“Afraid they’ll nab me for something?” he exclaimed. “Well, that is a joke. Don’t you worry. The Yankees know who to fool with. I licked ’em too many times for them to bother me any more.”
“I was under the impression that you got licked,” Elsie observed.
“Don’t you believe it. We wore ourselves out whipping the other fellows.”
Elsie smiled, took up the banjo, and asked him to sing while she played.
She had no idea that he could sing, yet to her surprise he sang his camp songs boldly, tenderly, and with deep, expressive feeling.
As the girl listened, the memory of the horrible hours of suspense she had spent with his mother when his unconscious life hung on a thread came trooping back into her heart and a tear dimmed her eyes.
And he began to look at her with a new wonder and joy slowly growing in his soul.