He turned his eyes up toward the stars and stripes drooping lazily from the summit of the great pole planted on the village green.
“Well, ain’t your father a copperhead?” asked the prosecuting lawyer savagely. “An’ ain’t he talked ag’inst Lincoln, an’ ag’inst the soldiers, an’ ag’inst the war, an’ ag’inst the govament, an’ ag’inst—ag’inst the whole business? Ain’t he? An’ ain’t you his son, an’ ain’t you got to mind him? An’ don’t you believe he tells the truth? Do you s’pose your father’d lie? Answer me that now. Do you think he’d lie?”
The prosecuting attorney turned toward his auditors with a smile and a nod, as much as to say: “That’s a clincher, I’ve got him now.”
But by this time Bob’s diffidence had disappeared. The under part of his nature was roused and ready to assert itself. He lifted his head, and his eyes sparkled as he looked around him.
“My father is no liar,” he replied. “He says what he believes to be true about the war. Maybe he’s mistaken. That’s not for me to say, nor for you. But so far as I’m concerned, I tell you again that I’m loyal. I stand by the President, and by the government, and by the flag; and some day I’ll fight for it, and I’ll do things for it that you, Sam Powers, and you, Jim Brill, and all the rest of you wouldn’t dare to do.”
He stood erect, with flushed face and flashing eyes, and for a brief moment his accusers were silent. Then, gently at first, but increasing soon to a storm of protest, the voices of his companions were heard in reply. In the midst of the confusion the judge-advocate general held up his hand for silence.
“It appears to the court”—he began, but a voice interrupted him:—
“Question! Put the question!”
With little knowledge of parliamentary rules, and still less of proceedings before a court-martial, the judge-advocate general and his associates looked a trifle dazed.