Page:Anna Chapin--Half a dozen boys.djvu/293

Rh many hopes and plans for your future that we want you to do right now, every day. It will be hard for you to go back, but, even if it is, we all want you to go. Will you promise?”

Phil’s face had softened at her last words.

“I won’t promise. Miss Bess, for then I should have to, anyway, and I’m not sure yet, till I think it all over. I’ll tell you to- morrow.”

Bess patted his shoulder approvingly, for this was a concession at least. Then she went on, after a little pause,—

“Phil, dear, ever so long ago, Fred and I took for our motto a verse from your All Saints’ Hymn,—‘Oh, may thy soldiers,’ and we are trying to win our ‘victor’s crown.’ Why not take it for your motto, too? You boys all have a good deal of the stuff that makes heroes and fighters. Just now you are forgetting that a soldier’s first duty is to obey his superior officer, and that any disobedience, even a slight one, may ruin the whole campaign. Will this small soldier join our company, and fight with us, ‘faithful, true, and bold’?”

“Ye-es, I s’pose so.”