rank, smiling.

"Yah, yah!" returned Pomp, who appreciated the joke.

"Now, Pomp," Frank continued seriously, "if you will learn your lesson
in fifteen minutes I will give you a piece of gingerbread."

"I'll do it, Mass' Frank," said Pomp promptly.

Pomp was very fond of gingerbread, as Frank very well knew. In the time
specified the lesson was got, and recited satisfactorily.

As Pomp's education will not again be referred to, it may be said that
when Frank had discovered how to manage him, he learned quite rapidly.
Chloe, who was herself unable to read, began to look upon Pomp with
a new feeling of respect when she found that he could read stories in
words of one syllable, and the "lickings" of which he complained became
less frequent. But his love of fun still remained, and occasionally got
him into trouble, as we shall hereafter have occasion to see.

CHAPTER XXI. THE BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURG

About the middle of December came the sad tragedy of Fredericksburg,
in which thousands of our gallant soldiers yielded up their lives in a
hard, unequal struggle, which brought forth nothing but mortification
and disaster.

The first telegrams which appeared in the daily papers brought anxiety
and bodings of ill to many households. The dwellers at the farm were
not exempt. They had been apprised by a recent letter that Mr. Frost's
regiment now formed a part of the grand army which lay encamped on
the eastern side of the Rappahannock. The probability was that he was
engaged in the battle. Frank realized for the first time to what peril
his father was exposed, and mingled with the natural feeling which such
a thought was likely to produce was the reflection that, but for him,
his father would have been in safety at home.

"Did I do right?" Frank asked himself anxiously, the old doubt recurring
once more.

Then, above the selfish thought of peril to him and his, rose the
consideration of the country's need, and Frank said to himself, "I have
done right--whatever happens. I feel sure of that."

Yet his anxiety was by no means diminished, especially when, a day or
two afterward, tidings of the disaster came to hand, only redeemed by
the masterly retreat across the river, in which a great army, without
the loss of a single gun, ambulance, or wagon, withdrew from the scene
of a hopeless struggle, under the very eyes of the enemy, yet escaping
discovery.

One afternoon Frank went to the post-office a little after th