"'Keep straight on with your good home habits, Mr. Kindred,' he said, 'no matter what anybody says or does. Read the Bible just as much as you like; the more, the better. Remember: "'He always wins, who sides with God.'" "So I read every day. And I'm not likely to stop praying as long as I have you four to pray about. I guess I shall keep my colours flying--a storm flag, anyway. But it does blow pretty hard here sometimes, that is sure. Train says I can't do it. No use, he declares: says he's tried it and it won't work. (He was turned back, and so he has been here a year and thinks he knows.) He says there's no place in the course for religion; just as well give it up first as last." "So I told him my mother had no 'give up' in her dictionary and never taught me how to spell the words." "Poor Train! His mother went to heaven three years ago; though how she can enjoy herself up there, with him going on as he does down here, I can't see. Maybe she doesn't know." "There goes the first drum! Good-bye. Kiss each other all round for me, beginning anywhere." "MAGNUS KINDRED, U. S. Corps of Cadets." "You mustn't think hard of Rig; he's a real good fellow. But you see he's a pinky-white creation: and it hurts his feelings to look like an acorn." This letter was duly addressed, sealed, and stamped; went on the orderly's back to the post-office, and thence, in due course, across the continent to the far-off simple home at Barren Heights. There it alighted with the force and precision of a bombshell. That is, if force may be measured by commotion. The strange phrases, the new ideas, the dim, vague vision of most unwonted doings--there is no telling what a stir-up it all was. The three girls had gone to the post office together in the course of their afternoon walk, and had taken turns at bringing the precious missive home. Now they sat about on the front steps, while Mrs. Kindred, in the porch rocking chair, opened and read the letter aloud. I think she never even thought of a hidden meaning in "Camp Hard," passing it by as a mere name; but as she read on, even where the words themselves were perplexing, their intent was unmistakable. At the end of almost the very first sentence Mrs. Kindred took off her glasses, laid them down on the letter, and looked about her. "No time to say his soul is his own," she said. "Why, what does this mean?" Everybody else had felt the shock, but as usual they all crowded in to the rescue. "It must be just his way of talking," said Violet. "Don't you know, mother, that when Magnus gets excited he always goes on stilts?" "And of course, he is very busy," said Rose, "with so many new things to do." "And you can see he is talking in the air, Mrs. Kindred," said Cherry's sweet voice, "because he instances something for which he does _not_ want time. Magnus has never called his soul his own, since he gave it to Christ to save and keep."