"That's just what I did, young man, and if you doubt it, here's my pension that I drew to-day in town, twelve dollars a month, and they've paid it now these thirty-four years."
"That's a pretty soft thing," said the commercial man. "Better'n selling fountain-pens in the backwoods."
"A soft thing!" cried the old man, "I ought to have twice as much. There's Abe Tucker gets fifteen dollars because he caught cold on picket duty, and I get a beggarly twelve."
"Were you severely wounded?" asked Sam.
"Well, no-o-o, not exactly, tho I might just as well 'a' been. I was down bad with the measles. This is an ongrateful country. Here it is only thirty-five years after the war, and they're only paying a hundred and forty millions a year to only a million pensioners. It's a beggarly shame!"
"Were there that many men in the war?" asked the traveler.
"Pretty near it, I reckon. But p'r'aps in thirty-five years there'd be a natural increase. Think of it, a million men throwing away their lives for a nothing like that! I jest tell our young fellers that they'd better stay at home. Why, we've had to fight for what we've got. You wouldn't think it, but we've had to pass around the hat, and shove it hard under the nose of Congress, too, just as if we were beggars and frauds, and as if we hadn't sacrificed everything for our country!"
"It's an outrage," cried Sam sympathetically. "But I hope you won't keep the young men from going. I'm going soon, and perhaps the country will be more generous in future."
"Take my advice, young man, and whenever anything happens to you while you're away, take down the names of the witnesses and keep their affidavits. Then you'll be all ready to get your pension as soon as you come back. It took me three years to straighten out mine. Then I got the back pay, of course, but I ought to have had it before. I've got a claim in now for eight dollars more a month running all the way back. It amounts to over three thousand dollars, and I ought to have it."
"Was that for the measles, too?" asked the stranger.