There was a chuckle from a hundred throats as the shrill plea went up. The general glanced inquiringly at Dad, in whose company Jimmie had arrived on the scene.
“He is my grandson, sir,” explained Dad. “Though what he is doing here is beyond all my guessing. I left him back at Ideala, Ohio, a year and more ago. I never heard of him or from him again till to-day. I’d written often, but the letters were never answered. I see now they never were received. The boy’s silence worried me. But not half as much as his presence in this inferno does just at this particular time.”
“Can I please go to the front, gen’ral?” pleaded the boy.
His voice had swelled to a whine. But it was the frantic whine of the leashed hunting-dog when it sees the pack afield.
The general turned to Dad.
“He is your grandson, Captain Dadd,” said he. “Use your own judgment about giving him the permission he wants. I have enough to answer for this day without sending a little boy to probable death.”
“Little boy?” scoffed Jimmie, outraged to the paladin soul. “Little boy, hey? With a regiment of such ‘little’ boys you could storm Vicksburg. And with a brigade of us you could have Richmond for the asking.
“Little boy? I take notice that just now when a passel of big, wise men were holding back and wanting to call it a day and run home, it was a little boy that jacked ’em up and showed ’em the way to win. And it’s the same little boy who’ll do the same thing again out front yonder if you’ll give him half a chance. Aw, lemme go! Out there where the fun is. Me and my drum!”
“Jimmie!” reproved Dad sternly—though his eyes softened at manifestation of the fighting spirit he loved—“Apologize! Apologize at once for speaking disrespectfully to your superior officer. He could rightly send you to the guard-house for impertinence. A soldier’s duty is no duty when it lets him criticize his superiors. If nothing else proved you were still a little boy, your behavior just now proves it. Apologize!”
“I—I apologize,” meekly answered Jimmie, accompanying his humble words with a horrible glower at the general by his grandfather’s side.