“Are you willing to take the oath of allegiance, and swear to sustain the flag of your country?”

“Of course I am.  I only followed the old man’s lead; but I have got enough of it.  Do you think Captain Benson will take me into the company?”

“Perhaps he will.”

“Ask him—­will you?  You needn’t say I’m here, you know.”

“But what will your father say?”

“I don’t care what he says.”

Tom thought, if Fred didn’t care, he needn’t, and going aft, he found the captain, and proposed to him the question.

“Take him—­yes.  We’ll teach him loyalty and patriotism, and before his time is out, we will make him an abolitionist,” replied Captain Benson.  “What will his father say?”

“His father doesn’t know anything about it.  Fred ran away, and followed the company into the city.”

“Squire Pemberton is a traitor, and I believe the army will be the best school in the world for his son,” added the captain.  “It will be better for him to be with us than to be at home.  If it was the son of any other man in Pinchbrook, I wouldn’t take him without the consent of his father; as it is, I feel perfectly justified in accepting him.”

Tom hastened to the forward deck to report the success of his mission.  The result was, that Fred came out of his hiding-place, and exhibited himself to the astonished members of the Pinchbrook company.  When he announced his intention to go to the war, and, with a pardonable flourish, his desire to serve his country, he was saluted with a volley of cheers.  Captain Benson soon appeared on the forward deck, and the name of the new recruit was placed on the enlistment paper.

Fred was seventeen years of age, and was taller and stouter than Tom Somers.  No questions were asked in regard to his age or his physical ability to endure the hardships of a campaign.

The steamer arrived at Fort Warren, and the company landed.  After waiting a short time on the wharf, the color company of the —­th regiment, to which they were attached, came down and escorted them to the parade ground within the fort.  It was a desolate and gloomy-looking place to Tom, who had always lived among green fields, and the beautiful surroundings of a New England rural district.

If the fort itself looked dreary, how much more so were the casemates in which the company was quartered!  But Tom’s philosophy was proof against the unpleasant impression, and his joke was as loud and hearty as that of any of his companions.  The men were divided off into messes, and they had an abundance of work to do in bringing up the company’s luggage, and making their new habitation as comfortable and pleasant as the circumstances would permit.