“No, there isn't! You seem to forget that I'm getting along in life.”
“Poor boy!—you're almost eighteen!”
“I'm older than most gentlemen of twenty.”
“Why can't you wait?”
“Because I have something to tell you,” I wrote.
“To tell me?”
“Yes, and it's too sacred for the wires. I must look into your eyes and hear your answer.”
“I wonder what it can be,” the receiver clicked. “I shall let you come as soon as I can. I want to see you very, very much. Good-night. Father has come for me. We are going to Washington in a day or two.”
At that moment I caught the first words of a thrilling message on the main line. It said: “Fort Sumter has been fired upon. It is the beginning of war.”
I took the news to my mother, and declared my wish to go and fight for the North.