The next day while the General was seated on the porch of the little hotel discussing his campaigns with Major Grant, Tom Camp sent for him.
Tom took the General round behind his house, with grave ceremony.
“What are you up to, Tom?”
“Show you in a minute! I wish I could make you a handsomer present, General, to show you how much I think of you. But I know yer weakness anyhow. There’s the finest lot er lightwood you ever seed.”
Tom turned back some old bagging and revealed a pile of fat pine chips covered with rosin, evidently chipped carefully out of the boxed place of live pine trees.
The General had two crochets, lightwood and waterpower. When he got hold of a fine lot of lightwood suitable for kindling fires, he would fill his closet with it, conceal it under his bed, and sometimes under his mattress. He would even hide it in his bureau drawers and wardrobe and take it out in little bits like a miser.
“Lord Tom, that beats the world!”
“Ain’t it fine? Just smell?”
“Rosin on every piece! Tom, you cut every tree on your place and every tree in two miles clean to get that. You couldn’t have made me a gift I would appreciate more. Old boy, if there’s ever a time in your life that you need a friend, you know where to find me.”
“I knowed ye’d like it!” said Tom with a smile.