He was a restless, often a very naughty boy; but when you looked at his broad forehead and truthful eyes, you felt that, back of all his faults, there was nobleness in his boyish soul. His father often said, "He will either make something or nothing," and his mother answered, "Yes, there never will be any half-way place for Horace."
Now that Mr. Clifford had really enlisted, everybody looked sad. Grace was often in tears, and said,—
"We can't any of us live, if pa goes to the war."
But when Horace could not help crying, he always said it was because he "had the earache;" and perhaps he thought it was.
Mrs. Clifford tried to be cheerful, for she was a patriotic woman; but she could not trust her voice to talk a great deal, or sing much to the baby.
As for Barbara Kinckle, she scrubbed the floors, and scoured the tins harder than ever, looking all the while as if every one of her friends was dead and buried. The family were to break up housekeeping and Barbara was very sorry. Now she would have to go to her home a little way back in the country, and work in the fields, as many German girls do every summer.
"O, my heart is sore," said she, "every time I thinks of it. They will in the cars go off, and whenever again I'll see the kliny (little) childers I knows not."
It was a sad day when Mr. Clifford bade good-by to his family. His last words to Horace were these: "Always obey your mother, my boy, and remember that God sees all you do."
He was now "Captain Clifford," and went away at the head of his company, looking like, what he really was, a brave and noble gentleman.
Grace wondered if he ever thought of the bright new buttons on his coat; and Horace walked about among his school-fellows with quite an air, very proud of being the son of a man who either was now, or was going to be, the greatest officer in Indiana!