"I can't stand it," he went on; "we 've been sassed enough as a nation, 'n' some of us have got to teach those foreigners we ain't goin' to turn the other cheek just coz we're slapped on one. When I wasn't higher than Budd, my great-grandfather--you remember him, Ben, lived the other side of the Mountain--put his father's old Revolution'ry musket (the one, you know, Rose-pose, as I 've used in the N.B.B.O.O.) into my hands, 'n' says: 'Don't you stand no sass, Malachi Graham, from no foreigners.--Just shoot away, 'n' holler, "Hands off" every time, 'n' they 'll learn their lesson easy and early, 'n' respect you in the end.' And I ain't forgot it."
"Chi," Mrs. Blossom's voice was tremulous, "you won't go till you 're asked, or needed, will you?"
"I ain't goin' to wait to be asked, Mis' Blossom; I 'd rather be on hand to be refused. That's my way. So I thought I 'd be gettin' down along this week--"
"This week!" Rose interrupted him with a cry and a half-sob. "Oh, Chi! dear old Chi! must you go? What if--what if--" Rose's voice broke, and Chi gulped down a big lump, but answered, cheerily:
"Well, Rose-pose, what if? Ain't I Old Put? 'n' ain't you Molly Stark? 'n' ain't Lady-bird Barbara Frietchie?--There, just read that--" he handed a letter to March, who gave it back to him, saying, in a husky voice, that it was too dark to read.
"Well, then we 'll adjourn into the house, 'n' light up.--There now," he said, as he lighted the lamp and set it on the table beside March, "here's your letter, Markis, read ahead."
March read with broken voice:
4 EAST --TH STREET, NEW YORK,
May 5, 1898.
DEAR FRIEND CHI,--I never thought when I joined the N.B.B.O.O. Society, that I 'd have to be really brave about real war;--and now dear old Jack is going off to Cuba with Little Shaver and all those cow-boys,--and it's dreadful! Uncle John is about sick over it, for, you know, Jack is all he has. Papa is going to keep the house open all summer; he says there is no telling what may happen.
We have made no plans for the summer, for our hearts are so heavy on Jack's account--his last year in Harvard, too! He told me to tell you he would find out if there is a chance for you in the new cavalry regiment he has joined. He looked so pleased when I told him; he read your letter, and I told him how you wanted to go with him, and he said: "Dear old Chi, I'd like to have him for my bunkie"--and told me what it meant. He told me to tell you to be prepared for a telegram at any moment.