Page:War; or, What happens when one loves one's enemy, John Luther Long, 1913.djvu/350

WAR you and sent him back to his—waiting mother."

"Suh," said the young Confederate, "I have never thought of it like that. I have heard no one speak of it like that. Suh, let me say that if I could, I would do just what you ask—go home to my mother, sisters and sweetheart. I have all of 'em. I am tired of this wah. We get on too slowly. But what would be said if I should go home? Not a friend in the So'th would ever speak to me again. I should be ostracized. A leper. Suh, it is my duty to stand by my comrades, right or wrong, until the last ditch is reached, then to die there. Wouldn't you?"

"No," shakes old Jon. "I would go home to-morrow if I could, no matter what mistaken fools might think. But you—I see and know what you will do because you are a brave boy—and I am sorry for it. Good-by. Perhaps, after all, a time may come when you will not think as you do now, but as I do, that you will be serving your comrades and your 334