Page 20 - Among the camps, or, Young people's stories of the war

so on. Within the outer covering were several others ; but
at length the Ust was reached. A s the Colonel ripped care­
fully, the group gathered around and bent breathlessly over

him, tlie light from the blazing camp-fire shining rudclily on
their eager, weather-tanned faces. When the Colonel put in
his hand and drew out a toy sword, there was a general e x ­
clamation, followed by a dead silence ; but when he took the
doll from her soft wrapping, and then unrolled and held up
a pair of little trousers hctt much longer than a man's hand,

and just the size for a five-year-old boy, the men turned away
their faces from the fire, and more than one u’ho had boys of
his own at home, put his hand up to his eyes.
One of them, a bronzed and weather-beaten officer, who
had charged the Colonel with being a miser, stretched him­

self out on the ground, flat on his face, and sobbed aloud as
Colonel Stafford gently told bis story of Charlie and Evelyn.
Even the grim face of Colonel Den by looked somewhat
changed in the light of the firet and he reached over for the
doll and gazed at it steadily for some time;