At last only Tom and Freddy were left to go home by themselves. As they marched along, keeping faultless step, Freddy exclaimed, "I tell you what, Tom! I mean to ask my father, the minute he comes home, to let me go to West Point as soon as I leave school! I must be a soldier—I can't think of anything else!"
"That's just what I mean to do!" cried Tom, with sparkling eyes; "and, Fred, if you get promoted before me, promise you will have me in your regiment, won't you?"
"Yes I will, certainly!" answered Freddy; "but you're the oldest, Tom, and, you know, the oldest gets promoted first; so mind you don't forget me when you come to your command!"
As he spoke, they reached his own home; and our hero, glad after all to come back to father, mother, and sister, bounded up the steps, and rang the bell good and hard, just to let Joseph know that a personage of eminence had arrived. As the door opened, he turned gayly round, cap in hand, saying, "Good-by, Maryland; you've left the regiment, but you'll never leave the Union!" and the last words he heard Tom say were, "No, by George, never!"
And now, dear little readers, my boy friends in particular, the history of Freddy Jourdain must close. He still lives in New York, and attends Dr. Larned's school, where he is at the head of all his classes.
The Dashahed Zouaves have met very often since the encampment, and had many a good drill in their room—the large attic floor which Mr. Jourdain allowed them for their special accommodation, and where the beautiful regimental colors are carefully kept, to be proudly displayed in every parade of the Zouaves.
When he is sixteen, the boy Colonel is to enter West Point Academy, and learn to be a real soldier; while Tom—poor Tom, who went down to Baltimore that pleasant July month, promising so faithfully to join Freddy in the cadet corps, may never see the North again.
And in conclusion let me say, that should our country again be in danger in after years, which God forbid, we may be sure that first in the field, and foremost in the van of the grand army, will be our gallant young friend,
Colonel Freddy.