Pages 13-14 missing from my print edition!

Scanned by Charles Keller with OmniPage Professional OCR software

FRANK'S CAMPAIGN OR THE FARM AND THE CAMP

By HORATIO ALGER, JR.

FRANK'S CAMPAIGN

CHAPTER I. THE WAR MEETING

The Town Hall in Rossville stands on a moderate elevation
overlooking the principal street. It is generally open only when
a meeting has been called by the Selectmen to transact town
business, or occasionally in the evening when a lecture on
temperance or a political address is to be delivered. Rossville
is not large enough to sustain a course of lyceum lectures, and
the townspeople are obliged to depend for intellectual nutriment
upon such chance occasions as these. The majority of the
inhabitants being engaged in agricultural pursuits, the
population is somewhat scattered, and the houses, with the
exception of a few grouped around the stores, stand at
respectable distances, each encamped on a farm of its own.

One Wednesday afternoon, toward the close of September, 1862, a
group of men and boys might have been seen standing on the steps
and in the entry of the Town House. Why they had met will best
appear from a large placard, which had been posted up on barns
and fences and inside the village store and postoffice.

It ran as follows:

     WAR MEETING!

The citizens of Rossville are invited to meet at the Town Hall,
on Wednesday, September 24, at 3 P. M. to decide what measures
shall be taken toward raising the town's quota of twenty-five
men, under the recent call of the President of the United States.
All patriotic citizens, who are in favor of sustaining the free
institutions transmitted to us by our fathers, are urgently
invited to be present.

The Hon. Solomon Stoddard is expected to address the meeting.

Come one, come all.

At the appointed hour one hundred and fifty men had assembled in
the hall. They stood in groups, discussing the recent call and
the general management of the war with that spirit of independent
criticism which so eminently characterizes the little democracies
which make up our New England States.

"The whole thing has been mismanaged from the first," remarked a
sapient-looking man with a gaunt, cadaverous face, addressing two
listeners. "The Administration is corrupt; our generals are
either incompetent or purposely inefficient. We haven't got an
officer that can hold a candle to General Lee. Abraham Lincoln
has called for six hundred thousand men. What'll he do with 'em
when he gets 'em? Just nothing at all. They'll melt away like
snow, and then he'll call for more men. Give me a third of six
hundred thousand, and I'll walk into Richmond in less'n thirty
days."

A quiet smile played over the face of one of the listeners. With
a slight shade of irony in his voice he said, "If such are your
convictions, Mr. Holman, I think it a great pity that you are not
in the service. We need those who have clear views of what is
required in the present emergency. Don't you intend to
volunteer?"

"I!" exclaimed the other with lofty scorn. "No, sir; I wash my
hands of the whole matter. I ain't clear about the justice of
warring upon our erring brethren at all. I have no doubt they
would be inclined to accept overtures of peace if accompanied
with suitable concessions. Still, if war must be waged, I believe
I could manage matters infinitely better than Lincoln and his
cabinet have done."

"Wouldn't it be well to give them the benefit of your ideas on
the subject?" suggested the other quietly.

"Ahem!" said Mr. Holman, a little suspiciously.

"What do you mean, Mr. Frost?"

"Only this, that if, like you, I had a definite scheme, which I
thought likely to terminate the war, I should feel it my duty to
communicate it to the proper authorities, that they might take it
into consideration."

"It wouldn't do any good," returned Holman, still a little
suspicious that he was quietly laughed at. "They're too set in
their own ways to be changed."

At this moment there was a sharp rap on the table, and a voice
was heard, saying, "The meeting will please come to order."

The buzz of voices died away; and all eyes were turned toward the