The visitors gazed compassionately at them--little Watts not much larger than the boy.

A woman asked, "And where were you wounded, son ?" looking at Watts with his accordion.

His face flushed up at the thought of his shame, and he could not keep back the tears that always betrayed him when he was deeply moved.
"Ten--ten miles from Springfield, madam, ten miles from Springfield." And to hide his embarrassment he began sawing at his accordion, chanting his famous song.

But being only a little boy, John Barclay tittered.
A few days after the battle Captain Ward wrote to Miss Lucy telling her that some soldiers slightly wounded would go home on a furlough to Lawrence, and that they would take John with them and put him on the stage at Lawrence for Sycamore Ridge.

Then Ward's letter continued: "It is all so horrible--this curse of war; sometimes I think it is worse than the curse of slavery.