“They have fired on Fort Sumter!” cried Benson.
“What if they have, that's about what I've been expecting. Is that what they were talking about out there?”
“Yes; they began firing on Fort Sumter early this morning; this means that the other slave States will join those that have already gone out!”
“Oh, no, they won't!” said the young man easily, and with sudden cheerfulness. “We won't let them!” he tossed his book to the table and left his chair. “We won't let them!” he repeated.
“We!” cried Benson.
“Certainly!” he laughed queerly, gleefully. “I shan't be able to stop them alone, but if there's going to be a war, they'll want soldiers to fight—that will just suit me! I'll enlist!”
“You! You'll do nothing of the kind!” said Benson sharply. “Why, you're just ready to be admitted to the bar.”
“I'll never make a lawyer!” the boy kept on with growing enthusiasm. “I've known that all along; but soldiering—”
“You're too young,” began the lawyer.
“I'm twenty, and it will be the young fellow's fight! The old fellows will stay home and talk fight just the way they have been doing ever since I can remember—what are they ringing that confounded court-house bell for anyhow?”