“I want my children always to think of you young men as their friends,” he said,--“friends to whom they owe more than they can ever repay. I don’t want ‘Baby’ to forget you as she might--she is so young still--if she did not have your portraits to remind her as she grows older. As for myself and my wife--I cannot say how much of gratitude we feel. There are some things that one can’t even try to say. But be sure--” He broke down here, but the boys understood. Irv Strong, whose objection to anything like a “scene” is a familiar fact to the reader, diverted the conversation by saying:-- “It would be a pity to perpetuate the memory of these clothes of ours, or to let the little ones learn as they grow up what a ragamuffin crew it was with whom an unfortunate accident once compelled them to associate for a time. So suppose we have only our faces photographed now, and send you pictures of our best clothes when we get back home.” The triviality served its purpose, and the party went to the photographer’s. When the time of leave taking came there were tears on the part of the mother and the children, while “Baby” stoutly insisted upon remaining on the flatboat with “my big boys,” as she called her rescuers. She was especially in love with Phil, who, in spite of his absorbing duties, had found time to play with her and tell her wonderful stories. During the clothes-making wait at Vicksburg, indeed, Phil had done little else than entertain the beautiful big-eyed child. He repeated to her all the nursery rhymes and jingles he had ever heard in his infancy or since, and to the astonishment of his companions, he made up many jingles of his own for her amusement. He made up funny stories for her too,--stories that were funny only because he illustrated them with comical faces and grotesque gestures. So when the time of parting came the child clung to him, and had to be torn away in tears. I suppose I ought not to tell it on Phil, but he too had to turn aside from the others and use his handkerchief on his eyes before he could give the command to “cast off” in a husky and not very steady voice. CHAPTER XXXIII DOWN “THE COAST” The moon was gibbous in its approach to the full when the boat left Vicksburg. So all the way to their journey’s end the boys had moonlight of evenings except when fog obscured it briefly, and that was not often. As they floated down the river, with subtropical scenery on either hand, with palms and live-oaks and other perennial trees giving greenery of the greenest possible kind at a season of the year when at their home not a leaf remained alive and all the trees were gaunt skeletons, the boys lived in something like a dream. And at night the moonlight, immeasurably more brilliant than any they had ever seen, additionally stimulated their imaginations and captivated their fancy. “That is Baton Rouge,” said Ed, as they came within sight of a city on the left side of the river. “It means ‘red stick.’”