In the road. . . . Don't bother, son. You don't have to go to any

more parties you don't want to go to. Here," he pulled a bill from

his pocket, "tell Pork to harness the carriage and take you

downtown. Buy yourself some candy--a lot, enough to give you a

wonderful stomach ache."

Wade, beaming, pocketed the bill and looked anxiously toward his

mother for confirmation. But she, with a pucker in her brows, was

watching Rhett. He had picked Bonnie from the floor and was

cradling her to him, her small face against his cheek. She could

not read his face but there was something in his eyes almost like

fear--fear and self-accusation.

Wade, encouraged by his stepfather's generosity, came shyly toward

him.

"Uncle Rhett, can I ask you sumpin'?"

"Of course." Rhett's look was anxious, absent, as he held Bonnie's

head closer. "What is it, Wade?"

"Uncle Rhett, were you--did you fight in the war?"

Rhett's eyes came alertly back and they were sharp, but his voice

was casual.

"Why do you ask, son?"

"Well, Joe Whiting said you didn't and so did Frankie Bonnell."

"Ah," said Rhett, "and what did you tell them?"

Wade looked unhappy.

"I--I said--I told them I didn't know." And with a rush, "But I

didn't care and I hit them. Were you in the war, Uncle Rhett?"

"Yes," said Rhett, suddenly violent. "I was in the war. I was in

the army for eight months. I fought all the way from Lovejoy up to

Franklin, Tennessee. And I was with Johnston when he surrendered."

Wade wriggled with pride but Scarlett laughed.

"I thought you were ashamed of your war record," she said. "Didn't

you tell me to keep it quiet?"

"Hush," he said briefly. "Does that satisfy you, Wade?"

"Oh, yes, sir! I knew you were in the war. I knew you weren't

scared like they said. But--why weren't you with the other little

boys' fathers?"

"Because the other little boys' fathers were such fools they had to

put them in the infantry. I was a West Pointer and so I was in the

artillery. In the regular artillery, Wade, not the Home Guard. It

takes a pile of sense to be in the artillery, Wade."

"I bet," said Wade, his face shining. "Did you get wounded, Uncle

Rhett?"

Rhett hesitated.

"Tell him about your dysentery," jeered Scarlett.

Rhett carefully set the baby on the floor and pulled his shirt and

undershirt out of his trouser band.

"Come here, Wade, and I'll show you where I was wounded."

Wade advanced, excited, and gazed where Rhett's finger pointed. A

long raised scar ran across his brown chest and down into his

heavily muscled abdomen. It was the souvenir of a knife fight in

the California gold fields but Wade did not know it. He breathed

heavily and happily.

"I guess you're 'bout as brave as my father, Uncle Rhett."

"Almost but not quite," said Rhett, stuffing his shirt into his

trousers. "Now, go on and spend your dollar and whale hell out of

any boy who says I wasn't in the army."

Wade went dancing out happily, calling to Pork, and Rhett picked up

the baby again.

"Now why all these lies, my gallant soldier laddie?" asked

Scarlett.

"A boy has to be proud of his father--or stepfather. I can't let

him be ashamed before the other little brutes. Cruel creatures,

children."

"Oh, fiddle-dee-dee!"

"I never thought about what it meant to Wade," said Rhett slowly.

"I never thought how he's suffered. And it's not going to be that

way for Bonnie."

"What way?"

"Do you think I'm going to have my Bonnie ashamed of her father?

Have her left out of parties when she's nine or ten? Do you think