughty, to send immediately for
a load of wood, and make you saw it all up into small pieces, or take
you where some house is building and order you to run up and down a long
ladder all day with a hod of bricks on your shoulder, or hire you out to
blow the big bellows for a blacksmith. How do you think you would like
that?"

"I had a great deal rather run after the fire engines, to put the fire
out. That's the kind of work I would like. Every body screaming, and
pumping, and playing streams of water--twenty firemen rushing up
ladders, pulling old women and cats out of the windows, and somebody
inside pitching out the looking glasses and crockery to save them! I
wish our house was on fire this very minute, so I could pull you and
Helen out, and save all the furniture. That would be the greatest fun in
the world!"

"Please don't set fire to the house," cried his mother, laughing, "for
the fun of saving our lives. I prefer to keep it just as it is, and
walking quietly out at the door." As she spoke, the sun suddenly burst
forth from the clouds, and his bright rays darting into the room, the
children sprang joyfully up,