Boys are funny sometimes, but girls are more dignified for their age. Boys are rude, but girls are polite and lady-like. It is a pity boys are not lady-like too. Once I knew a boy, a very little boy, and he had a pair of boots. Real boots,—the first he ever had. One night when his father came home, he found Jimmy sitting on the stairs in the hall. The boots were outside the parlor door,—against the wall. "What are you doing here, Giant Grimm?" said his father. (His father called him "Giant Grimm," sometimes; for fun, I suppose.) "I'm seein' how my boots 'ud look if they was stood outside the door at a hotel to be cleaned," said Jimmy. He could not speak very plain, so I have not written it plain.
GRACE EVANS MORRIS.'"
"Very good, little girl," said Aunt Faith, drawing her youngest child to her side, and signing to Hugh to go on in order to divert attention from her; "I didn't know you could write so well."
"THE OHIO CAPTAIN,"
read Hugh.
"When the war for the Union broke out, I had just completed my studies and entered the ministry. My intention had been to enter upon my new duties in a little village not far from my home, but as the excitement spread through the country, and the young men left their fields, their workshops, and their homes, to join the army, I could not overcome my desire to go with them. I could not sleep, through many exciting weeks; in imagination I saw this one, and that one, friends that I knew, cold in death, or lying wounded alone in the night. I seemed to walk through crowded hospitals and to hear the 'ping' of the balls; I felt that if ever there was a place where the gospel words were needed, it was after the battle, when men were left with the awful shadow of death hanging over them. My youth and inexperience would be obstacles in the well-regulated quiet village, but in the army might they not be overlooked, if accompanied by willing hands and heart? In the great haste, in the great excitement, in the great agony, might not the great tidings be delivered acceptably even by an inexperienced messenger? Thus I thought, and soon after the battle of Bull Run, I obtained an appointment as chaplain, joined the army, and remained with it until the close of the war.
"Part of this time I was with an Ohio volunteer regiment; the colonel belonged to the regular army, but all the other officers were volunteers. I grew to know them all, and among them I found many noble hearts, and, had I the time, I could relate many incidents of generosity and true courage, part of that unwritten history of the war which will never come into print. Among these officers there was one young captain whom I especially liked. He was quiet and reserved, and although he never talked with me as his companions sometimes did, although he told me nothing of his life and history, I still felt that, he was a Christian at heart, probably one of those who have never been drawn out of themselves, or taught the pleasure of sympathetic fellowship. Captain Worthington often came to the Sunday service, when I was able to hold one, and his voice joined in the hymns, which gave the greatest charm to those military prayer-meetings; but beyond this I could not pass. He was reserved and silent; I could not force myself upon him. Sensitive natures abhor an intruder.
"One evening in September, while passing through the camp, I met Captain Worthington walking up and down under the trees; he spoke to me with unusual cordiality, and we continued the walk together, strolling through the forest at, random, and talking upon any subject which happened to suggest itself. The week had been hard and annoying. The brigade had been marching and counter-marching in an apparently purposeless way, although, no doubt, there was a concealed motive in every movement; the ground was stony, and broken by deep ravines, the forage wretched, and rain had been falling almost continuously, so that deep mud alternated with sharp stones, making every mile seem two. There had, also, been no enemy in sight to keep up the ardor of the soldiers, and make them forget their discomfort; it had been, as I said before, a wretched week, and Allan Worthington, always grave, seemed this evening almost sad. We sat down upon a fallen tree, and in the still gloom of that night he first spoke of his home.
"'I have been thinking about my mother,' he said; 'I cannot explain it, but home seems very near to me to-night. I can see the house as plainly as though it stood here before me, and I see mother sitting in her arm-chair by the table, knitting. Poor mother! how lonely she looks.'
"'Has she no other children?' I asked.