Half-way down the car, and on the other side of the aisle, a very old man was seated. He was evidently traveling alone. His hair was gray and scanty and his face was seamed with wrinkles. It was clear that he was very tired, and every once in a while his head would drop on his breast in a doze from which he would awake with a start at any sudden jar of the train.
“It’s too bad that such an old man should have to be going on a journey all alone,” remarked Bobby with quick sympathy.
“Yes,” agreed Fred. “He must be awful old. He looks as if he was as much as eighty.”
“He’s a Grand Army man too,” observed Mouser. “You can see that from the hat he has there up in the rack.”
“He may be going to visit some of his children,” suggested Pee Wee.
“More likely he’s going to the Old Soldiers’ Home,” conjectured Bobby. “You know there is one a little way the other side of Rockledge.”
“I’ll bet he could tell some mighty good stories about the war,” said Fred.
“I’d like to see all that he has seen,” mused Bobby.
“Or do all that he has done,” added Mouser. “It must be great to have been in a big war like that.”
“Maybe he was at Gettysburg,” guessed Pee Wee.