Mrs. Sprague listened with woe-begone perplexity to these sounding
periods, conscious only that her darling, her adored scapegrace, had
suddenly turned serious, and was using the weapons she had so often
employed to justify his conduct. For it was using one of the standing
arms in the maternal arsenal, to remind the wild and headstrong lad that
his father had been Jackson's confidant, that he had been Governor of
Imperia, that he had enforced the demands of the United States upon
European statesmen, that after a life spent in the public service he had
died, reverenced by his party and by his neighbors. Jack, as an infant,
had been fondled by Webster, by Clay, and, one never-to-be-forgotten
day, Jackson, the Scipio of the republic, had placed his brawny hand
upon the infant's head and declared that he would be "worthy of Jack
Sprague, who was man enough to make two Kentuckians."

"But you--you, ought to be a colonel. Your father was a major-general in
the Mexican War at twenty-five. A Sprague can't be a private soldier!"
she cried, seizing on this as the only tenable ground where she could
begin the contest against the two children confederated against her.

"I don't want to owe everything to my father. This is a republic, mamma,
and a man is, or ought to be, what he makes himself. I saw in a paper,
the other day, that the Government has more brigadiers and colonels
and--and--officers than it knows what to do with. I saw it stated that a
stone thrown from Willard's Hotel in Washington hit a dozen brigadiers.
I want to earn a commission before I assume it. I'll be an officer soon
enough, no fear. I could have had a lieutenant's commission if I had
gone in Blandon's regiment. But I hate Blandon. He is one of those
canting sneaks father detested, and I won't serve under such cattle."