"
"When I was twelve, I left New York and came to Detroit with a gentleman
in the book business. I was there two years, when the war broke out.
"One day, a few months afterward I was passing by a recruiting office,
and went in. I heard them say they wanted a drummer. I offered; they
laughed and said I was too little; but they brought me a drum and I beat
it for them. They agreed to take me. So the old stars and stripes was
the ship for me to stand by."
The colonel was silent; he seemed to be in deep thought. "How do you
ever expect," he said, "to find your father? You do not even know his
name."
"I don't know, sir, but I am sure I shall find him, somehow. My father
will be certain to know that I am the right boy, when he does find me,
for I have something to show him that was my mother's," and he drew
forth a little canvas bag, sewed tightly all around, and suspended from
his neck by a string.
"In this," he said, "is a pretty bracelet that my mother always wore on
her arm. Father Jack took it off after she died, to keep for me. He said
I must never open it until I found my father, and that I must wear it so
around my neck, that it might be safe."
"A bracelet, did you say?" exclaimed the colonel, "let me have it--I
must see it at once!"
With both his small hands clasped around it, the little boy stood
looking into Colonel B.
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