"
"Sshh, sshh! Don't talk that way. Course you'll come back."
"You never can tell. However, if I knew I wasn't going to, it
wouldn't make any difference in my feelings about going. I'm glad
I enlisted and I'm mighty thankful to you for backing me up in it.
I shan't forget it, Jed."
"Sho, sho! It's easy to tell other folks what to do. That's how
the Kaiser earns his salary; only he gives advice to the Almighty,
and I ain't got as far along as that yet."
They discussed the war in general and by sections. Just before he
left, young Babbitt said:
"Jed, there is one thing that worries me a little in connection
with Father. He was bitter against the war before we went into it
and before he and Cap'n Sam Hunniwell had their string of rows.
Since then and since I enlisted he has been worse than ever. The
things he says against the government and against the country make
ME want to lick him--and I'm his own son. I am really scared for
fear he'll get himself jailed for being a traitor or something of
that sort."
Mr. Winslow asked if Phineas' feeling against Captain Hunniwell had
softened at all. Leander's reply was a vigorous negative.
"Not a bit," he declared. "He hates the cap'n worse than ever, if
that's possible, and he'll do him some bad turn some day, if he
can, I'm afraid. You must think it's queer my speaking this way of
my own father," he added.
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