So they talked it over, the boy and the old man, and every moment they grew more enthusiastic over the project and what it was likely to accomplish.
“When ye goin’, Robbie?”
“Why, I thought—I thought I’d go to-morrow morning, Uncle Seth. You see I can’t very well let them know I’m going. That would spoil it all. So I thought I’d get up early to-morrow morning and slip away before anybody was up, and catch the early train at Carbon Creek. You don’t think I ought to tell them before I go, do you?”
“No, I s’pose not. But what’ll your ma think when she finds you ain’t to home? What’ll your pa say?”
“That’s the only thing about it that worries me, Uncle Seth. When I’m once in the army, and they know where I am and what to expect, it won’t be so bad. But how to ease their minds before they find out, I don’t know. I’ve thought over it a good deal, but I can’t quite make out how I’m going to do it. I might leave a letter, but then they’d know where I was going and likely stop me before I got there. I might—say, I’ll tell you what; I just happen to think of it. Suppose you kind o’ happen along there some time to-morrow forenoon, and say to them that you know where I am and where I’m going, and that it’s all right; and if I don’t come back in a day or two I’ll write and tell them all about it. That’ll do, won’t it?”
“Certain! I’ll put their minds to rest. Jest leave that to me. They’ll know’t when I tell ’em ye’re all right, ye air all right.”
Then, for a minute, the old man stood silent, chewing contemplatively on a straw.
“I don’t know,” he said finally, “as I’d ort to encourage ye in this thing. Mebbe it ain’t jest right. It’s a-goin’ ag’inst yer father’s wish an’ will. It’s a-makin’ yer mother an awful lot of anxiety. Mebbe it won’t amount to nothin’ anyway. Mebbe they won’t take ye. Mebbe they won’t leave him go free. Ef they do take ye, ye go to war, an’ ye know, or else ye don’t know, what war is. You’re jest a boy. You’ll hev to suffer. You’ll see some hard times. Ye ain’t use to it. Likely ye’ll git sick. Mebbe ye’ll git swamp fever, an’ that’s bad enough. Mebbe ye’ll git wounded, crippled for life. Mebbe ye’ll git killed, an’ yer body buried in a trench with a hundred others, like they buried ’em at Antietam an’ Gettysburg, an’ nobody never know where ye lay, nor how ye died. It’s awful, war is, it’s jest awful, an’ ye ortn’t to go, unless ye realize what’s likely to happen to ye; and I ortn’t to encourage ye in goin’ unless I’m ready to shoulder the responsibility fer what may happen, an’ I ain’t quite ready to do that.”
“And I don’t want you to do that, Uncle Seth. I know what I’m about. I’ve thought it all out. I’ve thought about every dreadful thing that can possibly happen to me. But before I get through thinking what may happen to me, I begin to think about what is pretty sure to happen to my father if things go on as they are. And then I can’t hesitate any more. To have my father shot as a deserter, why, that would be worse for me, and worse for my mother, and for my little sister all our lives, than it would be to have me tired, or hungry, or sick, or wounded, or shot to death in battle and buried in a trench. And besides that I want to go for the sake of going. I want to do something for my country. Abraham Lincoln wants more soldiers, and if he wants them he should have them. I’m ready to go, and I’m going. I’ve made up my mind; and you couldn’t discourage me, Uncle Seth, if you talked a thousand years!”