“Mother, it is true that you were born and educated there. But did you not love my father so dearly that you left your home and all your friends to come to the North with him, where I was born?” [Illustration: 9032] A tender smile flitted across her still beautiful face. “Yes, I did love him,” she said softly to herself, “and I honor his memory. What shall I do?--I cannot forget my dear childhood's home. It is too hard a question for me to decide.” “Let me decide for you, mother. You surely love your Northern home and friends. The people of the South have fired upon our forts in Charleston harbor, and driven the garrison away. I, too, am a Southerner in many ways. Are you not my mother, and do you not know I honor every thought or wish of yours?” “There must be some other way to bring them back, rather than by fighting. War is a cruel and unnatural alternative. Why, they will be firing upon their own people--like brothers in one family falling out, and seeking to do each other deadly harm.” {027} [Illustration: 0033] Ralph {028}was silent. His heart burned with patriotic fire, and it seemed to him that it was his duty to help swell the numbers of those who were ready to respond to the President's call. But he also knew that his mother loved her early home, and that it seemed to her unnatural for him to be so ready to take up arms against “her people,” and he respected her too deeply to wound her willingly. That mother had been gently born, and when she met the young Northern lawyer, she had loved him from the first, and cheerfully shared his humble but peaceful home. She was now left alone in the world, with her three girls and this boy, the youngest. The fortunes of war were too varying. She might never see him again, and how could she live without him? To Ralph was presented a problem that he was called unexpectedly to solve. He pondered over it in the silence of night, and in the busy hours of day. Was it right to fly in the face of his beloved mother's prejudices by joining the Federal forces? On the one hand he felt that he, too, was Southern in feeling and in birth. His father was a Northern man, and he would uphold the old flag; but which side it was his duty to join, he could not determine. He was resolved to go into one of the two armies. In the crisis that had come, it was clearly every one's duty to come to the front. The boy talked with every one whom he could interest. He was not able to study out the problem alone. One of his schoolmates had the proud distinction of having an uncle who was a commissioned officer, and he took the bold step of meeting him one day when he was walking past his home. “Sir,” he said timidly, “may I speak to you?” “Certainly,” the officer replied. And then and there he poured forth his doubts, his desire to do what was right, his mother's objections--all, he told the waiting gentleman whose opinion he so desired. The officer laid his hand kindly on the boy's shoulder.