The drummer boy never forgot that night, amid all his subsequent adventures. While his companions were singing, shouting, and kindling fires, he could not help thinking, as he watched their animated figures lighted up by the flames, that this was, probably, the last night many of them would ever pass in their native states; that many would fall in battle, and find their graves in a southern soil; and that, perhaps, he himself was one of those who would never return.
"What are you thinking about, my bold soldier boy?" said a familiar voice, while a gentle hand slapped him on the back.
He turned and saw the bushy mustache of his friend and master, the old drummer, peering over his shoulder.
"O Mr. Sinjin!" said Frank. (The veteran wrote his name St. John, but every body called him Sinjin.) "I was afraid I should not see you again."
"Eh, and why not?"
"Because we are off in the morning, you know, and I couldn't find you to-day; and——"
"And what, my lad?" said the old man, regarding him with a very tender smile.
"I couldn't bear the thought of going without seeing you once more."
"And what should a young fellow like you want to see an ugly, battered, miserable old hulk like me, for?"
"You have been very kind to me," said Frank, getting hold of the old man's hard, rough hand; "and I shall be sorry to part with you, sir, very sorry."