"Listen, Jack; you know I would not lie to you, but you must understand how foolish—how useless—"
"Come to supper, Jack—Eloise." It was Aunt Lucretia calling. "Here is father and Colonel Goff," she added as we walked up the steps. "Father has grown quite deaf, Jack, since you saw him."
Colonel Goff, handsome, alert, and quick even to bluntness, came forward, and shook my hand.
"Glad to see you back again, Jack—welcome home."
My grandfather sat in his great chair, facing the lawn. His wooden leg rested on the railing. Great curls of tobacco smoke rose from his corner of the porch.
There was the old nervous, staccato clatter of wood and cane meeting on the floor as he arose to greet me. I saw the stern, unyielding face give back no smile of pleasure as he took my hand. He stood looking at me doubtfully, his mind evidently weakening with old age. The sadness of it flashed over me, for his mind had been the mind of a strong man in his day. My Aunt Lucretia promptly screamed in his ear, "This is Jack, Father; he has come home."
"Jack, ah—ah—Jack, glad to see you, suh; and who did you say it was, Lucretia?"
"Your grandson, Jack Ballington. He has been away studying in Germany," she screamed again.
"Aha," said the old man, "aha—of course—wouldn't go to West Point, though the President himself gave him the appointment in my behalf. Aha—Jack—a brooding, dreaming sort of a feller—always mooning around trees and writing poetry. Won't fight—not a damn one of 'em will. And what a chance to fight you would have now! What a bully scrap we are going to have! Have you heard, suh," he turned, and spoke sharply to me, "have you heard that the Spaniards blew up our battleship the other month, and that we are going to blow hell out of 'em? And they've been needing it for two centuries. Ah! If I were only younger, wouldn't I be in! Imagine it, Goff," he said, turning to him, "imagine me fighting under the old flag again! Didn't think I'd ever live to see that day when we were charging Banks in the Valley. Ah, 'twas a family scrap—only a family fight—like old man Tully and wife—have to fight a little at home now and then, so they'd love each other more when they made up. Ah, suh, I'd give this farm to be your age again, and a chance to fight under the old flag once more. Joe Wheeler wrote me the other day that President McKinley would make me a Brigadier, if I'd go in. By gad, suh, I sat down, and shed tears to think I was too old!"
He was silent awhile; then, "Ha, ha, but I read in the paper to-day that the Spanish Prime Minister is out in a statement saying it'll be easy to whip us, because we're divided North and South, and that the Southern Confederacy will arise again! He is right. We have already arisen. I see in every Southern State ten times more have volunteered than their quota calls for. Yes, we'll arise, and will help McKinley whip hell out of them!" He stamped his wooden leg on the floor.