"I feel that I owe my country a service which I have no right to delegate to another, as long as I am able to discharge it myself.

I shall reflect seriously upon Frank's proposition." There was no more said at this time.

Both Frank and his parents felt that it was a serious matter, and not to be hastily decided.
After breakfast Frank went up-stairs, and before studying his Latin lesson, read over thoughtfully the following passage in his prize essay on "The Duties of American Boys at the Present Crisis:" "Now that so large a number of our citizens have been withdrawn from their families and their ordinary business to engage in putting down this Rebellion, it becomes the duty of the boys to take their places as far as they are able to do so.

A boy cannot wholly supply the place of a man, but he can do so in part.

And where he is not called on to do this, he can so conduct himself that his friends who are absent may feel at ease about him.