They ate their
noon meal behind a third one. They were moved from this one also.
They were marched from place to place with apparent aimlessness.

The youth had been taught that a man became another thing in battle.
He saw his salvation in such a change. Hence this waiting was an
ordeal to him. He was in a fever of impatience. He considered that
there was denoted a lack of purpose on the part of the generals. He
began to complain to the tall soldier. "I can't stand this much
longer," he cried. "I don't see what good it does to make us wear out
our legs for nothin'." He wished to return to camp, knowing that this
affair was a blue demonstration; or else to go into a battle and
discover that he had been a fool in his doubts, and was, in truth, a
man of traditional courage. The strain of present circumstances he
felt to be intolerable.

The philosophical tall soldier measured a sandwich of cracker and pork
and swallowed it in a nonchalant manner. "Oh, I suppose we must go
reconnoitering around the country jest to keep 'em from getting too
close, or to develop 'em, or something."

"Huh!" said the loud soldier.

"Well," cried the youth, still fidgeting, "I'd rather do anything 'most
than go tramping 'round the country all day doing no good to nobody and
jest tiring ourselves out."

"So would I," said the loud soldier. "It ain't right. I tell you if
anybody with any sense was a-runnin' this army it--"

"Oh, shut up!" roared the tall private. "You little fool. You little
damn' cuss. You ain't had that there coat and them pants on for six
months, and yet you talk as if--"

"Well, I wanta do some fighting anyway," interrupted the other. "I
didn't come here to walk. I could 'ave walked to home--'round an'
'round the barn, if I jest wanted to walk."

The tall one, red-faced, swallowed another sandwich as if taking poison
in despair.

But gradually, as he chewed, his face became again quiet and contented.
He could not rage in fierce argument in the presence of such
sandwiches. During his meals he always wore an air of blissful
contemplation of the food he had swallowed. His spirit seemed then to
be communing with the viands.

He accepted new environment and circumstance with great coolness,
eating from his haversack at every opportunity. On the march he went
along with the stride of a hunter, objecting to neither gait nor
distance. And he had not raised his voice when he had been ordered
away from