Just before leaving home for the Islands Bertie had been taught a bit of a poem which he had recited at a Sunday-school concert. One line ran:
I'm a little soldier fighting for the right.
The soldiers were strolling about in pairs and singly, and Bertie stood near the fountain watching a fine-looking fellow who had stopped for a cool drink of sparkling water. Suddenly the words of his recitation came into his mind and without hesitation he stepped up to the stranger and said:
"Man, are you a soldier fighting for the right?" and then stood still looking at the soldier as if waiting for a reply.
"Who are you?" asked the stranger.
"Oh,
I'm a little soldier fighting for the right!"
and then, Bertie seized with a sudden spasm of timidity, ran away to find his mother.
The soldier's name was John Lewis; he turned away and rejoined his companions, but the words of the fair-faced, soft-voiced child still sounded in his ear. He was not fighting for the right; he was perfectly well aware that he had enlisted upon the side of the leader who is bound to oppose the right under all circumstances.
He knew that the banner under which he was marching had sin written all over it. It was Satan's banner, and he was doing work for that leader that was telling upon his own life. It already, young as he was, began to show in his face, in his unsteady step and foul breath. He knew that so surely was he bound to the service of that master, that if he could have found a glass of liquor upon the grounds he would not have stopped to drink at the fountain, and would not have given Bertie the opportunity for his childish questioning.