th the
black forms of men passing to and fro before the crimson rays, made
weird and satanic effects.

He lay down in the grass. The blades pressed tenderly against his
cheek. The moon had been lighted and was hung in a treetop. The
liquid stillness of the night enveloping him made him feel vast pity
for himself. There was a caress in the soft winds; and the whole mood
of the darkness, he thought, was one of sympathy for himself in his
distress.

He wished, without reserve, that he was at home again making the
endless rounds from the house to the barn, from the barn to the fields,
from the fields to the barn, from the barn to the house. He remembered
he had so often cursed the brindle cow and her mates, and had sometimes
flung milking stools. But, from his present point of view, there was a
halo of happiness about each of their heads, and he would have
sacrificed all the brass buttons on the continent to have been enabled
to return to them. He told himself that he was not formed for a
soldier. And he mused seriously upon the radical differences between
himself and those men who were dodging implike around the fires.

As he mused thus he heard the rustle of grass, and, upon turning his
head, discovered the loud soldier. He called out, "Oh, Wilson!"

The latter approached and looked down. "Why, hello, Henry; is it you?
What are you doing here?"

"Oh, thinking," said the youth.

The other sat down and carefully lighted his pipe. "You're getting
blue my boy. You're looking thundering peek-ed. What the dickens is
wrong with you?"

"Oh, nothing," said the youth.

The loud soldier launched then into the subject of the anticipated
fight. "Oh, we've got 'em now!" As he spoke his boyish face was
wreathed in a gleeful smile, and his voice had an exultant ring.
"We've got 'em now. At last, by the eternal thunders, we'll like 'em
good!"

"If the truth was known," he added, more soberly, "they've licked US
about every clip up to now; but this time--this time--we'll lick 'em
good!"

"I thought you was objecting to this march a little while ago," said
the youth coldly.

"Oh, it wasn't that," explained the other. "I don't mind marching, if
there's going to be fighting at the end of it. What I hate is this
getting moved here and moved there, with no good coming of it, as far
as I can see, excepting sore feet and damned short rations."

"Well, Jim Conklin says we'll get plenty of fighting this time."