found him engaged in a spirited
conversation with Captain Benson.

"What is it, Jack?" asked the soldier boy.

"I want to join this company, and the captain won't let me," replied John.

"You, Jack!"

"Yes, I."

"Did mother say so?"

"No, but she won't care."

"Did you ask her?"

"No; I didn't think of going till after I started from home."

"Don't think of it, Jack. It would be an awful blow to mother to have both
of us go."

For half an hour Tom argued the matter with John; but the military
enthusiasm of the latter had been so aroused by the march and its
attendant circumstances, that he could not restrain his inclination.

"If I don't join this company, I shall some other," said John.

"I shall have to go home again, if you do; for I won't have mother left
alone. We haven't been mustered in yet. Besides, I thought you wanted to
go into the navy."

"I do; but I'm bound to go somehow," replied John.

But what neither Tom nor Captain Benson could do, was accomplished by
Captain Barney, who declared John should go home with him if he had to
take him by the collar. The ardent young patriot yielded as gracefully as
he could to this persuasion.

The steamer having arrived, the soldiers shook hands with their friends
again, went on board, and, amid the hearty cheers of the citizens of
Pinchbrook, were borne down the bay.

CHAPTER X.

COMPANY K.

Tom Somers felt that he was now a soldier indeed. While the company
remained in Pinchbrook, he had slept every night in his own bed, and taken
his meals in the kitchen of the little cottage. He fully realized that he
had bade a long farewell to all the comforts and luxuries of home. That
day, for the first time, he was to partake of soldiers' fare, and that
night, for the first time, he was to sleep upon a soldier's bed. These
thoughts did not make him repine, for before he signed the muster roll, he
had carefully considered, with the best information he could obtain, what
hardships and privations he would be called to endure. He had made up his
mind to bear all things without a murmur for the blessed land of his
birth, which now called upon her sons to defend her from the parricidal
blow of the traitor.

Tom had not only made up his mind to bear all these things, but to bear
them patiently and cheerfully. He had a little theory of his own, that
rather more than half of the discomforts of this mortal life exist only in
the imagination. If he only _th