Mother’s answer came first and brought warmth and love to the heart of the brave little cripple who dreamed now only of home—home, which he had not dared hope to see again. But then the Captain’s letter came:
“Dear Giffin:
“Your letter reached me tonight. God bless you, my boy. I thought you were gone with the others. Of the eighty-five who made that fatal charge only you and I are now alive. They say that Johnston is hard pressed and needs every man——”
Little Giffin never finished reading the letter. He was up and ready to start away to the front, to his Captain and to Johnston.
“Johnston needs every man,” he said, as the first tears he had shed came to his brave blue eyes. “He needs every man and I’ll be some help. I’ll write to you, if I’m spared. Good bye. God bless you, kindest of friends.”
He was gone. Long his friends waited for word from Giffin, little Giffin of Tennessee. But there came only the news of a terrible battle with Johnston, where indeed every man was needed.
And little Giffin? Little Giffin never wrote.
But I’d rather have one loyal Giffin, in a nameless grave on a southern battle field, than all the cowardly men who would fawn around me if I were a king.
Now I’ll read you a little poem which tells better than I can the story of brave little Giffin of Tennessee.