“I thought, mebbe,” he continued, “I might never see the boys ag’in—in action; and I—wanted to see ’em.”
“Chick, you must go back home. You’re too ill to stay here.”
The boy ignored the command and asked a question.
“They ain’t through tryin’ you yet, air they?”
“No, the trial will be resumed next Tuesday. Chick, you——”
“Well, Mr. ’Cormack, if I should—should jest happen, you know—to die before then, they couldn’t git nothin’ on you, could they?”
He was leaning against a tie-post at the curb, trembling and exhausted. He looked up anxiously and wistfully at the lieutenant as he spoke.
McCormack bent down and put his arm around the boy’s shoulder and turned his face toward the city.
“Chick, don’t talk that way. You can’t hurt me in a thousand years so much as I’ve hurt myself many a time in a day. Now go back home and try to get well. We can’t do without you in the Guard.”