"Now, Braxton Bragg—ah, he's in it. Do you know, suh, that he's a Captain in the First Tennessee, and they are preparing now to go to the Philippines? Ah, what a chance, what a chance you had, suh! And what do you say you did in Germany?"
"I studied forestry and farming, sir," I said, flushing hot under his words, "and with it I took two years' training in the military school at Berlin, taking instructions up to the rank of captain in the Emperor's Guards."
"The hell you did!" he shouted excitedly. "Did you have sense enough to do that? Those soldiers are the best drilled soldiers in the world, Goff. Your damned English to the contrary notwithstanding," he added, smiling at the Colonel. "In the Emperor's Guards! Strike a match, Lucretia, and let me see him." In the light of the match he stood up I stood above him six good inches. That and my shoulders breadth surprised him, for he went on: "You left here a crippled stripling, mooning all the time over flowers and such cat-hair, and crying if anybody cut down a tree. But you'll never fight, none of you ever have! Sissy is the word for the whole kit of the world's mooners. Still, you do surprise me, suh, now and then; I'll be honest about it; like this studying military in Germany. Ha—ha—think of it!"
"And beating you and your whole bragging bunch with Little Sister—have you forgotten that, sir?" asked Eloise, nervily thrusting her intense face into his, her eyes flashing, ready as she always had been to fight my battles for me.
My grandsire laughed good-naturedly. He had always had respect for Eloise in her fighting moods, as had everybody else on the farm. His voice was decidedly conciliatory as he said, "There, dear,—maybe I am too hard on Jack—ha—ha—guess that was neatly turned, and we took our medicine like men and soldiers. Eh, Goff?" He turned to me suddenly. "If you'd only quit this tree foolishness and fight; but you won't do it, suh—not a damned one of you ever did! And your lameness?"
"It was a cartilage in my knee, sir; Dr. Hoffman, the famous surgeon, took it out soon after I went over. I am not lame now, sir, at all."
"Glad to hear it, suh, glad to hear it."
He was silent for a moment, looking out into the dusk. "And you know all about trees—aha—well, there's only one tree in the world I care a damn for; there it is, and it is dying. My mother loved it. She used to nurse me there," he added tenderly, his voice dropping low.
"It's that beautiful elm at the dining-room window, Jack," explained my Aunt.
"The most perfect tree I ever saw," went on my grandsire, reminiscently. "The others just grew up any way, but that one stood like the great feathered eagle plume in the hair of the Comanche chief, Setting Sun. He was the first Indian I killed on the plains—in a hand to hand fight—and that eagle feather in his hair—I'll never forget it. And that elm was like it—and—and my mother loved it," he said, his voice muffled up in huskiness. He blew his nose vigorously, and went on more cheerily, "Make yourself at home, suh—do what you please. I wanted you to be a soldier, suh, like Braxton Bragg, ah, what a man that boy has developed into at West Point! But it isn't born in you—can't make a fighter out of a dreamer."