“You think you have troubles,” he said one night to a group of murmuring men, crowded into a smoky tent, while the cold rain dripped through the tattered canvas, and the wind howled dismally among the pines outside. “You think you have hardships and burdens and afflictions in the service of your country. Let me tell you something. I have seen Abraham Lincoln. I have talked with him face to face. I have read in his sad eyes and hollow cheeks, and the lines creasing his forehead, the story of his suffering. Boys, that man is bearing the burdens of this country and the woes of her people on his heart. Every drop of blood that is shed is as though it came from his body, every groan of a wounded soldier is as though it came from his lips, every tear from the eyes of those left desolate is as though it furrowed his face. You cannot conceive the immensity of the burdens he is bearing, or the weight of suffering he endures. Yet he is patiently, faithfully, earnestly, prayerfully, with tremendous power of will and strength of soul, pressing on toward the hoped-for end, and by God’s grace he is going soon to bring us all back out of the shadows of war into the light of a victorious peace. Boys, when you think you have burdens to bear, remember Abraham Lincoln.” And they did. No man who heard those impassioned words that night ever again opened his lips in complaint of his commanders. Letters came from Mount Hermon almost daily, sometimes a half-dozen in a bunch. People up there wanted Rhett Bannister and his son to know that they were appreciated at home. But the letters that came from Mary Bannister, strong, cheerful, splendid letters, were the ones that brought most joy to the hearts of their recipients. At last she felt that the ban had been lifted, and that she was once more a woman among women. She was not insensible, indeed, to the dangers that surrounded her loved ones night and day. She knew well enough that any mail might bring her terrible tidings about one or both of them. But such anxiety was as nothing to the agony of mind she had endured through many weeks before her son and husband went down to the war. And as there drifted up to her ears now and again news of the brave conduct and manly bearing of those so near and dear to her, she went about her household labors, happy in the thought that from this time forth she could look any man or woman in the face and say: “Behold my heroes!” One day there came down to Rhett Bannister a letter from Sarah Jane Stark. A wise, impetuous, laudatory letter, such as no one on earth could write save Sarah Jane Stark herself. Over the first two pages Bannister laughed like a boy, but when he had finished the last line of the letter, tears were streaming down his face.