rn
now to be men, for you'll have to look after things and the women. And
you girls must help your mothers all you can. It's going to be hard
times, little folk! You've played a long time at fighting Indians, and
latterly I've noticed you playing at fighting Yankees. Playtime's over
now. It's time to work, to think, and to try to help. You can't fight
for Virginia with guns and swords, but every woman and child, every
young boy and old man in Virginia can make the hearts easier of those
who go to fight. You be good boys and girls and do your duty here on
Thunder Run, and God will count you as his soldiers just the same as if
you were fighting down there in the valley, or before Richmond, or on
the Potomac, or wherever we're going to fight. You're going to be good
children; I know it!" He closed the book before him. "School's over now.
When we take in again we'll finish the Roman History--I've marked the
place." He left his rude old desk and the little platform, and stepping
down amongst his pupils, gave to each his hand. Then he divided among
them the scanty supply of books, patiently answered a scurry of
questions, and outside, upon the sunshiny sward, with the wind in the
walnut tree and the larkspur beginning to bloom, said good-bye once
more. Jack and Jill gave no further thought to the bird's nest, the
minnows in the pool, the unfinished blockhouse. Off they rushed, up the
side of the mountain, over the wooded hills, along Thunder Run, where it
leaped from pool to pool. They must be home with the news! No more
school--no more school! And was father going--and were Johnny and Sam
and Dave? Where were they going to fight? As far as the big sawmill? as
far away as the _river_? Were the dogs going, too?

Allan Gold, left alone, locked the schoolhouse door, walked slowly along
the footpath between the flowers he had planted, and, standing by
Thunder Run, looked for awhile at the clear, brown water, then, with a
long breath and a straightening of the shoulders, turned away.
"Good-bye, little place!" he said, and strode down the ravine to the
road and the toll-house.

The tollgate keeper, old and crippled, sat on the porch beside a wooden
bucket of well-water. The county newspaper lay on his knee, and he was
reading the items aloud to his wife, old, too, but active, standing at
her ironing-board within the kitchen door. A cat purred in the sunshine,
and all the lilac bushes were in bloom. "'Ten companies from this
Count