The brave youths were recovering fast from their wounds and exertions.  Their camp was beside a clear brook and there were tents for the officers, though they were but seldom used, most of them, unless it should be raining, preferring to sleep in their blankets under the trees.  The water was good to drink, and farther down were several deep pools in which they bathed.  Food, as usual in the Northern army, was good and plentiful, and for the Winchesters it seemed more a period of play than of war.

“What did you see at the house, Dick?” asked Colonel Winchester.

“The spy, Shepard.  I talked a while with him.  He says the Confederacy is growing weaker every day, but if we try to storm Lee’s lines we’ll be cut to pieces.”

“I think he’s right in both respects, although I feel sure that some kind of a movement will soon be attempted.  But Dick, a mail from the west has arrived and here is a letter for you.”

He handed the lad a large square envelope, addressed in tall, slanting script, and Dick knew at once that it was from his mother.  He seized it eagerly, and Colonel Winchester, suppressing the wish to know what was inside, turned away.

* * * *

I have not heard from my dearest boy since the terrible battles in the east [Mrs. Mason wrote], but I hope and pray that you have come safely through them.  You have escaped so many dangers that I feel you must escape all the rest.  The news reaches us that the fighting in Virginia has been of the most dreadful character, but when it arrives in Pendleton it has two meanings.  Those of our little town who are for the Confederacy say General Grant’s losses have been so enormous that he can go no farther, and that the last and greatest effort of the North has failed.

Those who sympathize with the Union say General Lee has been reduced so greatly that he must be crushed soon and with him the Confederacy.  As you know, I wish the latter to be true, but I suspect that the truth is somewhere between the two statements.

But the truth either way brings me great grief.  I cannot hate the Southern people.  We are Southern ourselves in all save this war, and, although our dear little town is divided in feeling, I have received nothing but kindness from those on the other side.  Dr. Russell often asks about you.  He says you were the best Latin scholar in the Academy, and he expects you to have a great future, as a learned man, after the war.  He speaks oftenest of you and Harry Kenton, and I believe that you two were his favorite pupils.  He says that Harry’s is the best mathematical mind he has ever found in his long years of teaching.

Your room remains just as it was when you left.  Juliana brushes and airs it every day, and expects at any time to see her young Master Dick come riding home.  She keeps in her mind two pictures of you, absolutely unlike.  In one of these pictures you are a great officer, carrying much of the war’s weight on your shoulders, consulted continually by General Grant, who goes wrong only when he fails to take your advice.  In the other you are a little boy whom she alternately scolds and pets.  And it may be that I am somewhat like Juliana in this respect.