“Pardon me for inattention, boys,” he said, “but while I was enjoying my algebra I was also thinking of old times back there in Vermont, when nobody was shooting at anybody else.”
Dick and Pennington walked solemnly back and sat down beside him again.
“Returned to his right mind. Quite sane now,” said Pennington. “But don’t you think, Dick, we ought to take that exciting book away from him? The mind of youth in its tender formative state can be inflamed easily by light literature.”
Warner smiled and put his beloved book in his pocket.
“No, boys,” he said, “you won’t take it away from me, but as soon as this war is over I shall advance from it to studies of a somewhat similar nature, but much higher in character, and so difficult that solving them will afford a pleasure keener and more penetrating than anything else I know.”
“What is your greatest ambition, Warner?” asked Pennington. “Do you, like all the rest of us, want to be President of the United States?”
“Not for a moment. I’ve already been in training several years to be president of Harvard University. What higher place could mortal ask? None, because there is none to ask for.”
“I can understand you, George,” said Dick. “My great-grandfather became the finest scholar ever known in the West. There was something of the poet in him too. He had a wonderful feeling for nature and the forest. He had a remarkable chance for observation as he grew up on the border, and was the close comrade in the long years of Indian fighting of Henry Ware, who was the greatest governor of Kentucky. As I think I’ve told you fellows, Harry Kenton, Governor Ware’s great-grandson and my comrade, is fighting on the other side.”
“I knew of the great Dr. Cotter long before I met you, Dick,” replied Warner. “I read his book on the Indians of the Northern Mississippi Valley. Not merely their history and habits, but their legends, their folk lore, and the wonderful poetic glow so rich and fine that he threw over everything. There was something almost Homeric in his description of the great young Wyandot chieftain Timmendiquas or White Lightning, whom he acclaimed as the finest type of savage man the age had known.”
“He and Henry Ware fought Timmendiquas for years, and after the great peace they were friends throughout their long lives.”
“And I’ve studied, too, his wonderful book on the Birds and Mammals of North America,” continued Warner with growing enthusiasm. “What marvelous stores of observation and memory! Ah, Dick, those were exciting days, and a man had opportunities for real and vital experiences!”
Dick and Pennington laughed.
“What about Vicksburg, old praiser of past times?” asked Frank. “Don’t you think we’ll have some lively experiences trying to take it? And wasn’t there something real and vital about Bull Run and Shiloh and Perryville and Stone River and all the rest? Don’t you worry, George. You’re living in exciting times yourself.”
“That’s so,” said Warner calmly. “I had forgotten it for the moment. We’ve been readers of history and now we’re makers of it. It’s funny- and maybe it isn’t funny-but the makers of history often know little about what they’re making. The people who come along long afterward put them in their places and size up what they have done.”
“They can give all the reasons they please why I won this war,” said Pennington, “but even history-makers are entitled to a rest. Since there’s no order to the contrary I mean to stretch out and go to sleep. Dick, you and George can discuss your problems all night.”
But they went to sleep also.