When Dave returned to his uncle’s home he was glad to find Rodney much better from the surgical operations which had been performed upon him. The young man could now walk around fairly well and hoped inside of another year to be as well as anybody. The doctoring had been very expensive but Joseph Morris had paid the bills cheerfully.
“So you have gone and joined the militia!” exclaimed Mrs. Morris, after embracing Dave. “And Henry is going, too! I never heard tell of such doings! You’ll all be shot!”
“I hope not, Aunt Lucy. Somebody has got to play soldier, you know.”
“Play soldier? You won’t find it much play, Dave, mark my words. I remember something of the other war! It was awful, the shooting and killing of innocent men! I don’t see how I’m to spare Henry.”
“We’ll have to spare him, mother,” put in Joseph Morris. “Unless you’d rather spare me.”
At this Mrs. Morris shook her head decidedly. “No, if one has got to go let it be Henry. I suppose the two boys will be company for each other. But, oh, I wish it wasn’t to be!” And of a sudden her eyes filled with tears, which rolled down her cheeks and into the batch of bread she was kneading.
Henry was off on a hunt and did not come in until nightfall. When told what had been done, he threw up the coonskin cap he had been wearing.
“Huzza!” he shouted. “Just what I wanted! My, Dave, but won’t we just knock over those Frenchmen when we get the chance!” And then, seeing the tears starting to his mother’s eyes he ran and put his arms around her neck. “Don’t worry, mother dear. I’ll come back safe and sound.”
“Perhaps, Henry, perhaps,” she sobbed. “But it’s hard to let you go.”
The next day there was a general leave taking and more crying on the part of Mrs. Morris, and also little Nell, who joined in hardly knowing what it was all about. All went as far as the creek with the boys and Joseph Morris accompanied them to Will’s Creek post.