"Wounded!" broke forth Mr. Manly in consternation; but his wife kept her soul in silence, waiting with compressed white lips to learn more.
"In the arm—not badly. There is a whole half column about him here. For he has made himself famous—Frank! our dear, dear Frank!" And the quick tears flooding the girl's eyes fell upon the paper.
Mrs. Manly snatched the sheet and read, how her boy had distinguished himself; how he had captured a rebel, and fought gallantly in the ranks, and received a wound without minding it; and how all who had witnessed his conduct, both officers and men, were praising him; it was all there—in the newspaper.
"What adds to the romance of this boy's story," said the writer in conclusion, "is a circumstance which occurred at the capture of the breastwork. Among the dead and wounded left behind when the enemy took to flight, was a rebel captain, of northern parentage, who came south a few years ago, married a southern belle, became a slaveholder, joined the slaveholders' rebellion in consequence, and lost his life in defence of Roanoke Island. He lived long enough to recognize in the drummer boy his own younger brother, and died in his arms."
Great was the agitation into which the family was thrown by this intelligence.
"O that I had the wings of a dove!" said Mrs. Manly. "For I must go, I must go to my child!"
Pride and joy in his youthful heroism, pain and grief for the other's tragic end, all was absorbed in the dreadful uncertainty which hung about the welfare of the favorite son; and she knew that not all the attentions and praises of men could make up to him, there on his sick bed, for the absence of his mother.
The family waited, however,—in what anguish of suspense need not to be told,—until the next mail brought them letters from Mr. Egglestone and Captain Edney. By these, their worst fears were confirmed. Exposure, fatigue, excitement, the wound he had received, had done their work with Frank. He was dangerously ill with a fever.
"O, dear!" groaned Mr. Manly, "this wicked, this wicked rebellion! George is killed, and now Frank! What can we do? what can we do, mother?" he asked, helplessly.
While he was groaning, his wife rose up with that energy which so often atoned for the lack of it in him.