"So I thought. Therefore, the only thing I can do is to send you away—to Europe. What do you say, an English or a German university?"
"And you are really going into the Confederate army, father?"
"Yes, my son."
"And you want me to play the coward and flee my country in this her hour of greatest peril? Oh, father!"
Mr. Shackelford looked astonished, and then a smile of joy passed over his features; could it be that Fred was going with him?
"Not if you wish to go with me, my son."
Fred arose and tottered to his father, sank beside his knee, and looking up with a tear-stained face, said in a pleading voice:
"Don't go into the Confederate army, father; don't turn against the old flag." And the boy laid his head on his father's knee and sobbed as if his heart would break.
Mr. Shackelford was deeply moved. He tried to speak, but a lump arose in his throat and choked him; so he sat in silence smoothing the hair of his son with his hand as gently as his mother would have done.