I hear that the prospects for fruit in our orchards were never finer.  You will remember how you prowled in them when you were a little boy, Harry, and what a pirate you were among the apples and peaches and pears and good things that grew on tree and bush and briar in that beautiful old commonwealth of ours.  I often upbraided you then, but I should like to see you now, far out on a bough as of old, reaching for a big yellow pear, or a red, red bunch of cherries!  Alas! there are many lads who will never return, who will never see the pear trees and the cherry trees again, but I repeat I cannot feel that you will be among them.  Who would ever have dreamed when this war began that it could go so far?  More than two years of fierce and deadly battles and I can see no end.  A deadlock and neither side willing to yield!  How glad would be the men who made the war to see both sections back where they were two and a half years ago! and that’s no treason.

Water rose in Harry’s eyes.  He knew how terribly his father’s heart had been torn by the quarrel between North and South, and that he had thoughts which he did not tell to his son.  Harry was beginning at last to think some of the same thoughts himself.  If the South succeeded, then, after the war, what?  Another war later on or reunion.

The rest of the letter was wholly personal, and in the end it directed Harry, when writing to him, to address his letters care of the Western Army under General Bragg.  Harry was moved and he responded at once.  He went to the hotel in which he had met the young men who constituted the leading lights in what was called the Mosaic Club, and, securing writing materials, made a long reply, which he posted with every hope that it would soon reach its destination.

Early in the evening he rejoined Dalton at the house of the Lanhams and they found that Mrs. Lanham had done wonders with their best uniforms.  When they were dressed in them they felt that it was no harder to charge the Curtis house than to rush a battery.

“You young men go early,” said Mr. Lanham.  “Mrs. Lanham and I will appear later.”

They departed, daring to practice their dance steps in the street to the delight of small boys who did not hesitate to chaff them.  But Harry and Dalton did not care.  They answered the chaff in kind, and soon approached the Curtis home, all the windows of which were blazing with light.

The house stood in extensive grounds, and lofty white pillars gave it an imposing appearance.  Guests were arriving fast.  Most of the men were military, but there was a fair sprinkling of civilians nevertheless.  The lads saw their friends of the Mosaic Club pass in just ahead of them, all dressed with extreme care.  Generals and colonels and other officers were in most favor now, but these men, with their swift and incisive wit and their ability to talk well about everything, fully made up for the lack of uniform.