authority to raise a company for three years or for the war. When he
exhibited his papers, he found twenty persons ready to put down their
names. A recruiting office was opened at the store, and every day added to
the list of brave and self-denying men who were ready to go forward and
fight the battles of liberty and union. The excitement in Pinchbrook was
fanned by the news which each day brought of the zeal and madness of the
traitors.

Thomas had made up his mind, even before his mother had been surprised
into giving her consent, that he should go to the war. At the first
opportunity, therefore, he wrote his name upon the paper, very much to the
astonishment of Captain Benson and his employer.

"How old are you, Tom?" asked the captain.

"I'm in my seventeenth year," replied the soldier boy.

"You are not old enough."

"I'm three months older than Sam Thompson; and you didn't even ask him how
old he was."

"He is larger and heavier than you are!"

"I can't help that. I'm older than he is, and I think I can do as much in
the way of fighting as he can."

"I don't doubt that," added the captain, laughing. "Your affair with
Squire Pemberton shows that you have pluck enough for anything. I should
be very glad to have you go; but what does your father say?"