"All right," she answered. "Would I not better ask the Doctor?"
"I want this letter mailed right at once," he repeated.
In the letter he had written:
"The marching days are over and when the train comes in and the call is 'All aboard' and I shall have started on the last journey, I want you to come and take my precious wife to your home and keep her just as long as you can have her and as she can stay. She loves music, she loves the beautiful sky, she loves the flowers, the ocean, and she loves you both. Lying here thinking about it, I feel that if she went to her own people they would remind her all the time of her grief, because it will be a grief to her, and it would be the same way if she went to mine. With you there is nothing that will make the sorrow keener."
When the letter was finished he said to little George:
"My darling boy, your Dear Mother gave you my name, George Edwards Pickett. I know you will take care of it, and now I give you my place, too, and my darling wife, your Dear Mother. You understand, my son?"
The little head of his namesake son nestled closer to his own, the little arms crept about his neck and the child sobbed out, "Yes, sir, Dear Father."
"Bless your heart, my baby, bless your heart. Come now and kiss 'Dear Father,' good night."
After our boy had gone my Soldier said:
"Poor little man! Poor little loving heart! He does not know what death is, even though he saw his little brother go out of this earth-life; and you, my darling wife, must not let him know its meaning now. You must—you have got to take my place and be 'Dear Mother' and 'Dear Father,' too, to our boy."