“Yes,” said her husband seriously.  “I feel that I owe my country a service which I have no right to delegate to another, as long as I am able to discharge it myself.  I shall reflect seriously upon Frank’s proposition.”

There was no more said at this time.  Both Frank and his parents felt that it was a serious matter, and not to be hastily decided.

After breakfast Frank went up-stairs, and before studying his Latin lesson, read over thoughtfully the following passage in his prize essay on “The Duties of American Boys at the Present Crisis:” 

“Now that so large a number of our citizens have been withdrawn from their families and their ordinary business to engage in putting down this Rebellion, it becomes the duty of the boys to take their places as far as they are able to do so.  A boy cannot wholly supply the place of a man, but he can do so in part.  And where he is not called on to do this, he can so conduct himself that his friends who are absent may feel at ease about him.  He ought to feel willing to give up some pleasures, if by so doing he can help to supply the places of those who are gone.  If he does this voluntarily, and in the right spirit, he is just as patriotic as if he were a soldier in the field.”

“I didn’t think,” thought Frank, “when I wrote this, how soon my words would come back to me.  It isn’t much to write the words.  The thing is to stand by them.  If father should decide to go, I will do my best, and then, when the Rebellion is over, I shall feel that I did something, even if It wasn’t much, toward putting it down.”

Frank put his essay carefully away in a bureau drawer in which he kept his clothes, and, spreading open his Latin lexicon, proceeded to prepare his lesson in the third book of Virgil’s Aeneid.

CHAPTER V. MR. RATHBURN MAKES A SPEECH

Frank’s seat in the schoolroom was directly in front of that occupied by John Haynes.  Until the announcement of the prize John and he had been on friendly terms.  They belonged to the same class in Latin, and Frank had often helped his classmate through a difficult passage which he had not the patience to construe for himself.  Now, however, a coolness grew up between them, originating with John.  He felt envious of Frank’s success; and this feeling brought with it a certain bitterness which found gratification in anything which he had reason to suppose would annoy Frank.

On the morning succeeding the distribution of the prizes, Frank arrived at the schoolhouse a few minutes before the bell rang.  John, with half a dozen other boys, stood near the door.

John took off his hat with mock deference.  “Make way for the great prize essayist, gentlemen!” he said.  “The modern Macaulay is approaching.”

Frank colored with annoyance.  John did not fail to notice this with pleasure.  He was sorry, however, that none of the other boys seemed inclined to join in the demonstration.  In fact, they liked Frank much the better of the two.