‘Oh,’ commented Lucius, ‘you were afraid of being killed, were you?’
‘No, and I warn’t neither,’ returned Ephraim simply; ‘but I wuz powerful frightened lest ye might be. Bullets is sech darned unpolites—they never stops ter inquire if ye b’long ter a fust fam’ly or if ye don’t.’
‘But you know,’ explained Lucius, ‘when I said that I wanted to see a battle, I meant that I wanted to take part in one.’
‘I know ye did,’ assented Ephraim. ‘At the same time, ez fur ez I kin l’arn, that’s about _the_ most or’nery way of seein’ a battle ez has ever been invented. I tell ye, a bullet is the meanes’ thing alive.’
Lucius laughed. ‘But we can’t fight if we are up in the air, Grizzly,’ he observed.
‘Can’t we? I reckon we kin, though,’ replied Ephraim. ‘But ez fur ez that goes, who wants ter fight? I don’t, fer wun; and I don’t mean to let you, fer another. Ain’t there enuff of ’em hammerin’ away just now without you and me joinin’ in?’
‘That’s not very patriotic,’ said Lucius with emphasis.
‘Ain’t it?’ answered Ephraim drily. ‘I reckon it’s sense all the same. Anyway, this is how I’ve fixed it up. If ye don’t like my way, I promise ye, ye won’t get a chance to go off on yer own, ef I have ter tie ye in a chair and keep ye at my own expense until the war is through.’
Lucius laughed again. ‘You dear old Grizzly,’ he said, ‘you are always thinking of me. I’d just love to go with you. It will be splendid fun. But, tell me, how ever did you manage to make such a wonderful thing all by yourself?’
‘Waal, I don’t say it war ez easy ez hoein’ a row,’ replied Ephraim, ‘but it warn’t so dreadful hard nuther. I got it all outern a book, as I was telling ye, and made her to measurement, and thar she is, ye see. Besides,’ he added with an affectionate grin, ‘seein’ ez how it wuz fer ye I made her, Luce, I didn’t take no count of trouble. Ef thar wuz any, I reckon it never come my way.’
‘Upon my word, you are a good old Grizzly,’ cried Lucius enthusiastically, and fetching Ephraim a sounding slap between the shoulders, which seemed to delight the assaulted one immensely. ‘To think of your taking all that trouble just to please me. And the thing itself—why, it’s magnificent! If you aren’t clever! Say, Grizzly, are you sure it will hold us?’