The Drummer Boy | Page 8

to make. He had felt
no little pride in Mr. Winch's responsible charge to him, and had
intended to preach to his more reckless companion a good, sound,
moral discourse on this occasion. But to have his overtures received in
this manner was discouraging.
"Come," continued Jack, taking something from the straw, "we are
soldiers now, and must do as soldiers do. Have a drink,
Frank?"--presenting a small bottle.
"What is it?" Frank asked, and when told, "Brandy," he quickly
withdrew the hand he had extended. "No, I thank you, Jack, I am not

going to drink any thing of that sort, unless I need it as a medicine. And
I am sorry to see you getting into such habits so soon."
"Habits? what habits?" retorted Jack, blushing in his turn. "A little
liquor don't hurt a fellow. I take it only as a medicine. You mustn't go
to being squeamish down here, I tell you." And Jack drank a swallow
or two, smacking his lips afterwards, as he returned the cork to the
bottle.
By this time Frank's courage was up--his moral courage, I mean, which
is more rare, as it is far more noble, than any merely physical bravery
in the face of danger.
"I don't mean to be squeamish," he said; "but right is right, and wrong
is wrong, Jack. And what was wrong for us at home isn't going to be
right for us here. I, for one, believe we can go through this war without
doing any thing that will make our parents ashamed of us when we
return."
"My eye!" jeered his companion; "and do you fancy a little swallow of
brandy is going to make my folks ashamed of me?"
"It isn't the single swallow I object to, Jack; it's the habit of drinking.
That's a foolish thing, to say the least, for young fellows, like you and
me, to get into; and we all know what it leads to. Who wants to become
a tobacco-spitting, rum-drinking, filthy old man?"
"Ha, ha, ha," laughed Jack; rather feebly, however, for he could not
help feeling that Frank was as much in the right as he was in the wrong.
"You look a long ways ahead, it seems to me. I haven't thought of
being an old man yet."
"If we live, we shall be men, and old men, too, some day," said Frank,
without minding his sneers. "And you know we are laying the
foundations of our future characters now."
"That's what your mother, or your Sunday school teacher, has been
saying to you."

"No matter who has said it. I know it's true, and I hope I never shall
forget it. I mean to become a true, honest man if I live; and now, I
believe, is the time to begin."
"O, no doubt you'll be great things," grinned Jack.
The tone in which he said this was highly offensive; and Frank was
provoked to retort,--
"You don't seem even to have thought what you are going to be. You
try first one thing, then another, and stick to nothing. That's what your
father said this morning, with tears in his eyes."
Jack turned red as fire, either with anger or shame, or both, and seemed
meditating a passionate reply, when some of his companions, who had
been eating their rations outside, entered the tent.
"Come in, boys," cried Jack, "and hear Frank preach. You didn't know
we had a chaplain in our company--did ye? That's the parson, there,
with the girl's hair. He can reel you off sermons like any thing. Fire
away, Frank, and show the boys."
"Yes, steam up, parson," said Joe Harris, "and give us a specimen."
"Play away, seven," cried Ned Ellis, as if Frank had been a fire-engine
of that number.
These, together with other facetious remarks, made Frank so ashamed
and confused that he could not say a word. For experience had not yet
taught him that even the most reckless and depraved, however they
may laugh at honest seriousness in a companion, cannot help respecting
him for it in their hearts.
"You needn't blush so, young chap," said tall Abram Atwater, a
stalwart, square-shouldered, square-featured young man of twenty, who
alone had not joined in the derisive merriment. "It won't hurt any of
these fellows to preach to them, and they know it."

Frank cast a grateful look at the tall soldier, who, though almost a
stranger to him, had thus generously taken his part against some who
professed to be his friends. He tried to speak, but could not articulate a
word, he was still feeling so hurt by Jack's ingratitude. Perhaps his
pride was as much wounded as his friendship; for, as we have hinted,
he had been a good deal puffed up with the idea