ble commodity it was to
become; there was soap enough for all and the camp kettles were filled
from the stream as soon as emptied. Underclothing, too, flannel and
cotton, must be washed.... There came discoveries, made amid "Ughs!" of
disgust. The more fastidious threw the whole business, undergarment and
parasites into the fire; others, more reasonable, or without a change of
clothing, scalded their apparel with anxious care. The episode marked a
stage in warfare. That night Lieutenant Coffin, writing a letter on his
last scrap of pale blue paper, sat with scrupulously washed hands well
back from the board he was using as a table. His boyish face flushed,
his lips quivered as he wrote. He wrote of lilies and moss rose-buds and
the purity of women, and he said there was a side of war which Walter
Scott had never painted.

Three bleak, pinched days later the army again took the road to Romney.
Four miles from Unger's they began to climb Sleepy Creek Mountain,
mounting the great, sparsely wooded slope like a long line of warrior
ants. To either hand the view was very fine, North Mountain to the left,
Capon Mountain to the right, in between a sea of hills and long deep
vales--very fine and utterly unappreciated. The earth was hostile, the
sky was hostile, the commanding general was hostile. Snow began to fall.

Allan Gold, marching with Company A, began to think of Thunder Run, the
schoolhouse, and the tollgate. The 65th was now high upon the
mountain-side and the view had vastly widened. The men looked out and
over toward the great main Valley of Virginia, and they looked
wistfully. To many of the men home was over there--home, wife, child,
mother--all hopelessly out of reach. Allan Gold had no wife nor child
nor mother, but he thought of Sairy and Tom, and he wondered if Sairy
were making gingerbread. He tried to smell it again, and to feel the
warmth of her kitchen--but then he knew too well that she was not making
gingerbread! Tom's last letter had spoken of the growing scarcity; flour
so high, sugar so high. Everybody was living very plainly, and the poor
were going to suffer. Allan thought of the schoolhouse. It was closed.
He could see just how it looked; a small unused building, mournful,
deserted, crumbling, while past it rushed the strong and wintry torrent.
He thought suddenly of Christianna. He saw her plainly, more plainly
than ever he had done before. She looked starved, defeated. He thought
of the Country.