[IV.]
NED’S NOTE-BOOK.
It is well that I formed the habit of keeping a note-book some time ago. How interesting what I am now writing will be to my wife and children in years to come, when I sit before my own fire, in my own house! The college chronicle of funny adventures and curious stories that my note-book has previously contained is suspended for a time; and I am thinking of matters of life and death now. Well, it is splendid to have a life to lose; and the thought of death, in this cause, has a grand, awful thrill in it, that drives away all the former terror death has possessed for me. These remarks are intended as an opening of my war note-book. Here am I, just twenty-one, and a captain,—a whole captain. It is absurd; no, it isn’t. Col. Burke is raising a regiment. He has as much superfluity about him as an iron nail has, and no more. He was introduced to me about a week ago, and was told about my visits to the people around Crescent Court. People will make me out a philanthropist, which I am not; for I despise most people I know, though the lower classes are quite interesting, but dirty. I never talked religion to any of those creatures in my life. I have given them very little in charity; but I have listened to what they say as I would to my own classmates; and, having talked with them at the North End, I have bowed to them at the West End. In a word, I have carried les convenances into Richmond Street, and have not electioneered. Result, I have some influence, which is useless, except in keeping me clear of pickpockets. So the colonel would have me raise a company. I laughed at the idea, but consented to try; and here are over fifty recruits already. I told them that I had about as much to learn as any of them, and agreed to have the captain elected by vote, myself becoming a private. I should have been very much disgusted if they had taken me at my word; but they didn’t. So I am a captain; but my lieutenants are still to be found.
Tom is full of patriotism. I never can tell how deeply a sentiment enters his mind; but he is fretting terribly about going with me. How I wish he could! but his father very sensibly advises him to wait a year longer, till he is through at Harvard; and his mother is in great distress at the idea of his leaving her. The Professor is non-committal on the subject.
This morning entered Jane Ellen Bingley to the recruiting office, where I was receiving enlistments. Jane Ellen is limp in appearance, but energetic in character. Her bonnet was wine-colored velvet; her shawl draggled green, with a habit of falling off her shoulders as she talked; and her gown was calico. By the bonnet I recognized her. She is the chief attraction at one of the North Street dance-houses, and entertains an admiration for me of which I am utterly undeserving. I have so often declined in forcible language to dance with her, that I did not suppose she could feel pleasantly toward me; but she came forward and said:—
“Here’s my man!”
Her man was a stout fellow, rather stupid-looking, with a dyed mustache. Jane Ellen herself is really very pretty, and might possibly reform, if she was sent away from here. Reformation, when possible, is only possible through removal. So Jane Ellen having presented her man, I said briefly:—