poke
unexpectedly to the Colonel. "Dere was two promises, Colonel. I kep' de
promise to de Boy and his Mother, sah. I kep' de promise to take care ob
you, sah."

The poor little body-guard, so long sick and torn with shame over his
disobedience and tarnished honor, had thought the whole matter out to
the comfort of his soul. He looked up fearlessly into his Colonel's
eyes.

"So you did, G. W.," said the officer, humbly, but with a lighted face.
"And God bless you, comrade!"

The whole matter was clear to them both forever.

* * * * *

A week later the two boys went with Colonel Austin to enter the famous
school where little G. W., as a private citizen of the Republic he had
served according to his strength, was to begin to hew out his fortunes,
with the odds, as his Colonel had said, against him.

The head master greeted him cordially, and the other teachers followed
the example. At the very outset the pupils were divided among themselves
and withheld their verdict. The open comradeship of Colonel Austin's son
was the thing that counted in the matter for the time being.

The outcome of this school-life--not for their own boy, but for G.
W.--was a grave matter with the Colonel and the Colonel's wife for those
first weeks.

"No one can hold out against his merry sweetness," said Mrs. Austin
again and again.

The question with the Colonel was whether the little fellow had the sort
of heroism to endure what he could not help.

G. W. was undoubtedly "sweet," undoubtedly brave, but he was not "merry"
those first months of school life. The work of lessons was bitter-hard
for him, and the school routine most painful. Never in his life before
had he given a thought to his color. In the Tampa days, before he had
entered Colonel Austin's tent to "offer himself up on the altar of his
country," there had never been a question as to his "position;" he had
been just a "waif." His "army career" had placed him upon a pinacle
where his color had served but to add to his glory.

Here, on the playground, except for Jack and three or four others, G. W.
was quietly ignored, and in a helpless way the little fellow felt it
keenly, despite the Colonel's warning.

He tried to look ahead. He studied more and more diligently. He meant to
be all the kinds of hero that Colonel Austin desired.

"Fo' de Lawd!" he said one day in his room, as he scanned his trim
figure in the gray school uniform before th