There were the names as he said. Colonel B. clasped the boy to his heart, crying brokenly, "My son! my son!"
I must now go back in my story. In the first year of his married life, Colonel B. and his lovely young wife sailed for Europe, expecting to remain several years in Southern Europe, on account of the delicate health of his wife. He was engaged in merchandise in the city of Baltimore. The sudden death of his business partner compelled his return to America, leaving his wife with her mother in Italy.
Soon after he left, his mother-in-law died. Mrs. B. then prepared to return to Baltimore at once, and took passage on the ill-fated steamer which was lost. Vainly he made inquiries; no tidings came of her. At last he gave her up as dead; he almost lost his reason from grief and doubt.
Fourteen years had passed; he did not know that God in his mercy had spared to him a precious link with the young life so lost and mourned. Restless, and almost aimless, he removed to Michigan. When the war broke out, he was among the first to join the army.
There stood the boy, tears streaming down his cheeks. "Father," he said, "you have found me at last, just as Father Jack said. You are a great gentleman, while I am only a poor drummer boy. But I have been an honest boy, and tried my best to do what was right. You won't be ashamed of me, father?"
"I am proud to call you my son, and thank God for bringing you to me just as you are."
My little hero is now a grown man; and as the boy was so is the man. "Stand by the ship," the motto which served him so well while a boy, is his motto still.
