“I 'd like to say a word to you,” said Bladburn.
With a little start of surprise, I made room for him on the fallen tree where I was seated.
“I may n't get another chance,” he said. “You and the boys have been very kind to me, kinder than I deserve; but sometimes I 've fancied that my not saying anything about myself had given you the idea that all was not right in my past. I want to say that I came down to Virginia with a clean record.”
“We never really doubted it, Bladburn.”
“If I did n't write home,” he continued, “it was because I had n't any home, neither kith nor kin. When I said the old folks were dead, I said it. Am I boring you? If I thought I was”—
“No, Bladburn. I have often wanted you to talk to me about yourself, not from idle curiosity, I trust, but because I liked you that rainy night when you came to camp, and have gone on liking you ever since. This is n't too much to say, when Heaven only knows how soon I may be past saying it or you listening to it.”
“That's it,” said Bladburn, hurriedly, “that's why I want to talk with you. I 've a fancy that I sha' n't come out of our first battle.”
The words gave me a queer start, for I had been trying several days to throw off a similar presentiment concerning him—a foolish presentiment that grew out of a dream.
“In case anything of that kind turns up,” he continued, “I 'd like you to have my Latin grammar here—you 've seen me reading it. You might stick it away in a bookcase, for the sake of old times. It goes against me to think of it falling into rough hands or being kicked about camp and trampled underfoot.”
He was drumming softly with his fingers on the volume in the bosom of his blouse.