"Oh, it's true enough! I don't deny it. And they say also that on account of it all I had to leave Colonel Butler's house and go and live with my grandfather Walker at Cobb's Corners. They say that, don't they?"
"Something of that kind, I believe."
"Well, that's true too. But they don't say that it all happened half a dozen years ago, when I was a mere boy, that I did it in a fit of anger at another boy, and had nothing whatever against the flag, and that I was sorry for it the next minute and have suffered and repented ever since. They don't say that that flag is just as dear to me as it is to any man in America, that I love the sight of it; that I'd follow it anywhere, and die for it on any battlefield,—they don't say that, do they?"
His cheeks were blazing, his eyes were flashing, every muscle of his body was tense under the storm of passionate indignation that swept over him. Captain Perry, amazed and thrilled by the boy's earnestness, straightened up in his chair and looked him squarely in the face.
"No," he replied, "they don't say that. But I believe it's true. And so far as I'm concerned—"
Pen again interrupted him.
"Oh, I'm not blaming you, Captain Perry; you couldn't do anything else but turn me down. But some day, some way—I don't know how to-night—but some way I'm going to prove to these people that have been hounding me that I'm as good a patriot and can be as good a soldier as the best man in your company!"
"Good! That's splendid!" Captain Perry rose to his feet and grasped the boy's hand. "And I'll tell you what I'll do, Butler; if you're willing to face the ordeal I'll enlist you. I believe in you."
But Pen would not listen to it.
"No," he said, "I can't do that. It wouldn't be fair to you, nor to your men, nor to me. I'll meet the thing some other way. I'm grateful to you all the same though."