—just you hear him sing that, once, and see if you don’t melt all up and the water come into your eyes! I don’t care what he sings, it goes plum straight home to you—it goes deep down to where you live—and it fetches you every time! Just you hear him sing:—
“‘Child of sin and sorrow, filled with dismay,
Wait not till to-morrow, yield thee to-day;
Grieve not that love
Which, from above’—
and so on. It makes a body feel like the wickedest, ungratefulest brute that walks. And when he sings them songs of his about home, and mother, and childhood, and old friends dead and gone, it fetches everything before your face that you’ve ever loved and lost in all your life—and it’s just beautiful, it’s just divine to listen to, sir—but, Lord, Lord, the heart-break of it! The band—well, they all cry—every rascal of them blubbers, and don’t try to hide it, either; and first you know, that very gang that’s been slammin’ boots at that boy will skip out of their bunks all of a sudden, and rush over in the dark and hug him! Yes, they do—and slobber all over him, and call him pet names, and beg him to forgive them. And just at that time, if a regiment was to offer to hurt a hair of that cub’s head, they’d go for that regiment, if it was a whole army corps!”
Another pause.
“Is that all?” said I.
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, dear me, what is the complaint? What do they want done?”