THE PITY OF IT
try best by doing what you can to stop a struggle, useless, and deadly, and bloody. Good-by."
"Suh," said the youngster, "I didn't know there were such men in the No'th. If the time ever comes that I can, with honah, do as you suggest, I will do so—and thanks to you!"
So they shook hands and parted.
As for me, I had seen enough of war to be glad to go limping home, pale and sick, a neighbor on each side of me, almost as sick and crippled as I. Ah, there was nothing in war as glorious as those thrills on the common, and that leaving, on the Square! I used to imagine that if I were killed or wounded the band would meet me at the depot when I got home, and there would be a carriage or a hearse draped in flags and filled with flowers. Maybe I thought of this when I used up my last month's wages sending a despatch to Simon Corbin and John Alloway telling them that I was out of the hospital, less an arm, and was coming home honorably discharged.
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