Thomas went to sleep at last, and, worn out by the fatigue and excitement of the day, he slept long and soundly. His mother did not call him till eight o’clock, and it was nine before he reached the store of his employer, where the recital of the adventure of the preceding night proved to be a sufficient excuse for his non-appearance at the usual hour.  
In the course of the week Captain Benson had procured the necessary authority to raise a company for three years or for the war. When he exhibited his papers, he found twenty persons ready to put down their names. A recruiting office was opened at the store, and every day added to the list of brave and self-denying men who were ready to go forward and fight the battles of liberty and union. The excitement in Pinchbrook was fanned by the news which each day brought of the zeal and madness of the traitors.
 
Thomas had made up his mind, even before his mother had been surprised into giving her consent, that he should go to the war. At the first opportunity, therefore, he wrote his name upon the paper, very much to the astonishment of Captain Benson and his employer.
 
“How old are you, Tom?” asked the captain.
 
“I’m in my seventeenth year,” replied the soldier boy.
 
“You are not old enough.”
 
“I’m three months older than Sam Thompson; and you didn’t even ask him how old he was.”
 
“He is larger and heavier than you are!”
 
“I can’t help that. I’m older than he is, and I think I can do as much in the way of fighting as he can.”
 
“I don’t doubt that,” added the captain, laughing. “Your affair with Squire Pemberton shows that you have pluck enough for anything. I should be very glad to have you go; but what does your father say?”
 
“He hasn’t said anything. He isn’t at home. He went away before Sumter was fired upon by the rebels.”
 
“True—I remember. What does your mother say?”
 
“O, she is willing.”
 
“Are you sure, Tom?”
 
“Of course, I am. Suppose you write something by which she can give her consent, and she will sign it.”
 
Captain Benson drew up the document, and when Tom went home to dinner, he presented it to his mother for her signature.
 
“I hope you won’t back out, mother,” said he, as she put on her spectacles, and proceeded to ascertain the contents of the document.
 
“Back out of what, Thomas?”
 
“I’ve signed the muster roll, and I belong to Captain Benson’s company now.”
 
“You!” exclaimed Mrs. Somers, lowering the paper, and gazing earnestly into the face of the young man, to discover whether he was in earnest.
 
“Yes, mother; you said you were willing, and I have signed the papers; but Captain Benson wants your consent in writing, so that there shall be no mistake about it.”
 
The mother read the paper in silence and sadness, for the thought of having her noble boy exposed to the perils of the camp and the march, the skirmish and the battle, was terrible, and nothing but the most exalted patriotism could induce a mother to give a son to his country.
 
“I don’t want to sign this paper, Thomas,” said she, when she had finished reading it.
 
“Have you forgot what you said the other night, mother?”
 
“No, I haven’t forgot it, and I feel now just as I did then. If there is any real need of your going, I am willing you should go.”
 
“Need? Of course there is need of soldiers. The President wasn’t joking when he called for seventy-five thousand men.”
 
“But there are enough to go without you.”
 
“That’s just what everybody might say, and then there wouldn’t be anybody to go.”
 
“But you are young, and not very strong.”
 
“I’m old enough, and strong enough. When I can get a day to myself, I don’t think it’s any great hardship to carry father’s heavy fowling-piece from sunrise to sunset; and I guess I can stand it to carry a musket as long as any of them.”
 
“You are only a boy.”
 
“I shall be a man soon enough.”
 
“When you have gone, John will want to go too.”
 
“No, mother, I don’t want to go into the army,” said John, with a sly wink at his brother. “I shall never be a soldier if I can help it.”
 
“What am I going to do, if you all go off and leave me?” added Mrs. Somers, trying hard to keep down a tear which was struggling for birth in her fountain of sorrows.
 
“I don’t think you will want for anything, mother. I’m sure I wouldn’t leave you, if I thought you would. I don’t get but two dollars and a half a week in the store, and I shall have eleven dollars a month in the army, and it won’t cost me any thing for board or clothes. I will send every dollar I get home to you.”
 
“You are a good boy, Thomas,” replied Mrs. Somers, unable any longer to restrain the tear.
 
“I know you and John both will do every thing you can for me. If your father was only at home, I should feel different about it.”
 
“He would believe in my fighting for my country, if he were here.”
 
“I know he would,” said Mrs. Somers, as she took the pen which Thomas handed her, and seated herself at the table. “If you are determined to go, I suppose you will go, whether I am willing or not.”
 
“No, mother, I will not,” added Thomas, decidedly. “I shouldn’t have signed the muster roll if you hadn’t said you were willing. And if you say now that you won’t consent, I will take my name off the paper.”
 
“But you want to go—don’t you?”
 
“I do; there’s no mistake about that: but I won’t go if you are not willing.”
 
Mrs. Somers wrote her name upon the paper. It was a slow and difficult operation to her, and during the time she was thus occupied, the rest of the family watche............