“Who’s going to war now?” he asked, turning to Helen.
“Poor—poor Tom!” burst out the black-eyed girl, and began to dabble her eyes again.
“What’s the matter o’ him?” demanded the old miller.
“He’ll—he’ll be shot—I know he’ll be killed, and mangled horribly!”
“Fiddle-de-dee!” grunted Uncle Jabez, but his tone of voice was not as harsh as his words sounded. “I never got shot, nor mangled none to speak of, and I was fightin’ and marchin’ three endurin’ years.”
“You, Uncle Jabez?” cried Ruth.
“Yep. And I wish they’d take me again. I can go a-soldierin’ as good as the next one. I’m tough and I’m wiry. They talk about this war bein’ a dreadful war. Shucks! All wars air dreadful. They won’t never have a battle over there that’ll be as bad as the Wilderness—believe me! They may have more battles, but I went through some of the wust a man could ever experience.”
“And—and you weren’t shot?” gasped Helen.
“Not a bit. Three years of campaigning and never was scratched. Don’t you look for Tom Cameron to be killed fust thing just because he’s going to the wars. If more men didn’t come back from the wars than git killed in ’em how d’ye s’pose this old world would have gone on rolling? Shucks!”
“I never knew you were a soldier, Uncle Jabez,” Ruth Fielding said.