shot to pieces. I just have to chain myself to the floor whenever I hear a cannon-shot or see a soldier. When can I go?”
The woman stared at him. In him she saw faintly the face of the boy dying upstairs. In him she saw the white face of the boy who lay under the sun and dew, dead at Seven Pines. In him she saw all her kith and kin, who, true to the traditions of that house, had given up their lives for a cause now practically lost. She could not give up the last one. She drew him gently to her, but, boy-like, he disengaged himself and drew away with a shake of his head, not that he loved his mother the less, but honour – as he saw it – the more.
“Why don’t you speak?” he whispered at last.
“I don’t know what to say to you, Wilfred,” faltered his mother, although there was but one thing to say, and she knew that she must say it, yet she was fighting, woman-like, for time.
“I will tell you what to say,” said the boy.
“What?”
“Say that you won’t mind if I go down to Petersburg and enlist.”
“But that would not be true, Wilfred,” said his mother, smiling faintly.
“True or not, mother, I can’t stay here.”
“Oh, Wilfred, Russell has gone, and Howard is going, and now you want to go and get killed.”
“I don’t want to be killed at all, mother.”
“But you are so young, my boy.”
“Not younger than Tom Kittridge,” answered the boy; “not younger than Ell Stuart or Cousin Steven or hundreds of other boys down there. See, mother – they have called for all over eighteen, weeks ago; the seventeen call may be out any moment; the next one after that takes me. Do you want me to stay here until I am ordered out! I should think not. Where’s your pride?”
“My pride? Ah, my son, it is on the battlefield, over at Seven Pines, and upstairs with Howard.”
“Well, I don’t care, mother,” he persisted obstinately. “I love you and all that, you know it, – but I can’t stand this. I’ve got to go. I must go.”
Mrs. Varney recognised from the ring of determination in the boy’s voice that his mind was made up. She could no longer hold him. With or without her consent he would go, and why should she withhold it? Other boys as young as hers had gone and had not come back. Aye, there was the rub: she had given one, the other trembled on the verge, and now the last one! Yes, he must go, too, – to live or die as God pleased. If they wanted her to sacrifice everything on the altar of her country, she had her own pride, she would do it, as hundreds of other women had done. She rose from her chair and went toward her boy. He was a slender lad of sixteen but was quite as tall as she. As he stood there he looked strangely like his father, thought the woman.
“Well,” she said at last, “I will write to your father and – ”
“But,” the boy interrupted in great disappointment, “that’ll take forever. You never can tell where his brigade is from day to day. I can’t wait for you to do that.”
“Wilfred,” said his mother, “I can’t let you go without his consent. You must be patient. I will write the letter at once, and we will send it by a special messenger. You ought to hear by to-morrow.”
The boy turned away impatiently and strode toward the door.
“Wilfred,” said his mother gently. The tender appeal in her voice checked him. She came over to him and put her arm about his shoulders. “Don’t feel bad, my boy, that you have to stay another day with your mother. It may be many days, you know, before – ”
“It isn’t that,” said Wilfred.
“My darling boy – I know it. You want to fight for your country – and I’m proud of you. I want my sons to do their duty. But with your father at the front, one boy dead, and the other wounded, dying – ”
She turned away.
“You will write father to-night, won’t you?”
“Yes – yes!”
“I’ll wait, then, until we have had time to get a reply,” said the boy.
“Yes, and then you will go away. I know what your father’s answer will be. The last of my boys – Oh, God, my boys!”
CHAPTER II
A COMMISSION FROM THE PRESIDENT
The door giving entrance to the hall was opened unceremoniously by the rotund and privileged Martha. She came at an opportune time, relieving the tension between the mother and son. Wilfred was not insensible to his mother’s feelings, but he was determined to go to the front. He was glad of the interruption and rather shamefacedly took advantage of it by leaving the room.
“Well, Martha, what is it?” asked Mrs. Varney, striving to regain her composure.
“Deys one ob de men fum de hossiple heah, ma’am.”
“Another one?”
“Ah ’clah to goodness, ma’am, dey jes’ keeps a-comin’ an’ a-comin’. ’Peahs like we cain’t keep no close fo’ ourse’f; de sheets an’ tablecloths an’ napkins an’ eben de young misstess’ petticoats, dey all hab to go.”
“And we have just sent all the bandages we have,” said Mrs. Varney, smiling.
“Den we got to git some mo’. Dey says dey’s all used up, an’ two mo’ trains jes’ come in crowded full o’ wounded sojahs – an’ mos’ all ob ’em dreffeul bad!”
“Is Miss Kittridge here yet, Martha?”
“Yas’m, Ah jes’ seed her goin’ thu de hall into de libr’y.”
“Ask her if they have anything to send. Even if it’s only a little let them have it. What they need most is bandages. There are some in Howard’s room, too. Give them half of what you find there. I think what we have left will last long enough to – to – ”
“Yas’m,” said old Martha, sniffing. “Ah’m a-gwine. Does you want to see de man?”
“Yes, send him in,” said Mrs. Varney.
There was a light tap on the door after Martha went out.
“Come in,” said the mistress of the house, and there entered to her a battered and dilapidated specimen of young humanity, his arm in a sling. “My poor man!” exclaimed Mrs. Varney. “Sit down.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“Martha,” she called to the old woman, who paused at the door on her way to the stairs, “can’t you get something to eat and drink for this gentleman?”
“Well, the pantry ain’t obahflowin’, as you know, Mrs. Varney. But Ah reckon Ah might fin’ a glass o’ milk ef Ah jes’ had to.”
“All our wine has gone long ago,” said Mrs. Varney to the soldier, “but if a glass of milk – ”
“I
