Ephraim gave himself another spin. ‘I done read her up out of a book, and made her myself,’ he said.
‘Grizzly!’ cried Lucius in profound admiration. ‘You—made—it—yourself. Well, if you don’t just beat every one. You’re a genius, that’s what you are. What put it into your head to make it? You clever old stick!’
‘You did,’ answered Ephraim, glowing with pride and pleasure.
‘I did! Why? How? What is it for, then?’
Ephraim took a step forward and looked into his eyes. ‘Fer you and me to sail around in and watch the war,’ he said.
Profound silence followed this extraordinary announcement, and then Lucius sat down on a heap of shavings and rather feebly remarked, ‘Oh!’ There really seemed nothing more to be said.
‘Yas, sir,’ went on Ephraim, still beaming with satisfaction; ‘when ye said ye wuz so sot ter see some fightin’, I began ter study and figger out what’d be the best way for ye ter do it ’thout ye gettin’ in the track of the bullets.’
‘Oh,’ commented Lucius, ‘you were afraid of being killed, were you?’
‘No, and I warn’t neither,’ returned Ephraim simply; ‘but I wuz powerful frightened lest ye might be. Bullets is sech darned unpolites—they never stops ter inquire if ye b’long ter a fust fam’ly or if ye don’t.’
‘But you know,’ explained Lucius, ‘when I said that I wanted to see a battle, I meant that I wanted to take part in one.’