Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/132

 gloomily, "that have more to lose than some of us."

"Nobody could have much more to lose than you and I, Bill, with our wives and children."

William did not respond immediately, but then he was not a particularly responsive man. At last he said: "There's one thing you and I wouldn't have to leave behind to keep our wives and children company."

"What's that?"

"Beggary."

Again there was a long pause.

"Well, Bill," said Ben, at last, as he finished his cigar and turned to depart, "I think you've got hold of this thing by the wrong end, but your heart's all right, I'll be bound!"

"Rubbish!" William growled. "Hearts don't count. It's heads we want and they're mighty scarce just now."

But all this was only the prelude. Men talked, and argued, and discussed the war, and knew very little of what they were talking about. War is a grim word, but, after all, what is a word, even the grimmest?

The terrible awakening which swept over the land when the thunder of the first gun boomed across the waters in Charleston Harbor was almost as astounding, almost as appalling, as though the name of war had not been spoken till that day. It was on Saturday, the 13th of April, that the echoes of that gun reached the North.