THREE:He took the dispatch with shaking hands, but there was too much mist on his glasses-, and he had to hand it back to Maria to read over again to convince himself.When the boys had first come under Si's command they regarded him as one of the greatest men in the army. In their shadowy notions of military matters they rather thought that he stood next to the great Generals whose names filled all mouths. These ideas had been toppled into dust by their arrival in camp, and seeing so many different men order him around. They felt ashamed of themselves that they had ever mistaken him for a great man, and put him up on a pedestal. That is the way with boys. They resent nothing more sharply than the thought of their having been deceived into honoring somebody or something unworthy of honor. They can stand anything better than a reflection upon their shrewdness and judgment.