"I shouldn't wonder if you was right, Jed. But on the other hand I'm afraid he and I will never be the same after I come back from the war—always providing I do come back, of course."
"Sshh, sshh! Don't talk that way. Course you'll come back."
"You never can tell. However, if I knew I wasn't going to, it wouldn't make any difference in my feelings about going. I'm glad I enlisted and I'm mighty thankful to you for backing me up in it. I shan't forget it, Jed."
"Sho, sho! It's easy to tell other folks what to do. That's how the Kaiser earns his salary; only he gives advice to the Almighty, and I ain't got as far along as that yet."
They discussed the war in general and by sections. Just before he left, young Babbitt said:
"Jed, there is one thing that worries me a little in connection with Father. He was bitter against the war before we went into it and before he and Cap'n Sam Hunniwell had their string of rows. Since then and since I enlisted he has been worse than ever. The things he says against the government and against the country make ME want to lick him—and I'm his own son. I am really scared for fear he'll get himself jailed for being a traitor or something of that sort."
Mr. Winslow asked if Phineas' feeling against Captain Hunniwell had softened at all. Leander's reply was a vigorous negative.
"Not a bit," he declared. "He hates the cap'n worse than ever, if that's possible, and he'll do him some bad turn some day, if he can, I'm afraid. You must think it's queer my speaking this way of my own father," he added. "Well, I don't to any one else. Somehow a fellow always feels as if he could say just what he thinks to you, Jed Winslow. I feel that way, anyhow."
He and Jed shook hands at the door in the early November twilight. Leander was to eat his Thanksgiving dinner at home and then leave for camp on the afternoon train.
"Well, good-by," he said.