head, the yells of its supporters were
almost deafening and their antics quite indescribable. There was an
abundance of enthusiasm about that time. There wasn't quite so much one
short year later, when some of those same boys learned, to their great
disgust and rage, that the Confederate Congress had passed a sweeping
conscription law, and that their one year's enlistment had been
arbitrarily lengthened to three. Then they began to see what despotism
meant.

All hope of conciliation or peace at any price was gone now. There was
nothing to hold them together any longer, and the following morning saw
another and larger exodus of students from the academy who were homeward
bound. Among them were Cole, Graham, Billings, Dixon, and Marcy Gray. It
was not quite so solemn a parting as the first one was, for the drooping
spirits of the rebels had been raised to blood-heat by that glorious
news from Charleston.

"Shoot high, Marcy, when you meet the Stars and Bars on the
battlefield," said Billings. "There may be a Barrington boy thereabouts.
But you can't deny that we've whipped you once in a fair fight, can
you?"

"I don't know what you call a fair fight," replied Marcy. "Of course
five thousand men, well supplied with grub and ammunition, ought to whip
fifty-one soldiers and a few hired mechanics. But they held out against
you as long as they had anything to eat or powder to shoot with. I
wouldn't crow over it, if I were in your place."

"Well, we have given you a taste of what is in store for you, at all
events."

"And you have learned something that I have tried to get through your
thick heads ever since these troubles began," chimed in Dixon. "I told
you the North would fight. But let's jump in if we are going home. You
know the trains meet here, and we haven't much more than time to get to
the depot."

The boys once more shook hands with their teachers, cheered lustily for
the Barrington Military Academy and everybody connected with it, shouted
themselves hoarse for their respective flags, and then sprang into the
carriages and were driven away.

"We're done playing soldier," said Dick Graham. "The next time we
shoulder muskets or draw sabers, there will be more reality in it than
some of us will care to face. Let's keep track of one another as long as
we can, and bear always in mind that we are not enemies, if we do march
under different flags."

Marcy Gray was glad when his train came along and bore him away