er mother sitting in a square of sunlight
with her open Bible on her knees.

"Oh, speak, mamma!" she called half angrily. "Move, do anything but sit so
still. I can't bear it!" She caught her breath sharply, for with her words
a low sound like distant thunder filled the room and the little street
outside. As she clung with both hands to the window it seemed to her that a
gray haze had fallen over the sunny valley. "Some one is dead," she said
almost calmly, "that killed how many?"

The room stifled her and she ran hurriedly down into the street, where a
few startled women and old men had rushed at the first roll of the cannon.
As she stood among them, straining her eyes from end to end of the little
village, her heart beat in her throat and she could only quaver out an
appeal for news.

"Where is it? Doesn't any one know anything? What does it mean?"

"It means a battle, Miss, that's one thing," remarked on obliging
by-stander who leaned heavily upon a wooden leg. "Bless you, I kin a'most
taste the powder." He smacked his lips and spat into the dust. "To think
that I went all the way down to Mexico fur a fight," he pursued
regretfully, "when I could have set right here at home and had it all in
old Virginny. Well, well, that comes of hurryin' the Lord afo' he's ready."

He rambled on excitedly, but Betty, frowning with impatience, turned from
him and walked rapidly up and down the single street, where the voices of
the guns growled through the muffling distance. "That killed how many? how
many?" she would say at each long roll, and again, "How many died that
moment, and was one Dan?"

Up and down the little village, through the heavy sunshine and the white
dust, among the whimpering women and old men, she walked until the day wore
on and the shadows grew longer across the street. Once a man had come with
the news of a sharp repulse, and in the early afternoon a deserter
straggled in with the cry that the enemy was marching upon the village. It
was not until the night had fallen, when the wounded began to arrive on
baggage trains, that the story of the day was told, and a single shout went
up from the waiting groups. The Confederacy was established! Washington was
theirs by right of arms, and tomorrow the young army would dictate terms of
peace to a great nation! The flags waved, women wept, and the wounded
soldiers, as they rolled in on baggage cars, were hailed as the deliverers
of a people. The new Confederacy! A