"But""I am awfully glad that your brother was not hurt so badly as at first reported. He couldn't be, and be able to come home now. These papers do magnify everything so, and make no end of fuss over little things as well as big ones, I was very much alarmed at first, for fear Si might be really badly hurt.""I think they're just splendid," said Si, enthusiastically. "They'll fill in the holes o' the old rigimint in great shape. They're as tough as little wildcats; they'll obey orders and go wherever you send 'em, and four out o' every five o' them kin knock over a crow at a hundred yards with a squirrel rifle. But, Shorty," he added with a sudden assumption of paternal dignity, "me and you's got to be fathers to them. We've got a great responsibility for them. We must do the very best we kin by 'em."Perfect quiet reigned in the regiment. The men were mostly asleep. Those who were awake were intently watching the hill for some sign of the enemy, or as silently foreboding the happenings of the morrow."They have rights," Dodd said stubbornly. "They have rights of their own."
