“I wisht I was one now,” returned the boy wistfully. “Do you? What would you do?”
“I dunno, exactly. Somethin’.”
“You’d need a more definite policy than that, son, if you were in the bad fix of owning a newspaper.”
“I’d do somethin’,” persisted the boy. “I’d soak the Germans. Say, Boss, how old do you have to be to get into the National Guard?”
“A good deal older than you are. Why all this martial ardor, Buddy?”
“That’s what She’d do, if She was a man.”
“Did the letter say so?”
“Yes. Can a feller—is it ever all right for a feller to show a lady’s letter?”
Wondering again as he had wondered before whence this freckled scrub of a boy had derived his instincts of the gentleman born and bred, Jeremy answered gravely: “It might be. That’s for you to decide, Buddy.”
“I kinda guess She’d like for you to see this.” He dug out of his pocket a crumpled sheet, covered with the strong, straight, beautiful script of Marcia. “Read there, Boss.” He indicated an inner page.