"Now I know mother is aching to put in her questions—just waiting till I get through writing stuff. Well, ma'am, you see, we just have to praise ourselves a little bit here, because if we don't do it, it don't get done; and so I call myself a pretty good boy. Whether I'd suit you exactly, I'll not say. I go to prayer-meeting twice a week and once to Chapel (have to go there, so you needn't give me a credit), and I've not missed reading my chapter one day yet. Mr. Upright came by the other day when I was at it, and he stopped and walked in."
"'Keep straight on with your good home habits, Mr. Kindred,' he said, 'no matter what anybody says or does. Read the Bible just as much as you like; the more, the better. Remember:
"'He always wins, who sides with God.'"
"So I read every day. And I'm not likely to stop praying as long as I have you four to pray about. I guess I shall keep my colours flying—a storm flag, anyway. But it does blow pretty hard here sometimes, that is sure. Train says I can't do it. No use, he declares: says he's tried it and it won't work. (He was turned back, and so he has been here a year and thinks he knows.) He says there's no place in the course for religion; just as well give it up first as last."
"So I told him my mother had no 'give up' in her dictionary and never taught me how to spell the words."
"Poor Train! His mother went to heaven three years ago; though how she can enjoy herself up there, with him going on as he does down here, I can't see. Maybe she doesn't know."
"There goes the first drum! Good-bye. Kiss each other all round for me, beginning anywhere."
"Magnus Kindred,
U. S. Corps of Cadets."
"You mustn't think hard of Rig; he's a real good fellow. But you see he's a pinky-white creation: and it hurts his feelings to look like an acorn."
This letter was duly addressed, sealed, and stamped; went on the orderly's back to the post-office, and thence, in due course, across the continent to the far-off simple home at Barren Heights. There it alighted with the force and precision of a bombshell. That is, if force may be measured by commotion.