his arms, turning to the Colonel
and repeating the girl's question:
"Were we really shaking hands, Roger?"
"By gad, Amos, we've been shaking hands every day for forty years, only
we didn't know it!"
"You should have come in before, Roger."
"How, in thunder, could I come in, when your perverted editorial columns
were----"
"Stop!" Marian cried, running to him and throwing her arms about his
neck. "Do you want it to begin all over again, just when I have you both
together for the first time in my life?"
But her father laughed good-naturedly, knowing that as soon as he called
"Truce!" the irate Colonel would subside.
"How in the world did it happen?" she asked, still clinging to the
Colonel's neck and looking up into his eyes which were fast growing
moist with tears of happiness. "Tell me at once, which of you was
generous enough to make the first move?"
"Poof and nonsense!" he exclaimed, trying to frown upon her severely.
"There was no generosity about it! I reckon Amos and I know where each
other lives!"
"You'll tell me, Daddy," she turned to him. "Which of you big babies was
big enough----"
"Don't tell her a thing, Amos," the Colonel thundered, getting red.
"So you're the one, then," she smiled up at him. "I'm going to call you
Uncle Roger!"--and she kissed him.
"I wish she'd call me Uncle Jeb," came a half sigh from across the
table.
"She'll be calling you _Captain_ Jeb,--eh, Roger?" Mr. Strong laughed.
"Tell them about it!"
"Oh," the Colonel said, wiping his glasses, "my best friend, here, has
proposed that he and I recruit a company of soldiers, equip it, and have
it ready for business. Jeb is to be its captain."
"You mean uniforms, and everything?" Jeb cried.
"Uniforms and everything," Mr. Strong emphatically answered. "The story
will run in to-morrow's _Eagle_, and we'll take recruits right here in
this office, where Colonel Hampton--your Uncle Roger," he pinched
Marian's cheek, "will have charge. We'll wire Washington for a hundred
and fifty equipments, and be drilling by this time next week. Now, what
do you think about it?"
"I'm crazy about it," Jeb shouted; and Marian, catching his hands,
cried:
"_Captain_ Jeb! I'm as proud of you as I can be!"
His eyes were sparkling as he gazed down at her; his vivid imagination
had lost no time picturing the khaki-clad lads, with him at their head,
marching, drilling, and doing all manner of things of which he could not
have told
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