“You’ll like them,” said the sergeant earnestly; and before Eugene could speak he had addressed the boys, who halted before him.
“We are going to run races on the long path,” said one of them.
“You ought to cut over the ground like a North Dakota jack-rabbit,” said the sergeant turning to Eugene.
The French lad tried to speak, but could not. He had so long been cut off from the society of other boys that getting among them again was like taking a plunge into a cold bath. However, one boy, to whom the sergeant nodded in a significant way, took Eugene under his protection; and with unconcealed delight the sergeant stood watching the round dozen of them kick up their heels, and scamper over the level road toward their racing-ground.
Eugene, to the sergeant’s pride, kept up with the best of them. “He is long and lean, just like a greyhound,” muttered the man as he went contentedly on his tour of inspection through the park; “but he looks a little underfed. I wish he could get some of Bess’s roast beef occasionally.”
When the sergeant went home to his dinner at one o’clock, he told his wife about meeting Eugene.
“I’m glad you sent him to play,” she said. “His nurse has been here, and we were talking about him. It’s a shame to have the child so like an old man.”
“Yes; it is,” said the sergeant absently. “What have you got for dinner, Bess? I’m fearfully hungry, and I smell something good.”
“Steak and onions and apple-pie,” said his wife. “Stephen, I want that boy.”