“‘But it comes upon me sudden and unexpected like. I didn’t lay out for it at all; but there is some way to pay you, and I will find it after a little.
“‘There is the bounty in the savings bank; I guess we could borrow some money on the mortgage of the farm.’
“‘There was my pay was something, and if he would wait until pay-day I was sure the boys would help; so I thought we could make it up if it wasn’t more than five or six hundred dollars.
“‘But it is a great deal more than that,’ he said.
“Then I said I didn’t just see how, but I was sure I would find some way—if I lived.
“Then Mr. Lincoln put his hands on my shoulders, and looked into my face as if he was sorry, and said; “‘My boy, my bill is a very large one. Your friends cannot pay it, nor your bounty, nor the farm, nor all your comrades!
“‘There is only one man in all the world who can pay it, and his name is William Scott!
“‘If from this day William Scott does his duty, so that, if I was there when he comes to die, he can look me in the face as he does now, and say, I have kept my promise, and I have done my duty as a soldier, then my debt will be paid.
“‘Will you make that promise and try to keep it?”
The promise was given. Thenceforward there never was such a soldier as William Scott.