Alspaugh shuddered visibly.
“Come, spunk up, Jake,” continued the slender young man. “Think how proud all your relations will be of you, if you die for your country.”
“I'm mad at all of my relations, and I don't want to do nothing to please 'em,” sighed Jake.
“But I hope you're not so greedy as to want to live always?” said the slender young man, who answered roll-call to Kent Edwards.
“No, but I don't want to be knocked off like a green apple, before I'm ripe and ready.”
“Better be knocked off green and unripe,” said Kent, his railing mood changing to one of sad introspection, “than to prematurely fall, from a worm gnawing at your heart.”
Jake's fright was not so great as to make him forego the opportunity for a brutal retort:
“You mean the 'worm of the still,' I s'pose. Well, it don't gnaw at my heart so much as at some other folkses' that I know'd.”
Kent's face crimsoned still deeper, and he half raised his musket, as if to strike him, but at that moment came the order to march, and the regiment moved forward.
The enemy was by this time known to be near, and the men marched in that silence that comes from tense expectation.