Horace's lips curled with scorn.
"That's right, Gracie; run and _tell_!"
"But, Horace, I ought to tell," said Grace, meekly; "it's my duty! Isn't there a little voice at your heart, and don't it say, you've done wicked?"
"There's a voice there," replied the boy, pertly; "but it don't say what you think it does. It says, 'If your pa finds out about the watch, won't you catch it?'"
To do Horace justice, he did mean to tell his mother. He had been taught to speak the truth, and the whole truth, cost what it might. He knew that his parents could forgive almost anything sooner than a falsehood, or a cowardly concealment. Words cannot tell how Mr. Clifford hated deceit.
"When a _lie_ tempts you, Horace," said he, "scorn it, if it looks ever so white! Put your foot on it, and crush it like a snake!"
Horace ate dry toast again this morning, but no one seemed to notice it.
If he had dared look up, he would have seen that his father and mother wore sorrowful faces.
After breakfast, Mr. Clifford called him into the library. In the first place, he took to pieces the mangled watch, and showed him how it had been injured.
"Have you any right to meddle with things which belong to other people, my son?"
Horace's chin snuggled down into the hollow place in his neck, and he made no reply.
"Answer me, Horace."
"No, sir."
"It will cost several dollars to pay for repairing this watch: don't you think the little boy who did the mischief should give part of the money?"
Horace looked distressed; his face began to twist itself out of shape.
"This very boy has a good many pieces of silver which were given him to buy fire-crackers. So you see, if he is truly sorry for his fault, he knows the way to atone for it."
Horace's conscience told him, by a twinge, that it would be no more than just for him to pay what he could for mending the watch.
"Have you nothing to say to me, my child?"
For, instead of speaking, the boy was working his features into as many shapes as if they had been made of gutta percha. This was a bad habit of his, though, when he was doing it, he had no idea of "making up faces."
His father told him he would let him have the whole day to decide whether he ought to give up any of his money. A tear trembled in each of Horace's eyes, but, before they could fall, he caught them on his thumb and forefinger.
"Now," continued Mr. Clifford, "I have something to tell you. I decided last night to enter the army."
"O, pa," cried Horace, springing up, eagerly; "mayn't I go, too?"
"You, my little son?"
"Yes, pa," replied Horace, clinging to his father's knee. "Boys go to wait on the generals and things! I can wait on you. I can comb your hair, and bring your slippers. If I could be a waiter, I'd go a flyin'."
"Poor child," laughed Mr. Clifford, stroking Horace's head, "you're such a very little boy, only eight years old!"
"I'm going on nine. I'll be nine next New Year's Gift-day," stammered Horace, the bright flush dying out of his cheeks. "O, pa, I don't want you to go, if I can't go too!"
Mr. Clifford's lips trembled. He took the little boy on his knee, and told him how the country was in danger, and needed all its brave men.
"I should feel a great deal easier about leaving my dear little family,"
said he, "if Horace never disobeyed his mother; if he did not so often fall into mischief; if he was always sure to _remember_."
The boy's neck was twisted around till his father could only see the back of his head.
"Look here, pa," said he, at last, throwing out the words one at a time, as if every one weighed a whole pound; "I'll give ma that money; I'll do it to-day."
"That's right, my boy! that's honest! You have given me pleasure.
Remember, when you injure the property of another, you should always make amends for it as well as you can. If you do not, you're unjust and dishonest."
I will not repeat all that Mr. Clifford said to his little son. Horace thought then he should never forget his father's good advice, nor his own promises. We shall see whether he did or not.
He was a restless, often a very naughty boy; but when you looked at his broad forehead and truthful eyes, you felt that, back of all his faults, there was nobleness in his boyish soul. His father often said, "He will either make something or nothing;" and his mother answered, "Yes, there never will be any half-way place for Horace."
[Illustration: MR. CLIFFORD AND HIS SON. _Page 27._]
Now that Mr. Clifford had really enlisted, everybody looked sad. Grace was often in tears, and said,--
"We can't any of us live, if pa goes to the war."
But when Horace could not help crying, he always said it was because he "had the earache," and perhaps he thought it was.
Mrs. Clifford tried to be cheerful, for she was a patriotic woman; but she could not trust her voice to talk a great deal, or sing much to the baby.
As for Barbara Kinckle, she scrubbed the floors, and scoured the tins, harder than ever, looking all the while as if every one of her friends was dead and buried. The family were to break up housekeeping, and Barbara was very sorry. Now she would have to go to her home, a little way back in the country, and work in the fields, as many German girls do every summer.
"O, my heart is sore," said she, "every time I thinks of it. They will in the cars go off, and whenever again I'll see the kliny (little) childers I knows not."
It was a sad day when Mr. Clifford bade good by to his family. His last words to Horace were these: "Always obey your mother, my boy, and remember that God sees all you do."
He was now "Captain Clifford," and went away at the head of his company, looking like, what he really was, a brave and noble gentleman.
Grace wondered if he ever thought of the bright new buttons on his coat; and Horace walked about among his school-fellows with quite an air, very proud of being the son of a man who either was now, or was going to be, the greatest officer in Indiana!
If any body else had shown as much self-esteem as Horace did, the boys would have said he had "the _big_ head." When Yankee children think a playmate conceited, they call him "stuck up;" but Hoosier children say he has "the _big_ head." No one spoke in this way of Horace, however, for there was something about him which made everybody like him, in spite of his faults.
He loved his play-fellows, and they loved him, and were sorry enough to have him go away; though, perhaps, they did not shed so many tears as Grace's little mates, who said, "they never'd have any more good times: they didn't mean to try."
Mrs. Clifford, too, left many warm friends, and it is safe to say, that on the morning the family started for the east, there were a great many people "crying their hearts out of their eyes." Still, I believe no one sorrowed more sincerely than faithful Barbara Kinckle.
CHAPTER III.
TAKING A JOURNEY.