Tim was leaving the valley. We tied his tin trunk on the back of the
buggy and he climbed to the seat beside me. Tip Pulsifer handed him a
great cylindrical parcel, bound in a newspaper, and my brother held it
reverently in his lap; for it was a chocolate cake, six layers high,
that Mrs. Tip had baked from the scanty contents of the Pulsifer flour
barrel. Tim was going to the city, and all the city people Mrs. Tip
had ever seen were lean, quick-moving and nervous, a condition which
she concluded was induced by starvation. So she had done her best to
provide Tim against want. Her mind was the mind of Six Stars. All the
village was about the buggy. Josiah Nummler had rowed down from his
hill-top, and the bulge in Tim's pocket was caused by the half dozen
fine pippins which the old man had brought as his farewell gift. Even
Theophilus Jones left the store unguarded, and hurried over when the
moment arrived that the village was to see the last of its favorite
son. Mrs. Tip Pulsifer is always red about the eyes, and no way was
left her to show her emotion but to toss her apron convulsively over
her face and swing Cevery wildly to and fro, so that the infant's cries
arose above the chorus of "good-bys" as we drove away.

"Farewell, comrade." We heard Aaron Kallaberger's stentorian tones as
we clattered around the bend. "Head up--eyes front--for'a'd!"

Tim turned and waved his hat to the little company at the gate, to all
the friends he had ever known, to the best he ever was to know; to Mrs.
Bolum and her Isaac, feebly waving the hands that had so often helped
him in time of boyish trouble; to Nanny Pulsifer and Tip; to all the
worthies of the store.

Tim was off to war. He was going to take part in a greater battle than