“I’m sorry,” began the boy ruefully, “but—”
The change in his grandfather’s face made him cry out in hot contrition:
“Aw, I was fooling, Dad! I just wanted to have a joke with you like we used to. I’m a chump! Here it is—a dandy fat letter, too.”
Dad seized the letter, laughing perfunctorily to show Jimmie he appreciated the jest that had constricted his heartstrings and throat. The boy tactfully withdrew to a little distance and proceeded to engage Emp in a thrilling game of “wrassle the bear,” Emp reluctantly enacting the ursine rôle.
Dad opened the envelope with the luxurious slowness of one who seeks to drag out a pleasure to its utmost bounds. He smoothed wide the crinkly sheets with their fine, quaint handwriting, and began to read.
This letter began neither with admonitions to carefulness nor with eager queries as to his health. In fact, it could scarce be said to “begin” at all. It started off in the very middle of the writer’s burst of excitement.
Dad read:
Something wonderful’s happened. It’s got me so stirred up I don’t know which end of it to begin to tell first, and my hand’s all jumpy. Listen, Jim:
This morning, as I was coming on duty at the hospital, I could tell the minute I got into the big outer hall something was up. Everybody was hurrying around, all flustered and het up, but all looking pleased as Punch. And the orderly at the door told me President Lincoln was making an inspection of the wards.
I was crazy to see him; and I’d heard how he goes from bed to bed, talking to the sick soldiers just like they were his babies. So I started at a trot for the nearest ward, hoping I’d get one glimpse of him.