e light bread. If you'd come a
little earlier I could have let you have some eggs--"

"I've got a feast for a king.--All these fighting men going up and down
the Valley are going to eat you out of house and home.--I got some pay
two months ago, and I've enough left to make it fairer--"

He drew out a Confederate note. The woman on the doorstep looked at it
admiringly, and, taking it from him, examined either side. "They make
them pretty as a picture," she said. "Once't I was in Richmond and saw
the Capitol. That's a good picture of it. And that statue of General
Washington!--My! his horse's just dancing as they say Ashby's does to
music. One of those bronze men around the base is a forbear of mine."
She gave back the note. "I had a little mite of real coffee that I'd
have liked to give you--but it's all gone. Howsoever, you won't go
hungry with what you've got. Have you a nice place to sleep in?"

"The nicest in the world. A bed of oak leaves and a roof all stars."

"You could stay here to-night. I've got a spare room."

"You're just as good as gold," said Allan. "But I want to be out where I
can hear the news. I'm a scout, you see."

"I thought that, watching you come up the path. We're learning fast.
Used to be I just thought a soldier was a soldier! I never thought of
there being different kinds. Do you think the army'll come this way?"

"I shouldn't be surprised," said Allan. "Indeed, I'm rather expecting
it. But you never know. How many of your people are in it?"

"A lot of cousins. But my sons are with Johnston. Richmond's more'n a
hundred miles away, I reckon, but all last night I thought I heard the
cannon. Well, good-bye! I'm mighty glad to see you all again in the
Valley. Be sure to come back for your breakfast--and if the army passes
I've got enough for one or two besides. Good-bye--God bless you."

Allan left behind the small brick farmhouse, stopped for a drink at the
spring, then climbed a rail fence and made across a rolling field of
bright green clover to a width of blossoming woods, beyond which ran the
Mt. Solon and Bridgewater road. From the forest issued a curl of blue
vapour and a smell of wood smoke. The scout, entering, found a cheerful,
unnecessarily large fire. Stretched beside it, upon the carpet of last
year's leaves, lay Billy Maydew, for whose company he had applied upon
quitting, a week before, the army between McDowell and Franklin. Allan
snuffed the air. "You build too big a fire,