“I ain’t never gin my word agin yer goin’,” the widow would temporize, alarmed by the possibility of his running away without permission if definitely forbidden to enlist, and therefore craftily holding out the prospect of her consent, which she knew he valued, for he had always been a dutiful son. “I hev never gin my word agin it--not sence ye hev got some growth--ye shot up as suddint ez Jonah’s gourd in a single night. But I don’t want ye ter jine no stray bands--ez mought be bushwhackers an’ sech. Jes’ wait till we git the word whar Cap’n Baker’s command be--fur I want ye ter be under some ez kem from our deestric’--I’d feel so much safer bout’n ye, an’ ye would be pleased, too, Cap’n Baker bein’ a powerful fighter an’ brave an’ respected by all. Ye mus’ wait, too, till I kin finish yer new shuts, an’ knittin’ them socks; I wouldn’t feel right fur ye to go destitute--a plumb beggar fur clothes.” Hilary had never heard of Penelope’s web, and the crafty device of raveling out at night the work achieved in the day, but to his impatience it seemed that his departure was indefinitely postponed for his simple outfit progressed no whit day by day, although his mother’s show of industry was great. The earth also seemed to have swallowed Captain Baker and his command; although Hilary rode again and again to the postoffice at a little mountain hamlet some ten miles distant, and talked to all informed and discerning persons whom the hope of learning the latest details of the events of the war had drawn thither, and could hear news of any description to suit the taste of the narrator--all the most reliable items of the “grape-vine telegraph,” as mere rumor used to be called in those days--not one word came of Captain Baker. His mother sometimes could control his outbursts of impatience on these occasions by ridicule. “’Member the time, Hil’ry,” she would say, glancing at him with waggish mock gravity in her eyes as they gleamed over her spectacles, “when ye offered ter enlist with Cap’n Baker’s infantry year afore las’, when the war fust broke out--ye warn’t no higher than that biscuit block then--he tole ye that ye warn’t up ter age or size or weight or height, an’ ye tole him that thar war a plenty of ye ter pull a trigger, an’ he bust out laughin’ an’ lowed ez he warn’t allowed ter enlist men under fourteen. He said he thunk it war a folly in the rule, fur he had seen some mighty old men under fourteen--though none so aged ez you-uns. My, how he did laugh.” “I wish ye would quit tellin’ that old tale,” said her son, sulkily, his face reddening with the mingled recollection of his own absurdity and the seriousness with which in his simplicity he had listened to the officer’s ridicule. “An’ ye war so special small-sized and spindlin’ then,” exclaimed his mother, pausing in her knitting to take off her spectacles to wipe away the tears of laughter that had gathered at the recollection.