“Yes, of you. He told me that story about how you settled the spring controversy with Sam Lewis.” “No!” “Yes, he did. And then I told him that I knew you, that you were my nearest and best neighbor; and he said: ‘You tell Seth Mills for me, if you ever see him again, that Abe Lincoln remembers him, and sends him greeting and good wishes in memory of the old days in Sangamon County.’ I’ve carried that message in my heart for you through blood and fire, Seth, and now, to-night, it is yours.” But the old man did not reply. Instead, his hand stole out and rested on his neighbor’s knee, and then, softly in the darkness, Bannister heard him sob. But Seth Mills went home at last, and over the crest of the eastern hill-range the full moon came shining. And then something else happened. From the shadows of the roadway that fronted the house, suddenly, sweetly, jubilantly on the night air, came the music of a chorus of fresh young voices singing:-- “Home, home, sweet, sweet home; Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.” They were the same boys who, two years before, had marched down the road at night singing songs of derision to the hated copperhead. Ah! but those two years. What may not happen in a time like that? What change of thought, of heart, of life? What tragedy and transformation? As the faint, sweet chorus of the boy-singers came back to him across the moonlit fields, Rhett Bannister turned his face to the star-strewn sky, and thanked God that after the storm and stress and trial, and through the ministry of one great man, he had fallen upon such glorious days. The Riverside Press CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS U · S · A Transcriber’s Notes: --Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). --Except for the frontispiece, illustrations have been moved to follow the text that they illustrate, so the page number of the illustration may not match the page number in the Illustrations. --Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected. --Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved. --Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved. --The Author’s em-dash style has been retained. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Lincoln Conscript, by Homer Greene