those three little words, so little and so big, to you once again, and then I will live them by giving up what is dearest to me—­that’s you, dear—­that your ‘conduct’ may not be ‘unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.’  You must keep your word.  If the worst comes, will you always remember that as an American woman’s patriotism.  There could be none truer.  I could send you marching off to Cuba—­and how about that, is it war surely?—­with a light heart, knowing that you were giving yourself for a holy cause and going to honor and fame, though perhaps, dear, to a soldier’s death.  And I would pray for you and remember your splendid strength, and think always of seeing you march home again, and then only your mother could be more proud than I. That would be easy, in comparison.  Write me about the war—­but, of course, you would not be sent.

“Now here is the very end of my letter, and I haven’t yet said it—­what you wanted.  But here it Is, bend your head, from away up there, and listen.  Now—­do you hear—­I love you.  Good-by, good-by, I love you.”

The papers rustled softly in the silent room, and the boy’s mother, as she put the letter back, kissed it, and it was as if ghostly lips touched hers, for the boy had kissed those words, she knew.

The next was only a note, written just before his sailing to Cuba.

“A fair voyage and a short one, a good fight and a quick one,” the note said.  “It is my country as well as yours you are going to fight for, and I give you with all my heart.  All of it will be with you and all my thoughts, too, every minute of every day, so you need never wonder if I’m thinking of you.  And soon the Spaniards will be beaten and you’ll be coming home again ‘crowned with glory and honor,’ and the bands will play fighting music, and the flag will be flying over you, for you, and in all proud America there will be no prouder soul than I—­unless it is your mother.  Good-by, good-by—­God be with you, my very dearest.”

He had come home “crowned with glory and honor.”  And the bands had played martial music for him.  But his horse stood riderless by his grave, and the empty cavalry boots hung, top down, from the saddle.

Loose in the bottom of the box lay a folded sheet of paper, and, hidden under it, an envelope, the face side down.  When the boy’s mother opened the paper, it was his own crabbed, uneven writing that met her eye.

“They say there will be a fight to-morrow,” he wrote, “and we’re likely to be in it.  If I come out right, you will not see this, and I hope I shall, for the world is sweet with you in it.  But if I’m hit, then this will go to you.  I’m leaving a line for my mother and will enclose this and ask her to send it to you.  You must find her and be good to her, if that happens.  I want you to know that if I die, my last thought will have been of you, and if I have the chance to do anything worth while, it will be for your sake.  I could die happy if I might do even a small thing that would make you proud of me.”