football, infernal machine,--_watch you call it_,--would only
come to me."

"Frank'll feel bigger 'n ever now, with a watch in his pocket," said the
envious Jack Winch, with a bitter grin.

All had some remark to make except Atwater, who stood with his arms drawn
up under his cape, and smiled down upon Frank well pleased.

Frank in the mean time was busily engaged in trying to discover, among
all the papers, some scrap of writing by which the unknown donor might be
traced. But writing there was none. And the mystery remained unsolved.

X.

FRANK'S PROGRESS.

So passed Thanksgiving in camp.

The next day the boys, with somewhat lugubrious faces, returned to their
hard diet of pork and hominy, heaving now and then a sigh of fond
remembrance, as they thought of yesterday's puddings and turkeys.

And now came other hardships. The days were generally warm, sometimes hot
even, like those of July in New England. But the nights were cold, and
growing colder and colder as the winter came on. And the tents were but a
thin shelter, and clothing was scanty, and the men suffered. Many a time
Frank, shivering under his blanket, thought, with a swelling and homesick
heart, of Willie in his soft, warm bed, of his mother's inexhaustible
store of comforters, and of the kitchen stove and the family breakfast,
those raw wintry mornings.

From the day the regiment encamped, the men had expected that they were
soon to move again. But now they determined that, even though they should
have orders to march in three days, they would make themselves
comfortable in the mean while. They accordingly set to work constructing
underground stoves, covered with flat stones, with a channel on one side
to convey away the smoke, and a deeper channel on the other for the
draft. These warmed the earth, and kept up an even temperature in the
tents all night.

I said Frank sometimes had homesick feelings. It was not alone the
hardships of camp life that caused them. But as yet he had not received a
single letter from his friends, and his longing to get news from them was
such as only those boys can understand who have never been away from home
until they have suddenly gone upon a long and comfortless journey, and
who then begin to realize, as never before, all the loving care of their
parents, the kindness of brothers and sisters, and the blessedness of the
dear old nest from which