manual of arms with his buggy-whip, at the command of an imaginary
officer, whom, erect and martial, he was apparently looking straight in
the eye. Plainly he was a private now. Suddenly he sprang forward and
saluted; he was volunteering for some dangerous duty; and then he walked
on toward the house. Again he stopped. Apparently he had been promoted
now for gallant conduct, for he waved his whip and called out with low,
sharp sternness;

"Steady, now! Ready; fire!" And then swinging his hat over his head:

"Double-quick--charge!" After the charge, he sat down for a moment on
the stiles, looking up at the moon, and then came on toward the house,
singing again:

"You'll never find a man in all this world
Who'll love you half so well as I love you."

And inside, the mother, too, was listening; and she heard the elder
brother call the boy into his room and the door close, and she as well
knew the theme of their talk as though she could hear all they said. Her
sons--even the elder one--did not realize what war was; the boy looked
upon it as a frolic. That was the way her two brothers had regarded the
old war. They went with the South, of course, as did her father and her
sweetheart. And her sweetheart was the only one who came back, and him
she married the third month after the surrender, when he was so sick and
wounded that he could hardly stand. Now she must give up all that was
left for the North, that had taken nearly all she had.

Was it all to come again--the same long days of sorrow, loneliness, the
anxious waiting, waiting, waiting to hear that this one was dead, and