human
And you are going as----
gpt
As a private.
human
With the Rough Riders?
gpt
As a regular--a plain, common soldier, with plain, common soldiers. I am trying to be an American now--not a Southerner. I've been drilling at Tampa and Chickamauga with the regulars.
human
You are much interested?
gpt
More than in anything for years.
human
Think of it, Crittenden went on.
gpt
It is the first time in my life, almost, I have known what it was to wish to do something--to have a purpose--that was not inspired by you.
human
When do you go?
gpt
To-morrow morning. I got this just as I was leaving town.
human
To-morrow!
gpt
It means life or death to me--this telegram. And if it doesn't mean life, I don't care for the other. I shall come out with a commission or--not at all. If dead, I shall be a hero--if alive, he smiled,
human
I don't know what I'll be, but think of me as a hero, dead or alive, with my past and my present. I can feel a change already, a sort of growing pain, at the very thought.
gpt
When do you go to Cuba?
human
Within four days.
gpt
Four days! And you can talk as you do, when you are going to war to live the life of a common soldier--to die of fever, to be killed, maybe, her lip shook and she stopped, but she went on thickly,
human
Listen!