“I don’t know what to say to you, Wilfred,” faltered his mother, although there was but one thing to say, and she knew that she must say it, yet she was fighting, woman-like, for time.
“I will tell you what to say,” said the boy.
“What?”
“Say that you won’t mind if I go down to Petersburg and enlist.”
“But that would not be true, Wilfred,” said his mother, smiling faintly.
“True or not, mother, I can’t stay here.”
“Oh, Wilfred, Russell has gone, and Howard is going, and now you want to go and get killed.”
“I don’t want to be killed at all, mother.”
“But you are so young, my boy.”
“Not younger than Tom Kittridge,” answered the boy; “not younger than Ell Stuart or Cousin Steven or hundreds of other boys down there. See, mother—they have called for all over eighteen, weeks ago; the seventeen call may be out any moment; the next one after that takes me. Do you want me to stay here until I am ordered out! I should think not. Where’s your pride?”