"
"You'll do nothing of the kind, sir," thundered the Major. "It's going to
be a two weeks' war, and you shall take an outfit for two weeks, or stay at
home! By God, sir, if you contradict me again I'll not let you go to fight
the Yankees."
Champe stared for an instant into the inflamed face of the old gentleman,
and then his cheery smile broke out.
"That settles it, uncle," he said soothingly. "It's to be a war of two
weeks, and I'll come home a Major-general before the holidays."
BOOK THIRD
THE SCHOOL OF WAR
I
HOW MERRY GENTLEMEN WENT TO WAR
The July sun fell straight and hot upon the camp, and Dan, as he sat on a
woodpile and ate a green apple, wistfully cast his eyes about for a deeper
shade. But the young tree from which he had just shaken its last fruit
stood alone between the scattered tents and the blur of willows down the
gentle slope, and beneath its speckled shadow the mess had gathered
sleepily, after the mid-day meal.
In the group of privates, stretched under the gauzy shade on the trampled
grass, the first thing to strike an observer would have been, perhaps,
their surprising youth. They were all young--the eldest hardly more than
three and twenty--and the faces bore a curious resemblance in type, as if
they were, one and all, variations from a common stock. There was about
them, too, a peculiar expression of enthusiasm, showing even in the faces
of those who slept; a single wave of emotion which, rising to its height in
an entire people revealed itself in the features of the individual soldier.
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