“Good boy! Fighting Brinton!”
“After that they kind of adopted me in the army of the West. Let me come and go as I would. And called me ‘Battle Jimmie’ and tried to make a pet of me. Gee! Do I look like a pet?
“I asked everywhere for you, and I got hold of all the army lists I could. There wasn’t any news of you in the army of the West. But I saw a man there—a man those Western soldiers say is a wonder—who may be the same man you used to tell me about. The one you used to know in Mexico as Captain Grant. I guess he’s the same one, because he was a captain in the Mexican War. He’s general now. A man without a word in his mouth, but with all the military sense there is.
“One day last month I came across a list of commissioned officers of the Army of the Potomac. It had your name. So here I came.
“I got to the army’s headquarters yesterday and I found what corps you were with and where it was. I borrowed an artillery horse and cut across country to look for you. I got here just as you fellers were charging the woods.
“That’s all about me. Now, how about you, Dad? You’ve succeeded. You’re a captain. Isn’t it wonderful? How did it happen? I knew it would.”
Briefly, Dad sketched his adventures; the hot little hand in his, thrilling with the recital, the boy’s light eyes raised to his in stark hero-worship.
As Dad came to the scene in the old Virginia homestead his voice shook a little with embarrassment. He glossed over all that part of the tale save the little widow’s surpassing goodness to himself. He congratulated himself on the tactful secrecy wherein he was shrouding any hint of sentiment.
Jimmie made no comment, and Dad went on with the rest of the story. At its close the boy said, as though picking up the thread of a long-discussed theme:
“Yes, I shed think she’d make a bully grandmother for any feller.”