"Bear up, Mother," he urged. "It will only be a little while before I come marching home again, and I'll be thinking of you all the time and write to you whenever I get a chance."
He forced himself to go at last with many a backward look and wave of his hand at the figure in the doorway. His heart was heavy as he reflected that in the chances of war he might never see her again.
The next few days were full of excitement, allowing him little time to brood. Both he and Bart took to a soldier's life as a duck takes to water. The martial spirit was there together with the quick intelligence that enables America to turn out finished soldiers more quickly than any other country in the world.
They had an advantage too in being sandwiched in, as it were, with the men who had just come back from the Mexican border and had had such recent experience in practical outdoor preparation for fighting.
Billy Waldon, especially, was a mine of information and suggestion, and as they threw themselves into the work with all their heart and soul it was not long before they could feel that they were graduating from the "rookie" class and becoming regular soldiers.
Their commanding officers looked on them with approval and secretly wished that all of their recruits might be of the same high-class type.
"You're going along like a house afire, fellows," said Billy, after drill had ended one morning. "The manual of arms is just pie for you. Kitchener used to think that it took a year to turn out a soldier. I'll bet if he'd been on this side of the water he'd have felt differently.
"I'm glad you think so," said Frank. "But after all, we're just going through the motions now. The test will come a little later on."
"I'd bet on you now or any time," answered Billy.
The looked-for orders came at last from Washington, and there was a great stir and bustle at the armory. Then the next morning the great doors swung open and the regiment marched forth, headed by its band.