“Yes, the little one is pretty well smashed up already, but legs or no legs, boys allays keeps their sperrits!”

Captain Smalley was rather startled at hearing frantic shouts behind him, and when he pulled up wondering if some message were to be delivered, he was still more bewildered by what he heard.

“Hi, Captain Smalley!  Stop for us.  We’ve come two miles out of our way.  Now then, Roy, go ahead!”

“Do you know Rob?  We want you to tell us how he is.  We can’t get a word out of him; is there going to be any fighting?  And how does he look in his clothes?”

“Who is Rob?” asked Captain Smalley.

“Why, he’s a soldier like you.  You must know him!”

A few more explanations were made, and then the young man laughed heartily.

“Your young friend is learning his recruit drill at the depot, I should think.  If he were in my regiment I might not be able to give you much information about him.  The army is a big affair, my boys, and I doubt if Rob and I will ever meet.”

The boys’ faces fell considerably.

“Do you think he likes it?” asked Roy, anxiously; “do you like being a soldier?”

“Of course I do, and if he has any stuff in him he will like it, too.”

“And will he be sent to fight very soon?”

“I dare say he may do his seven years without a single fight!”

Roy looked very disappointed.

“If he doesn’t fight, he might just as well have stopped at home.  What’s the good of being a soldier if you don’t have any battles?”

“Soldiers prevent battles, sometimes.”

This sounded nonsense to the boys.  They bade the captain good-bye, and turned their pony’s head homeward quite disconsolate.

“I’ll write and tell him to come home if he’s not going to do anything,” said Roy, with his little mouth pursed up determinedly.

“We’ll give him a chance, first.  He may go out to fight.  Captain Smalley didn’t say for certain.”

“I think Captain Smalley is funky himself about fighting, that’s what I think!”

And with this disdainful assertion Roy dismissed the subject.

XIII

OLD PRINCIPLE

It was a soft, mild day in December.  Mr. Selby’s study seemed close and stifling to the boys as they sat up at the long table with books and slates before them, and a blazing fire behind their backs.

“This sum won’t come right, Mr. Selby,” groaned Roy; “and I’ve gone over it three times.  It is made up of nothing but eights and nines.  I hate nine.  I wish it had never been made.  Who made up figures, Mr. Selby?”

Roy’s questions were rather perplexing at lesson time.

“I will tell you all about that another time,” was Mr. Selby’s reply.  “Have another try, my boy:  never let any difficulty master you, if you can help it.”

A knock at the door, and Mr. Selby was summoned to some parishioner.  He was often interrupted when with his pupils, but they were generally conscientious enough to go on working during his absence.