The Iron Game | Page 2

boys were for the insulted Union. Months passed, and, although the forces of war were arraying themselves behind the thin veil of compromise and negotiation, the public mind only languidly convinced itself that actual war would come.
The college was divided into hostile camps. The "Secessionists," led by Vincent Atterbury, Jack's old-time chief crony, went so far as to hoist the flag of the Montgomery (Jeff Davis's) government on the campus pole, one morning in April. A fierce fight followed, in which Jack's ardent partisans made painful havoc with the limbs of the enemy--Atterbury, their leader, being carted from the campus, under the horrified eyes of the faculty, dying, as it was thought. Then followed expulsion. When the solemn words were spoken in chapel, the culprit bore up with great serenity. But when he announced that he had enlisted in the army, then such an uproar, such an outburst, that the session was at an end. Even the grave president looked sympathetic. The like of it was never seen in a sober college since Antony with Cleopatra invaded the Academy at Alexandria. The boys flung themselves upon the abashed Jack. They hugged him, raised him on their shoulders, carried him out on the campus, and, forming a ring round him, swore, in the classic form dear to collegians, that they would follow him; that they would be his soldiers, and fight for the patria in danger.
"I have nothing to offer you, boys. I'm only sergeant; but if you will join now, I'm authorized to swear you in provisionally," Jack said, shrewdly, seizing the flood at high tide.
So soon as the names could be written the whole senior class (forty-three) were enrolled. Jack refused the prayerful urgings of the juniors, who pleaded tearfully to join him. But the president coming out confirmed Jack's decision until the juniors could get the written consent of their parents.
The recitations were sadly disjointed that day, and the excited professors were glad when rest came. The humanities had received disjointed exposition during that session. Jack had been summoned to the president's sanctuary, where he had been received with a parental tenderness that brought the tears to his big brown eyes.
"Ah, ha! soldiers mustn't know tears. You must be made of sterner stuff now, sergeant," the doctor cried, cheerily, as the culprit stood confusedly before him. "O Jack, Jack, why did you put this hard task upon me? Why make me drive from Dessau the brightest fellow in the classes? What will your mother say? I would as soon have lost my own child as be forced to put this mark on you? But you know I am bound by the laws of the college. You know I have time and again overlooked your wild pranks. We have already suffered a good deal from the press for winking at the sympathy the college has shown in this political quarrel."
"Yes, professor, I haven't a word to say. You did your duty. Now I want you to bear witness how I do mine. I do not complain that I am condemned rather through the form than the fact. I was carried out of my senses by the sight of that rebel flag."
The Warchester press, known for many years as the most sprightly and enterprising of the country, was too much taken up with the direful news from Baltimore to even make a note of Jack Sprague's expulsion, and the soldier boy was spared that mortification. Nor did he meet the tearful lament and heart-broken remonstrance at home, to which he had looked forward with lively dread. His friends in the village of Acredale were so astonished by his blue regimentals that he reached the homestead door unquestioned. His mother, at the dining-room window, caught sight of the uniform, and did not recognize her son until she was almost smothered in his hearty embrace.
"Why, John! What does this mean? What--what have you on?"
"Mother, I am twenty-two years old. A man who won't fight for his country isn't a good son. He has no right to stay in a country that he isn't willing to fight for!" and with this specious dictum he drew himself up and met the astonished eyes of his sister Olympia, who had been apprised of his coming. But the maternal fears clouded patriotic conceptions where her darling was involved, and his mother sobbed:
"O Jack, Jack! what shall we do? How can we live without you! And oh, my son, you are too young to go to the war. You will break down. You can't manage a--a musket, and the--the heavy load the soldiers carry. My son, don't break your mother's heart. Don't go--don't, Jack, Jack! What shall I do?--O Polly, what shall we do?"
"What shall we do? Why, we'll just show Jack that all of war isn't