His mother would hardly have known him as he stepped into the hospital and waited till the surgeon had time to take a big splinter from his left arm.
“Where’s your cane, young man?” the surgeon asked, when Jack’s turn came.
“I don’t know, sir!” Jack replied, surprised to find himself standing without it. “I must have forgotten all about it. I saw one of the gunners fall, and I took his place, and that’s all I remember, sir, except seeing the enemy strike her colors.”
That action made Jack a Midshipman in the United States navy, and gave him a share in the prize-money, and a year later he was an Ensign. For special gallantry in action in Mobile Bay he was made a Lieutenant before the close of the war, and in the long years since then he has risen more slowly to the rank of Lieutenant-Commander.
IV
CAPTAIN BILLY
Aid and Comfort to the Enemy
WHEN the General invited the Fortescue girls and their friends to spend an evening in the house on the Square, it was always understood that part of the entertainment was to be a “war story,” and, on the special evening I refer to, a barrel of apples, sent from the “northern part of the State,” gave the subject.
“Oh yes, Molly,” said the General to the girl, whom the old nurse now called “the eldest Miss Fortescue,” “you can put the apples out; and they’ve just made me remember I never told you about ‘Tobacco Billy,’” and as his eager auditors settled themselves comfortably about the fire, the General, with his peculiar quiet smile, began.
“Just hand me down that old photograph in the little black frame; there you are—poor old Tobacco Billy!”