Theodore Goodridge Roberts

“ On the sixth day of August, Bill worked from half-past four in the morning until half-past eight at night, commencing with the chores and going on to milking, driving the mower, raking by horse and hand, pitching and stowing, and wound up gently, after a hasty supper, with cocking up and a little more raking. Then John Smiler discovered that there was no molasses in the house; so Bill took the jug and trudged a mile to Sam Blaine's store at the Corners. It was when Sam was filling the jug that Bill's weary eyes chanced to turn upon the white poster tacked to the open door.
Recruits! ”

“ Ye're a spy!"
The stranger straightened his back and turned his face across his shoulder, and at that moment the sights of the rifle stood clear and black to Bill's view, and his fingers pressed the trigger. The report of the exploded cartridge was sharp and loud, but Bill's ears were not conscious of it. He saw the stranger slump forward over the spring and lie motionless. He knelt, dropped his rifle with a thump on the sward of thin grass and wild berries, and covered his bloodless face with his hand. He had shot a man!
Men came running in answer to the ringing alarm of the shot. ”

“ Old John Smiler was haying at the time, but young Bill Smiler, his orphan nephew, was doing most of the work. Bill was nineteen years of age, and worth his "keep" and thirty dollars a month to any agriculturalist; but as old John classed himself as an uncle of an orphan rather than as a farmer in this case, Bill didn't draw down the thirty. ”

“ Smiler should have had better sense than to shoot so quick."
"I—didn't shoot quick!" sobbed Bill. "I give him fair warnin'—at first. I come pretty nigh believin' he was the Colonel, until a feelin' come over me suddint at the last, an' I couldn't help shootin'."
More officers and men had collected about the spring by this time. A private, with his right arm wet to the shoulder, and a medical officer turned and ascended the slope toward Bill. ”

“ And that is how Bill Smiler became one of the early minor heroes of the War. He was made a sergeant next morning, and before he sailed for England he was colour-sergeant of Captain Kelly's company. He takes no credit to himself, however, for having saved the camp by shooting the insane poisoner in the nick of time, before the cork was extracted from the bottle of arsenic.
"It wasn't me done it," he always says. "I was thinkin' of myself—I was scared to stop him—an' then somethin' h'isted the rifle to my shoulder, aimed her, an' pressed my finger. ”

“ No, he would never go back to that old man, and he would never again show himself to the folks he knew—to Eva Smithers in particular—except as a hero, or, at least, as a veteran soldier honourably discharged. ”