Young Captain Jack; Or, The Son of a Soldier, Alger and Stratemeyer [best contemporary novels txt] 📗
- Author: Alger and Stratemeyer
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"I did, although not very closely."
"It seems to me that Jack bears a wonderful resemblance to the colonel."
"Now you speak of it, I must say you are right," answered Marion thoughtfully. And then, after another pause, she continued: "Is the colonel a married man?"
"I hardly think so. I have never heard him speak of a wife or children."
"Then it is likely that he is a bachelor." And there, for the time being, the subject was dropped.
Despite the fact that the house was surrounded by Federal troops and that a portion of the homestead was being used as a hospital, the dinner passed off in a far from unpleasant manner. Mrs. Ruthven was glad to meet her nephew once more, and made him tell the story of his service in detail. Not only the lady of the house, but also Marion and Jack, hung upon the young surgeon's words, and Jack's eyes glistened when he heard about the hard fighting which had been witnessed.
"Oh, how I wish I had been there! I would have helped to beat the Yankee troops back!" he cried.
"You're a born soldier, Jack!" answered Harry Powell. "And I must say I like you the better for it. I can't stand such stay-at-homes as St. John."
"Oh, St. John is a regular—a regular——"
"Hush, Jack!" interrupted Mrs. Ruthven reprovingly. "He says his mother needs him at home."
"And our country needs him at the front," said Marion.
"We don't need cowards," finished Jack. "Harry, you don't have cowards in your ranks, do you?"
"I am afraid all armies have more or less cowards in the ranks," laughed the young surgeon. "Some fellows would never make soldiers if they remained in the service a hundred years. Human nature is human nature the world over, you know."
"I wonder if Dr. Mackey is a brave man," muttered Jack, but nobody paid attention to this question.
The repast over, Harry Powell took his leave, but promised to come again, if possible, before leaving the vicinity. Marion saw him go with genuine regret, and blushed painfully when, on watching him hurry down the road, he suddenly turned and waved his hand toward her.
"Dear, good cousin Harry," she murmured. "How different from St. John!"
Two days passed and nothing of importance occurred to disturb the Ruthven homestead. On the second day St. John called to see Marion, but she excused herself by saying she had a headache, which was true, although the ache was not as severe as it might have been.
As he was leaving the place St. John ran up against Jack, who had been down to the outskirts of the Federal encampment, watching the soldiers drill.
"Hullo, where have you been?" said the spendthrift carelessly.
"Been down watching the Yankees drill," answered Jack.
"It seems to me you take an awful interest in those dirty Yankees," retorted St. John, with a sneer.
"I take an interest in all soldiers."
"Then why don't you join them, and evince your interest in some practical way?"
"I'd join our troops quick enough, if I was older. I'd be ashamed to stay at home and suck my thumb."
Jack looked at St. John steadily as he spoke, and this threw the spendthrift into a rage.
"Do you mean to insult me by that?" he roared.
"If the shoe fits you can wear it."
"I'll knock you down for the insult."
"I don't think you will."
"Why not?"
"Perhaps you are not able, that's why."
"Pooh! Do you think you can stand up against me?"
"Perhaps I can. Don't forget our encounter on the road."
"You took a mean advantage of me. I've a good mind to thrash you right here."
"You may try it on if you wish, St. John," and so speaking Jack began to throw off his coat.
"Will you take back what you said?"
"What did I say?"
"Said I was a coward for not becoming a soldier—or about the same thing."
"I won't take back what I think is true."
"So you dare to say I am a coward?" howled the spendthrift.
"If you want it in plain words, I do dare to say it, and furthermore, it is true, and you know it. Your plea that you must remain at home is all a sham. When the Yankees came this way you were all ready to run for your life at the first sign of real danger. You never thought of your mother at all."
"Ha! who told you that?"
"Never mind; I found it out, and that's enough."
"I—I was suffering from an extremely severe toothache, and hardly knew what I was doing that day."
"I don't believe it."
"You young rascal! you are growing more impudent every day."
"I am not a rascal."
"You are, and an upstart in the bargain. I heard at the village that some Confederate surgeon claims you as his son. Is that true?"
"If it is, it is his business and mine."
"Well, if you are his son, why don't you get out of here?"
"I shall not go as long as Mrs. Ruthven wishes me to remain."
"Does she want you to stay?"
"Yes."
"And Marion wants you to?"
"Yes."
"It is strange. But if I were you I wouldn't stay where I had no right to stay," went on St. John insinuatingly.
"But I have a right here."
"Indeed!"
"Yes. The late Colonel Ruthven adopted me, and I am his son by law."
"Bah! That will count for nothing if this Confederate surgeon can prove you belong to him."
"Well, he'll have to prove it first."
"Of course you won't get out of this nest until you are pushed out," blustered St. John. "It's too much of a soft thing for you. You ought to be made to earn your own living."
This remark made Jack's face grow crimson, and, striding up to St. John, he clenched his fists, at which the young man promptly retreated.
"I am perfectly willing to work whenever called upon to do so," said our hero. "But it is not for you to say what I shall do, remember that. I know why you wish to get me out of here."
"Do you, indeed!"
"I do, indeed, St. John Ruthven. You want to get hold of some of Mrs. Ruthven's property. If I was out of the way, you think she might leave it all to Marion and to you."
"Well, I have more of a right to it than you, if it comes to that."
"But Marion has the best right, and I hope every dollar of it goes to her."
"Well, that aint here or there. Are you going with your father or not?"
"He must prove that he is my father first."
"You won't take his word?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because I do not like the man," and our hero's face filled with sudden bitterness. What if Dr. Mackey should prove to be his parent, after all? How St. John would rejoice in his discomfiture!
"I suppose this Dr. Mackey is a very common sort of man," continued the spendthrift, in an endeavor to add to our hero's misery.
"What do you know about him?"
"Nothing but what I heard at the village."
"Is he down there now?"
"Of course not. He went with our troops."
Jack drew a sigh of relief. It was likely that the doctor would not show himself in the neighborhood for some time to come, probably not until the Federal troops had departed.
"I am going to talk to my aunt of this," said St. John suddenly, and, without another word to Jack, turned his steps toward the plantation home.
CHAPTER XIX.
A SUMMONS FROM THE FRONT.
St. John found his aunt too busy to spend much time talking about Jack's past and Dr. Mackey's claim, and it was not long before he took his departure, feeling that he had gained nothing by this new attack upon our hero's welfare.
"I wish I could get him out of the way," he muttered, as he walked homeward, by a side road, so as to steer clear of the Federal troops. "If only he would join the army, and get shot down."
He entered his home filled with thoughts of Jack and Marion, but all these thoughts were driven to the winds after he had read a communication which had been left for him during his absence.
The communication was one from a well-known Southern leader of the neighborhood, and ran, in part, as follows:
"Many of us think it time to call upon you to take up arms as we have done. With our noble country suffering from the invasion of the enemy, every loyal Southerner is needed at the front. Join our ranks ere it be too late. The muster roll can be signed at Wingate's Hotel, any time to-day or to-night. Do not delay."
As St. John read this communication his face grew ashen. "Called upon to join at last!" he muttered. "What shall I do now? What excuse can I offer for hanging back?"
"What is in your letter, St. John?" asked his mother.
"They want me to join the army—they say every man is needed," he answered, with half a groan.
"To join? When?"
"At once."
"What shall you do?"
"I—I don't know." His legs began to tremble, and he sank heavily on a chair. "I—I am too sick to join the army, mother," he went on, half pleadingly.
Now Mrs. Ruthven did not care to have him leave her, yet she was but human, and it filled her with disgust to have her only offspring such a coward.
"You weren't very sick this morning."
"I know that. But the sun has affected my head. I feel very faint."
"If you don't join the ranks, all of our neighbors will put you down as a coward, St. John."
"They can't want a sick man along," he whined.
"They will say you are shamming."
"But I am not shamming. I feel bad enough to take to my bed this minute."
"Then you had better do it," answered Mrs. Ruthven, with, however, but little sympathy in her voice.
"I will go to bed at once."
"You must not forget that your cousin, Harry Powell, is in the army."
"Yes, on the Yankee side."
"Still he is brave enough to go. Marion may think a good deal of him on that account."
"Well, I would go, for Marion's sake, if I felt at all well," groaned St. John. "But I am in for a regular spell of sickness, I feel certain of it."
"Then go to bed."
"Write Colonel Raymond a note stating that I am in bed, and tell him I would join the ranks if I possibly could," groaned St. John, and then dragged himself upstairs and retired. Here he called for a negro servant and had a man go for a doctor.
Much disgusted, Mrs. Mary Ruthven penned the note, and sent it to town, shielding her son's true character as much as possible.
For the remainder of the day St. John stayed in bed, and whenever a servant came into his room he would groan dismally.
When the doctor arrived he was alarmed, until he made an examination.
"He is shamming," thought the family physician. But as the Ruthvens were among his best customers, he said nothing on this point. He left St. John some soothing medicine and a tonic, and said he would call again the next day.
Instead of using the medicine, the young spendthrift threw it out of the window.
"Don't catch me swallowing that stuff," he chuckled to himself. "I am not altogether such a fool."
Several days passed, and nothing of importance happened to disturb those at either of the Ruthven plantations.
But a surprise was in store for Jack and those with whom he lived.
One of the wounded soldiers stopping at Mrs. Alice Ruthven's home was named George Walden. The poor fellow had been shot in the shoulder, a painful as well as a dangerous wound.
For several days he lay speechless, and during that time the Confederate surgeon and Mrs. Ruthven, as well as Marion, did all they could to ease his suffering.
One day George Walden began to speak to Marion.
"You are very good to me," he said. "You are in reality an angel of mercy."
"I am glad to be able to help you, and thus help the Southern cause," replied Marion. "But you must not speak too much. It may retard your recovery."
"I will not talk much. But you are
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