Our Soldier Boy - George Manville Fenn

“Hah!” cried the Colonel huskily, “this is peace indeed.”

That night mother and father stole hand in hand into the room next their own, where their son lay sleeping peacefully. They did not bend down to kiss him lest he should start awake, but they knelt by his side in thankfulness for the great joy which filled their hearts, before thinking sadly of those to whom they owed so much.

Strangely enough, just about the same time Mrs Corporal rose from her knees and said:—

“There, Joe, old man, I won’t cry another drop, for I feel now that it’s right and what should be. But just in here somewhere there’s a little place where he’ll always seem to be—our soldier boy to the very end.”