"Why, hello, Major!" he exclaimed. "I'm real glad to-- Eh,
'tain't Major Grover, is it? Who-- Why, Leander Babbitt! Well,
well, well!"
Young Babbitt was straight and square-shouldered and brown.
Military training and life at Camp Devens had wrought the miracle
in his case which it works in so many. Jed found it hard to
recognize the stoop-shouldered son of the hardware dealer in the
spruce young soldier before him. When he complimented Leander upon
the improvement the latter disclaimed any credit.
"Thank the drill master second and yourself first, Jed," he said.
"They'll make a man of a fellow up there at Ayer if he'll give 'em
half a chance. Probably I shouldn't have had the chance if it
hadn't been for you. You were the one who really put me up to
enlisting."
Jed refused to listen. "Can't make a man out of a punkinhead," he
asserted. "If you hadn't had the right stuff in you, Leander,
drill masters nor nobody else could have fetched it out. How do
you like belongin' to Uncle Sam?"
Young Babbitt liked it and said so. "I feel as if I were doing
something at last," he said; "as if I was part of the biggest thing
in the world. Course I'm only a mighty little part, but, after
all, it's something."
Jed nodded, gravely. "You bet it's somethin'," he argued. "It's a
lot, a whole lot. I only wish I was standin' alongside of you in
the ranks, Leander.
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