But Tom was no longer in a condition to be worried.  Though still sad at the thought of the home and friends he had left behind, he had reduced his emotions to proper subjection, and before the column reached Boston, he had even regained his wonted cheerfulness.  The procession halted upon the wharf, where the company was to embark on a steamer for Fort Warren.  As the boat which was to convey them to the fort had not yet arrived, the men were permitted to mingle with their friends on the wharf, and, of course, Tom immediately sought out his brother.  He found him engaged in a spirited conversation with Captain Benson.

“What is it, Jack?” asked the soldier boy.

“I want to join this company, and the captain won’t let me,” replied John.

“You, Jack!”

“Yes, I.”

“Did mother say so?”

“No, but she won’t care.”

“Did you ask her?”

“No; I didn’t think of going till after I started from home.”

“Don’t think of it, Jack.  It would be an awful blow to mother to have both of us go.”

For half an hour Tom argued the matter with John; but the military enthusiasm of the latter had been so aroused by the march and its attendant circumstances, that he could not restrain his inclination.

“If I don’t join this company, I shall some other,” said John.

“I shall have to go home again, if you do; for I won’t have mother left alone.  We haven’t been mustered in yet.  Besides, I thought you wanted to go into the navy.”

“I do; but I’m bound to go somehow,” replied John.

But what neither Tom nor Captain Benson could do, was accomplished by Captain Barney, who declared John should go home with him if he had to take him by the collar.  The ardent young patriot yielded as gracefully as he could to this persuasion.

The steamer having arrived, the soldiers shook hands with their friends again, went on board, and, amid the hearty cheers of the citizens of Pinchbrook, were borne down the bay.

CHAPTER X.

Company K.

Tom Somers felt that he was now a soldier indeed.  While the company remained in Pinchbrook, he had slept every night in his own bed, and taken his meals in the kitchen of the little cottage.  He fully realized that he had bade a long farewell to all the comforts and luxuries of home.  That day, for the first time, he was to partake of soldiers’ fare, and that night, for the first time, he was to sleep upon a soldier’s bed.  These thoughts did not make him repine, for before he signed the muster roll, he had carefully considered, with the best information he could obtain, what hardships and privations he would be called to endure.  He had made up his mind to bear all things without a murmur for the blessed land of his birth, which now called upon her sons to defend her from the parricidal blow of the traitor.