"I saw it--I did not interfere at once--I was wrong."
This greatly amused John. "You stopped it just in time for me--I was about done for."
"Yes, but now, John, I have talked to Tom, and--I am afraid you have never made it up."
"No, he was insolent to Leila and rude. But we had a talk about it--oh, a good while ago--before she went away."
"Oh, he told me you had talked to him and he had seen Leila and told her he was sorry. She never said a word to me. I told him that he ought to have apologized to me--too."
Rivers was amused. "Apologies are not much in fashion among Westways boys. What did he say?"
"Oh, just that he didn't see that at all--and then he said that he was going away this fall to study medicine, and some day when he was a doctor he would have a chance to get even with me, and wouldn't he dose me well. Then we both laughed, and--I shook hands with him. That's all, sir."
"Well, I am pleased. He is by no means a bad fellow, and as you know he is clever--and can beat you in mathematics."
"Yes, but I licked him well, and he knows it."
"For shame, John. I wish my Baptist friend's boy would do better--he is dull."
"But I like him," said John. "He is so plucky."
"There is another matter I want to talk about. I had a long conversation about you with your uncle the night before he left. I heard with regret that you want to go into the army."
"May I ask why?" said John, as he lay on the ground lazily fingering the pine-needles.
"Is it because the hideous business called war attracts you?"
"No, but I like what I hear of the Point from Uncle Jim. I prefer it to any college life. Besides this, I do not expect to spend my life in the service, and after all it is simply a first rate training for anything I may want to do later--care of the mills, I mean. Uncle Jim is pleased, and as for war, Mr. Rivers, if that is what you dislike, what chance of war is there?"
"You have very likely forgotten my talk with Mr. George Grey. The North and the South will never put an end to their differences without bloodshed."
It seemed a strange opinion to John. He had thought so when he heard their talk, but now the clergyman's earnestness and some better understanding of the half-century's bitter feeling made him thoughtful. Rising to his feet, he said, "Uncle Jim does not agree with you, and Aunt Ann and her brother, Henry Grey, think that Mr. Buchanan will bring all our troubles to an end. Of course, sir, I don't know, but"--and his voice rose--"if there ever should be such a war, I am on Uncle Jim's side, and being out of West Point would not keep me out of the fight."