topped reading for a moment or two and smiled with satisfaction.
The impression that Lee and Jackson had made upon the South was as
great in the west as in the east. The hero-worship which the fiery and
impressionable South gives in such unstinted measure to these two men
had begun already. Harry was glad that his father recognized the great
Virginians so fully, men who allied with genius temperate and lofty
lives.

He resumed his reading, but the remainder of the letter was occupied
with personal details. The colonel closed with some good advice to his
son about caring for himself on the march and in camp, drawn from his
own experience both in the Mexican war and the present strife.

Harry read his letter three times. Then he folded it carefully and put
it in an inside pocket of his tunic.

"Is it good news, Harry?" asked Happy Tom, who had already finished with
his own letter.

"Yes, it's cheerful."

"So's mine. I'm glad to hear that your father's all right. Mine didn't
go to the war. I wish you could meet my father, Harry. I get my
cheerful disposition and my good manners from him. When the war was
about to begin and I went over to Charleston in about the most splendid
uniform that was ever created, he said: 'You fellows will get licked
like thunder, and maybe you'll deserve it. As for you, you'll probably
get a part of your fool head shot off, but it's so thick and hard that
it will be a benefit to you to lose some of it and have the rest opened
up. But remember, Tom, whenever you do come back, no matter how many
legs and arms and portions of your head you've left behind, there'll be
a welcome in the old house for you. You're the fatted calf, but you're
sure to come back a lot leaner and maybe with more sense.'"

"He certainly talked to you straight."

"So he did, Harry; but those words were not nearly so rough as they
sound, because when I came away I saw tears in his eyes. Father's a
smart man, a money-maker as good as the Yankees themselves. He's got
sea island cotton in warehouses in more than one place along the coast,
and he writes me that he's already selling it to the blockade runners
for unmentionable prices in British and French gold. Harry, if your
fortunes are broken up by the war, you and your father will have to come
down and share with us."

"Thanks for your invitation, Tom; but from what you say about your
father we'd be about as welcome as a bear in a kitchen."

"Don't you