the door trying to bring Tige to a sense of his duty in the trying
emergency; but the brute had more regard for his own shins than he had for
the mandate of his master, and the victor was permitted to bear away his
laurels without further opposition.

When he reached his father's house, supposing the front door was locked,
he went to the kitchen window, where he had heard the patriotic remarks of
his mother. Tom told his story in substance as we have related it.

"Do you mean what you have said, mother?" inquired he, when he had
finished his narrative.

Mrs. Somers bit her lip in silence for a moment.

"Certainly I do, Thomas," said she, desperately.

It was half-past one when the boys retired, but it was another hour before
Tom's excited brain would permit him to sleep. His head was full of a big
thought.

CHAPTER VIII.

SIGNING THE PAPERS.

Thomas went to sleep at last, and, worn out by the fatigue and excitement
of the day, he slept long and soundly. His mother did not call him till
eight o'clock, and it was nine before he reached the store of his
employer, where the recital of the adventure of the preceding night proved
to be a sufficient excuse for his non-appearance at the usual hour.

In the course of the week Captain Benson had procured the necessary
authority to raise a company for three years or for the war. When he
exhibited his papers, he found twenty persons ready to put down their
names. A recruiting office was opened at the store, and every day added to
the list of brave and self-denying men who were ready to go forward and
fight the battles of liberty and union. The excitement in Pinchbrook was
fanned by the news which each day brought of the zeal and madness of the
traitors.

Thomas had made up his mind, even before his mother had been surprised
into giving her consent, that he should go to the war. At the first
opportunity, therefore, he wrote his name upon the paper, very much to the
astonishment of Captain Benson and his employer.

"How old are you, Tom?" asked the captain.

"I'm in my seventeenth year," replied the soldier boy.

"You are not old enough."

"I'm three months older than Sam Thompson; and you didn't even ask him how
old he was."

"He is larger and heavier than you are!"

"I can't help that. I'm older than he is, and I think I can do as much in
the way of fighting as he can."

"I don't doubt that," added the captain, laughing. "Your affair with
Squire Pembe