iles on his journey.

Marcy mentally denounced these sympathetic and well-meaning rebels as so
many nuisances, for they drew upon him attentions that he would have
been glad to escape. They asked him all sorts of questions, and the boy
adroitly managed to truthfully answer every one of them, and without
exciting suspicion. Matters were even worse when the train stopped. The
flags that were fluttering from the locomotive and the car windows
attracted the notice of the station loafers, who whooped and yelled and
crowded up to shake hands with the passengers. At such times Marcy
always took off his cap; but that did no good, for some one was sure to
see his gray overcoat, and propose cheers for him. Marcy trembled when
he thought of what they would do to him if they learned that he was the
strongest Union boy in the school he had left. But there was little
danger of that. His secret was safe.

Raleigh was reached at last, and Marcy Gray, feeling like a stranger in
a strange land, changed cars for Boydtown, which was a hundred and
twenty miles further on. But before doing that he stepped into a
telegraph office and sent the following dispatch to his mother:

"Will take a late breakfast with you to-morrow if you will send Morris
to meet me at the depot. Three cheers for the right."

"How much?" he asked the operator, after the latter had read it over.

"Not a cent to a soldier," he replied, reaching out his hand, and taking
it for granted that the boy was fresh from the seat of war. "Warm times
in Charleston the other day, I suppose?"

"I shouldn't wonder if it was hot in the fort," answered Marcy, with a
smile.

"But you happened to be on the outside."

"You're right, I did. It was no place for me in there."

"No; nor for any other man who believes in the right. Tell us all about
it. Were you frightened when you heard the shells bursting over your
head, and did the Yankees--"

"I must ask you to excuse me," said Marcy, hastily, "my train is ready
to go, and I have barely time to catch it."

"Well, good luck to you."

Marcy hastened from the telegraph office before any one else could speak
to him, and thanked his lucky stars that before another night came he
would be at home where he could appear in his true character; but he was
satisfied, from what his mother had said in her letters, that he would
find few friends among the neighbors. They were nearly all
secessionists, Mrs. Gray wrote, and those who were not