“I have heard,” said the Professor, “how you have saved Ned’s life.”
“Nonsense!” said Tom. “He has done just as much for me. We are together, and we fight and quarrel, just as we did at Harvard; and, when the war is over, Ned insists that we are to go back to Cambridge for a year longer, so as to get our degrees; a plan which I don’t altogether fancy.”
“I do,” said the Professor; “it will be delightful to me to have the opportunity of marking the misdemeanors of a colonel, and perhaps of even suspending a captain.”
“That sounds just like you, and like old times,” said Tom; “and now do please tell me all about Harvard.”
“Yes,” said Ned’s voice feebly, from the bed, “please let us hear the Harvard news.” And so the Professor began.
[VII.]
NED’S NOTE-BOOK.
Tom has gone, but the Professor is here still. I do not mean to stay long,—I shall rejoin my regiment in a day or two. In the mean time, I amuse myself, when the Professor is not here, by scribbling in my note-book and reading it over. Such a book as it is now! My own thoughts begin it; then, as we reach the battle-fields, I have not time to think, much less to put my thoughts in writing; then comes a record of deaths,—poor fellows, who wanted me to write to their homes. How curious that record is! Men whom I didn’t care for grew heroic to me in those first days,—when death was a novelty,—and I am minute in my descriptions of them. Then, as the deaths become more and more frequent, my descriptions grow shorter, and I give a line only, even to those whom I really loved. It is strange reading, this note-book of mine!
Here is an item which I find in my note-book: “Quarrelled with Tom!” How we have fought, to be sure! I don’t know what this quarrel was about, but I know how it ended. We didn’t speak for two days, and then came another attack from that restless creature, Stonewall Jackson. It was such a lovely day,—fresh and spring-like, but it soon grew hot and dusty. Every once in a while a bullet would whiz past; I could hear the rumble of the artillery, and I was terribly thirsty. I didn’t see Tom, but I knew he was near,—we always kept close together at such times;—still, if I had seen him, I wouldn’t have spoken to him. My horse had been shot from under me, and I had cut open the head of the man who did it; it seems strange, now that it is all over, that I could do such a thing. Suddenly I saw the barrel of a rifle pointed at me. The face of the man who was pointing it peered from behind a tree with a malicious grin. I felt that death was near, and the feeling was not pleasant. However, the situation had an element of absurdity in it, and that made me laugh a little. The man who was going to kill me laughed too. I heard a little click, a report, and his gun went up, and he went down. Tom had shot him.