rom the other unless personally
acquainted with all hands. Then how are they marchin'? Why, a flock of
geese couldn't straggle along in any more ungainly fashion."

"I shouldn't suppose it would make any difference how they marched so
that they got there in time," Isaac ventured to suggest timidly.

"Shouldn't, eh? Then what's the good of calling themselves soldiers? Why
don't they start out like a crowd of farmers an' try their hand at
taking the fort?"

"Well?" Isaac replied calmly. "Why shouldn't they? They are not
soldiers, you know, corporal, and so long's the fort is taken why
wouldn't it be as well if they didn't try to ape military manners?"

The old man gazed sternly at the boy while one might have counted ten,
and then said in a tone of sadness:

"It's a shame, Isaac Rice, that after bein' with me all these years, an'
hearin' more or less regardin' military matters, you shouldn't have more
sense."

"Why, what have I said now, corporal? Is it any harm to think that
farmers might take a fort?"

"Of course it is, lad. If anything of that kind could happen, what's the
use of having soldiers?"

"But I suppose it is necessary to have an army if there's going to be
war," Isaac replied innocently, and this last was sufficient to
completely fill the vials of the old man's wrath.

That this pupil of his should fail at the very first opportunity to show
a proper spirit, was to him most disappointing, and during the half-hour
which followed he refused to speak, even though Isaac alternately begged
his pardon for having been so ignorant and expressed regret that he had
said anything which might give offense.

During all this while the citizens of Pittsfield were following the
recruits in a most friendly manner, believing it their duty to thus
cheer those who might soon be amid the carnage of battle, and perhaps
not one realized how seriously he was by such method offending Corporal
'Lige.

Isaac's father was among this well-intentioned following, as were two of
the lad's brothers, and when these representatives of the Rice family,
having walked as far as the head of the household deemed necessary, were
about to turn back, they ranged themselves either side of the corporal
and his pupil, in order to bid the latter farewell.

"I expect you will give a good account of yourself, Isaac, when it comes
to fighting, and I feel all the more confident in regard to it because
you are under the wing of a man who knows w