Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 -- Juvenile fiction; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Juvenile fiction
So, after the ice had been thus broken, Bob explained fully the project
he had in mind; there were a score of things to be talked about, a
hundred questions to be asked on either side, and a hundred answers to
be given. And before they were quite aware of it they had reached the
station at Carbon Creek. But the train would not be due yet for nearly
an hour. Learning that Bob had not had his breakfast, the veteran
compelled him to go across the road with him to the Eagle Hotel.
“Get up the best breakfast you know how for this young man and me,”
he said to the landlord. “Ham and eggs and potatoes and biscuits and
pancakes and coffee and all the fixin’s. I want you to remember,” he
added to Bob, “I want you to remember, some morning when you’re eating
hard-tack and salt pork, and drinking black and muddy coffee,--I want
you to remember the breakfast Henry Bradbury bought for you at the
Eagle Hotel at Carbon Creek the morning you started for the war.”
And Bob did remember it. Many times he remembered it in the days that
were to come.
In due time the stage pulled up at the station, the train came in,
and Bob said good-by to his veteran friend and stepped on board.
He had but one change of cars to make, the one at Scranton, and,
late in the afternoon, he reached Phillipsburg and walked across the
river to Easton. The provost-marshal’s office was already closed
for the day, and Bob had to content himself with finding a modest
hotel where he could stay over night and wait patiently for what the
morning might bring. After supper he strolled out into the street.
Reaching the public square, he saw a hundred newly arrived drafted men
formed into a company and drilled in military movements. They were
very awkward, indeed. Bob thought that the company of boys at home
could have done far better. But, later in the evening, when a body of
seasoned veterans, belonging to the invalid corps, reached the city,
and marched, with fine precision, up the street to the square, and
stacked their arms and were dismissed, he looked upon them with deep
admiration. This was something like. The moving ranks, the rhythmic
tramp, the glistening arms, the stirring music of the fife and drum,
all this had a fascination for the boy such as he had never experienced
before. When the troops were dismissed one of the officers, meeting and
greeting a comrade on the corner where Bob was waiting, stood for a
moment and talked with him.
“Yes,” Bob heard him say, “we’ve got a little provost duty to do up
in this end of the state. There were a good many in some sections who
didn’t respond to the draft. Some of them are already in, the rest
we’re going to round up. One of the most notorious of these fellows is
a man by the name of Bannister. I’m going after him myself, when I get
through around here. I’ll give him four days from now to make his peace
with Uncle Sam, and if he don’t do it something will drop. I’m going
after him and I intend to get him, dead or alive.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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