the self possession which he would
have said his campaigning experience had given him, the Colonel
started.

"Are you his--?" he began to say. But he changed the question to,
"Was he a relative of yours?"

"I am his mother," the woman said, as if she had completed the
officer's first question in her mind and answered it.

"I have a letter from him, here," she went on. "The last one I have
had. It is dated three months ago. It is not very long." She held up
a half sheet of paper, written over on one side with a lead pencil;
but she did not offer to let the officer read what was written.

"He tells me in this letter," the woman said, "that he has disgraced
himself, been a coward, run away from some danger which he ought to
have faced; and that he can't stand the shame of it." "He says," the
woman's voice faltered for the first time, and instead of looking the
Colonel in the face, as she had been doing, her eyes were fixed on the
floor--"he says that he isn't going to try to stay here any longer,
and that he is going over to the enemy. Is this true? Did he do that?"

"Yes," said the officer slowly. "It is true."

"He says here," the woman went on, holding up the letter again,
"that I shall never hear from him again, or see him. I want you to
help me to find him."

"I would be glad to help you if I could," the man said, "but I
cannot. No one knows where the man went to, except that he disappeared
from the camp and from the city. Besides I have not the right. He was
a coward, and now he is a deserter. If he came back now he would have
to stand trial, and he might be shot."

"He is not a coward." The woman's cheeks flamed red. "Some men shut
their eyes and cringe when there comes a flash of lightning. But that
don't make them cowards. He might have been frightened at the time,
and not known what he was doing, but he is not a coward. I guess
I know that as well as anybody can tell me. He is my boy--my only
child. I've come out here to find him, and I'm going to do it. I
don't expect I'll find him quick or easy, perhaps. I've let out our
farm for a year, with the privilege of renewing the trade when the
year is up; and I'm going to stay as long as need be. I'm not going
to sit still and hold my hands while I'm waiting, either. I'm going
to be a nurse. I know how to take care of the sick and maimed all
right, and I guess from what I hear since I've been here you need
all the help of that kind you can get. All I want o