ou can't guess?"

"No. I am quite mystified."

"Suppose I should say that it is your oldest son?"

"What, Frank?" exclaimed Mrs. Frost, turning from her husband to her
son, whose flushed face indicated how anxious he was about his mother's
favorable opinion.

"You have hit it."

"You were not in earnest, Frank?" said Mrs. Frost inquiringly.

"Ask father."

"I think he was. He certainly appeared to be."

"But what does Frank know about farming?"

"I asked him that question myself. He admitted that he didn't know much
at present, but thought that, with Mr. Maynard's advice, he might get
along."

Mrs. Frost was silent a moment. "It will be a great undertaking," she
said, at last; "but if you think you can trust Frank, I will do all
I can to help him. I can't bear to think of having you go, yet I am
conscious that this is a feeling which I have no right to indulge at the
expense of my country."

"Yes," said her husband seriously. "I feel that I owe my country a
service which I have no right to delegate to another, as long as I am
able to discharge it myself. I shall reflect seriously upon Frank's
proposition."

There was no more said at this time. Both Frank and his parents felt
that it was a serious matter, and not to be hastily decided.

After breakfast Frank went up-stairs, and before studying his Latin
lesson, read over thoughtfully the following passage in his prize essay
on "The Duties of American Boys at the Present Crisis:"

"Now that so large a number of our citizens have been withdrawn from
their families and their ordinary business to engage in putting down
this Rebellion, it becomes the duty of the boys to take their places as
far as they are able to do so. A boy cannot wholly supply the place of a
man, but he can do so in part. And where he is not called on to do this,
he can so conduct himself that his friends who are absent may feel at
ease about him. He ought to feel willing to give up some pleasures, if
by so doing he can help to supply the places of those who are gone.
If he does this voluntarily, and in the right spirit, he is just as
patriotic as if he were a soldier in the field."

"I didn't think," thought Frank, "when I wrote this, how soon my words
would come back to me. It isn't much to write the words. The thing is
to stand by them. If father should decide to go, I will do my best, and
then, when the Rebellion is over, I shall feel that I did something,
even if It wasn't much, t