ey
wouldn't have "come in out of the rain" so readily. They would have
taken to their heels and trusted to his forbearance.

"I am glad you didn't try it," replied the corporal, reading the
discharges one after the other and passing them over to his men. "A
gray-back streaking it through the bushes would be a mighty tempting
target, even to fellows like ourselves who don't shoot only when we have
to. Have you got enough of the service?"

"More than we want," answered Dick.

"Well, you can't be forced into the army until you are of the right age,
and in the meantime I don't suppose you will do us any great damage.
What do you say, boys?"

"I say let 'em go home and see their mammies," replied one of the squad;
and the others nodding assent, the corporal jerked his thumb over his
shoulder and told them to "git."

"It is no more than we expected of you, but we thank you all the same,"
said Rodney, gratefully. "I live down this way, three miles from
Mooreville, and if you ever come along our road, drop in and we'll treat
you right. The mouse did the lion a favor once, and who knows but that a
boy who is not old enough to be conscripted, may be able to do something
for one of Uncle Sam's men?"

"Good for you, Johnny. You're no reb. Any up this way?"

"None nearer than Camp Pinckney. If there are we did not see them."

With hearts full of thankfulness the boys resumed their journey, and on
the afternoon of the second day following, came within sight of Rodney's
home. It set his eyes to streaming, and gave such elasticity to his step
that Dick could scarcely keep pace with him. As he led his friend up the
wide front steps he recalled to mind the parting that had taken place
there more than fifteen months before, and the confident words he had
uttered about "driving the Yankees out of Missouri." He and his friends
had been driven out instead, and there was no hope that Missouri would
ever belong to the Confederacy.

"Alabama--here we rest," exclaimed Rodney, pushing Dick into an easy
chair in the parlor, which they found to be unoccupied. "Stay there till
I find somebody."

"I don't look fit," began Dick, glancing down at his dusty uniform; but
just then a door opened, a lady came in, and the words "Mother!" and
"Oh, my son, my son!" told Dick that "somebody" had found Rodney.

If ever a boy appreciated home and its comforts it was Rodney Gray, no
longer a wild, unreasoning partisan, but sober and thoughtful beyond