The Old Man's Stand

Samuel Whittemore was eighty years old and still talking about Louisbourg, about King George's War, about every fight he'd ever been in. When the alarm came, we told him to stay home. He had no business fighting at his age. He ignored us, took his musket and pistols and that old sword, and went to the wall by the road. When the regulars came, he shot three of them before they got him. Shot in the face, run through with bayonets. We found him still trying to reload. He lived—eighteen more years. Some men are too stubborn to die.