e
family." It was a word in season, for the mother caught the spirit, and
a moment later declared, with a new tone in her voice, that that was
better than Mrs. Stanley, and still they were better off than she, for
they still had two left to help each other, while she had not a soul.

"I'll teck care o' us all," repeated the girl once more.

It was only a few things that Cove Mills took with him that morning,
when he set out in the darkness to overtake the company before they
should break camp--hardly his old game-bag half full; for the equipment
of the boys had stripped the little cabin of everything that could be of
use. He might only have seemed to be going hunting, as he slung down the
path with his old long-barrelled gun in his hand and his game-bag over
his shoulder, and disappeared in the darkness from the eyes of the two
women standing in the cabin door.

The next morning Mrs. Mills paid Mrs. Stanley the first visit she had
paid on that side the branch since the day, three years before, when
Cove and the boys had the row with Little Darby. It might have seemed
accidental, but Mrs. Stanley was the first person in the district to
know that all the Mills men were gone to the army. She went over again,
from time to time, for it was not a period to keep up open hostilities,
and she was younger than Mrs. Stanley and better off; but Vashti never
went, and Mrs. Stanley never asked after her or came.

II

The company in which Little Darby and the Millses had enlisted was one
of the many hundred infantry companies which joined and were merged
in the Confederate army. It was in no way particularly signalized by
anything that it did. It was commanded by the gentleman who did most
toward getting it up; and the officers were gentlemen. The seventy odd
men who made the rank and file were of all classes, from the sons of the
oldest and wealthiest planters in the neighborhood to Little Darby and
the dwellers in the district. The war was very different from what those
who went into it expected it to be. Until it had gone on some time it
seemed mainly marching and camping and staying in camp, quite uselessly
as seemed to many, and drilling and doing nothing. Much of the
time--especially later on--was given to marching and getting food;
but drilling and camp duties at first took up most of it. This was
especially hard on the poorer men, no one knew what it was to them. Some
moped, some fell sick. Of the former class was Littl