“It must be glorious to fight for your country,” said George, feeling his heart beat faster and faster as the regiment drew near.  “I’m going to be a soldier when I grow up.”

“I’m not!” said Dick, with a laugh.  “It’s too hard work, and I don’t care about being shot.  I like plenty to eat, and a good bed to sleep in.  Soldiers’ fare would never suit me!”

“I’m on your side, George,” said the tallest boy of the group, as he watched the men marching by.  “A man can make a name for himself when there’s fighting going on.  If we are only lucky enough to have another war, I’m not going to spend my life at a high desk, or digging potatoes on a farm.  A soldier’s life is the life for me.”

“I don’t feel just that way about it, Ned,” said George doubtfully.  “I hope I’m not thinking about my own glory.  I should be glad to go as a common soldier, if I could feel that I was doing all that I could for my country.”

The fourth, boy was silent.  With his hands in his. pockets, he had his eyes fixed on the lines of glistening bayonets.

“What do you think, Jack?” said Ned.  “You look as wise as an owl.”

Jack turned slowly on his heel.  He settled his firm chin a little deeper in his coat collar.

“I don’t agree with any of you, wholly,” he said.  “George has the best of it so far, but I think fighting is a poor way of deciding whether a thing is right or wrong.”

“You’d make a noble hero,” said Ned, with a good-natured laugh.

“I’d rather make my life count for something in doing work that is worth doing, than in fighting with men who never did me any harm,” said Jack calmly.

“A man can’t do more than give his life for his country,” persisted George.

“That’s true,” said Jack quickly.  “Only you were talking about giving your death, which isn’t half so valuable.”

George looked blank for a moment.  The others laughed at his puzzled face, but he recovered himself promptly.

“I don’t see why fighting isn’t a good way to settle disputes,” he said.

“So everybody used to think,” said Jack.  “If a man quarreled with his neighbor, it was the proper thing to have a duel.  We don’t have duels nowadays, and I think we are better off.  Don’t you remember, George, that day when we fought over the bag of marbles we found in an old cellar?  It was years ago, when we were little fellows.  Father found us fighting and sent us home.  The next day he divided the marbles between us.  I’m sure that was a better way than if I’d held you down a minute longer and got them all.”

George had still a lively recollection of that fight.

“You were bigger than I was,” he began.

“I know it,” said Jack, “and because I was bigger, I should have got the marbles if father hadn’t stopped me.  But that wouldn’t have made me the rightful owner of them.  You had as much right to them as I had.  Father talked to me, and made me see how silly our fighting was.”