Tom Somers had already begun to feel a soldier’s pride in his new situation; and though he found that being a soldier boy was not always the easiest and the pleasantest thing in the world, he bore his trials with philosophical patience and fortitude, and made the most of whatever joys the circumstances placed within his reach.

Others grumbled, but he did not.  He declared that he had enlisted for the war, and meant to take things as they came.  It was not exactly agreeable to stand on guard for two hours, on a cold, rainy night; but grumbling would not make it any the more agreeable, and only made the grumbler discontented and unhappy.  It did not look like “the pomp and circumstance of war,” and no doubt most of the boys in the Pinchbrook company would have been better satisfied in their own houses in “the village by the sea.”  But most of these men had left their happy homes under the inspiration of the highest and truest motives.  They were going forth to fight the battles of their imperilled country, and this reflection filled them with a heroism which the petty trials and discomforts of the camp could not impair.

While the regiment was at Camp Cameron, the state colors and a standard, procured by the liberality of its friends, were presented; and the patriotic speeches delivered on this occasion made a deep impression upon the mind and heart of the soldier boy.  To him they were real—­perhaps more real than to those who uttered the burning words.  He was in a situation to feel the full force of the great sacrifice which the soldier makes for his country.  He devoted himself, heart and soul, to the cause; and what was but an idle sentiment in the mind of the flowery speech-makers, was truth and soberness to him who was to meet the foe at the cannon’s mouth and at the bayonet’s point.

“We are off on the 29th,” said old Hapgood, one evening, as he entered the barrack where Tom was writing a letter to his mother.

“Good!  I am glad to hear it.  I was just telling my mother that I hoped we should not have to stay much longer in this place,” replied Tom.

“I think we are having an easy time of it here,” added the veteran.  “When you find out what hunger and fatigue mean, you will learn to be contented with such a place as this.”

“I’m contented enough; but I want to get into the field, and have something done.”

“Time enough, my boy.  I used to feel just so, Tom, when I went to Mexico; but after a while I got so I didn’t care what we did or where we went.”

Tom added a postscript to his letter, informing his mother of the time fixed for the departure of the regiment.  The intelligence in this instance proved to be correct, for on the appointed day the little colonel marched his command into the city, where it was duly embarked on the cars for New York.  It was a day of excitement, for the streets of the city were thronged with people, whose cheers and applause were the benison with which the regiment went forth to do and to die for the nation.  Tom was delighted with this warm reception, but more by meeting his mother and his brother and sisters at the station.  It was a joyous and yet a sad meeting.  Mrs. Somers wept; and what mother would not weep to see her son go forth to encounter the perils of the battle-field, and the greater perils of the camp?