“It’s easy enough to sit back and criticize. But Little Mac is where a word of praise would help more. So is President Lincoln.” “Dad,” the boy leaned forward earnestly, as though consulting an all-wise oracle, “is it always going to be like this?” “Like what, son?” “The thing that’s gone on all year. The Confeds licking us any time and any way they please, and mussing up all our plans and fooling our generals and slipping out of our traps and then belting us in the jaw? Are we always going to be the licked ones? It’s getting just a little monotonous. “We win a skirmish--or a little battle, like the one back there with the demi-corps that you got your brevet-majorship for--or same other small, third-rate fight. And then they go to work and thrash us in all the other big battles and turn our campaigns upside down. “Except out West. There our boys are winning all right. But here we get all the lickings. Isn’t the Army of the Potomac good for anything except for the Rebels to trounce? Is it going to be like this all the time? That’s what I want to know.” Dad’s face was very grave as he listened. Now he laid aside his pipe and made answer, with none of the former whimsicality in his voice. “No, lad. It won’t last forever. Here’s the whole idea in just a mouthful of words: For years the South has been getting ready. And for years, up North, we’ve been saying there’d be no war. So, when the real fighting began, it was like a middleweight, trained to the minute, tackling a great big lazy giant who was in bad condition. “The middleweight has hammered the giant all around the ring in most of the fights so far. But every day the giant is getting wiser and stronger and more used to fighting. And pretty soon his weight and strength has got to begin to tell. “The South is made up of men who are fighting like heroes. But there aren’t enough of them, and they have mighty few resources, and every day they grow fewer, and their resources get weaker. And the North’s men and money will never give out. Pretty soon the difference has got to show. “Be patient. We’re fighting for our Union, we Northerners. For the country that my grandfather helped to make free, and that my great-grandfather helped to win from the Indians and the Frenchies. And that country and the Union are going to last forever; no matter how black the sky happens to look just now, make up your mind to that!” “But, see,” urged the boy impatiently; “they beat us on the Peninsula. And now Lee and Jackson have driven us clean back to Maryland. And they’re coming after us into the North, so the papers say.” “Yes,” assented Dad. “They’re coming after us into the North. And they may do as they boast and ‘stable their horses in Boston’s Faneuil Hall,’ before we can drive them back. But we will drive them back. Soon or late, son. Don’t doubt that, either, for a minute. As soon as the giant is strong enough. And he gets stronger every day.