If Mrs. Rice did not shed bitter tears over Isaac when he left her to join the recruits, it was because she shared the opinion of many others in Pittsfield, and felt positive the lad 24 would soon return, none the worse for his short time of soldiering.
It was but natural she should take a most affectionate farewell of him, however, even though believing he would be in no especial danger, and a glimpse of the tears which his mother could not restrain caused an uncomfortable swelling in the would-be soldier’s throat.
This leaving home, even to march away by the side of Corporal ’Lige, was not as pleasant as he had supposed, and for the moment he ceased to so much as think of the provision-bag.
“Now, see here, mother,” he said, with a brave attempt at indifference. “I’m not counting on doing anything more than help take the fort, and since the corporal is to be with us, that can’t be a long task.”
“You will ever be a good boy, Isaac?”
“Of course, mother.”
“And you will write me a letter, if it so be you find the opportunity?”
This was not a pleasing prospect to the boy, for he had never found it an easy task to make a fair copy of the single line set down at the top of his writing-book; but his heart was sore for the moment, and he would have promised even more in order to check his mother’s tears.
Therefore it was he agreed to make her acquainted with all his movements, so far as should be possible, and, that done, it seemed as if the sting was taken in a great measure from the parting.
Feeling more like a man than ever before in his life, Isaac set forth from his home with a heavy musket over his shoulder, and the bag of provisions hanging at his back, glancing neither to the right nor to the left 26 until he arrived at the corporal’s dwelling.