"There is no reason why you should not go ahead and win her," said the other, warmly.
"Prescott," continued the mountaineer, "you don't know all that I've been."
"It's nothing dishonest, that I'd swear."
"It's not that, but look where I started. I was born in the mountains back there, an' I tell you we weren't much above the wild animals that live in them same mountains. There was just one room to our log house—one for father, mother and all of us. I never was taught nothin'. I didn't learn to read till I was twenty years old and the big words still bother me. I went barefoot six months every year till I was a man grown. Why, my cavalry boots pinch me now."
He uttered the lamentation of the boots with such tragic pathos that Prescott smiled, but was glad to hide it in the darkness.
"An' I don't know nothin' now," resumed the mountaineer sadly. "When I go into a parlour I'm like a bear in a cage. If there's anythin' about to break, I always break it. When they begin talkin' books and pictures and such I don't know whether they are right or wrong."
"You are not alone in that."
"An' I'm out of place in a house," continued the General, not noticing the interruption. "I belong to the mountains an' the fields, an' when this war's over I guess I'll go back to 'em. They think somethin' of me now because I can ride an' fight, but war ain't all. When it's over there'll be no use for me. I can't dance an' I can't talk pretty, an' I'm always steppin' on other peoples' feet. I guess I ain't the timber they make dandies of."
"I should hope not," said Prescott with emphasis. He was really stirred by the big man's lament, seeing that he valued so much the little things that he did not have and so little the great things that he did have.
"General," he said, "you never shirked a battle and I wouldn't shirk this contest either. If I loved a woman I'd try to win her, and you won't have to go back to the mountains when this war is over. You've made too great a name for that. We won't give you up."