Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-08-21

river and never show up till supper-when he'd
INTO the house to get licked Those were downright
whalings he got. The old would stop till he
the switch out and the he seemed to
enjoy the lckings that cut into the boys heart and
started him to thinking there wasn't much else but kicks
for the fellow who didn't do some kicking himself.
Il have a notion the gil could have shown him he
wrong about that and, in way, she did, without
knowing it. But just about the time that going fishing
with her began to be business of sitting together in
nice shady spot with the poles dangling in the
water and nobody bothering about the bait the fish,
about that time nailed paper against tree
alongside of the store few miles away and that paper
said Uncle Sam needed to help him fight the South.
The boy had jumped the farm couple of years be-
fore this because he hadn't mother to hold him. and
he couldn't stand the old and the old man couldn't
stand him. and he didn't anything ahead in sticking
there anyway. He'd got job weighing sugar and sell
ing shoes and axegrease at the store, and making
just enough to keep him in clothes and tobacco and give
him chance at cheap whisky Saturday nights. He
didn't like the store job much better than the farm but
it's probable he'd have hung onto it awhile only one
night he got chuck full of whisky and coming back
sick and and sorry his the store when
he into the father of the girl. That put him in
wrong. The girls father didn't think much of him. any
way, and when the boy round to see her. couple
of evenings later and she said something to him about
it. he ared out and she jumped up and left him. The
next day everybody at the store asking why the boy
hadn't told somebody he was going to enlist.
WHAT the boy did during the next four years doesn't
- come in here-though most of it he needn't have
been asham of. He right fair soldier, and came
out when it all over with two fingers gone from
hand, Mimic ball in his shoulder and in his pockets
papers that stood for few dollars and the right to
command regiment. But the boy-the man, mean,
for he'd grown up in mind well as body-wasn't look
ing for any regiment if there had been one; which
there wasn't for they getting nd of the soldiers
fast they could.
The point was that since he left home he hadn't
heard things and he had heard Others which now
made him steer straight for spot That spot was
where the girl lived He'd written to her. every and
then the first year he in the army, and she'd
swered him for awhile, and he getting grip him
self, and already Corporal Then couple of his
letters didn't bring any answers and he made up his
mind they'd been lost and he wrote her again. That
brought reply long letterand it the day after
this that he got the Mimic ball in his shoulder. Perhaps
he didn't quite know what he doing that day. Any
way he got the ball trying single handed to choke up
bend in the lane with dead Rebs who riding along
where he squatting behind bush up cut bank.
watching for some such surprise party. And, because
he didn't sneak away as he saw them, and give
warning to the command he belonged to- as he had been
told to do he laid the hospital for two months,