now! Let them go!"

The singing ceased. The child in the next room had not stirred. The
dumfounded husband sat motionless under pretence of listening. His wife
made a despairing gesture. He motioned to hearken a moment more; but no
human sound sent a faintest ripple across the breathless air; the earth
was as silent as the stars. Still he waited--in vain--they were gone.

The soldier and his wife lay down once more without a word. There was no
more need of argument than of accusation. For in those few moments the
weight of his calamities had broken through into the under quicksands of
his character and revealed them to himself.

VIII.

SEVEN YEARS OF SUNSHINE

Poets and painters make darkness stand for oblivion. But for evil things
or sad there is no oblivion like sunshine.

The next day was hot, blue, and fragrant. John rose so late that he had
to sit up in front of his breakfast alone. He asked the maid near by if
she thought his father would be home soon. She "reckoned so."

"I wish he would be home in a hour," he mused, aloud. "I wish he would
be on the mountain road right now."

When he stepped down and started away she crouched before him.

"Whah you bound fuh, ole gen'leman, lookin' so sawt o' funny-sad?"

"I dunno."

"W'at you gwine do, boss?"

"I dunno."

"Well, cayn't you kiss me, Mist' I-dunno?"

He paid the toll and passed out to his play. With an old bayonet fixed
on a stick he fell to killing Yankees--colored troops. Pressing them
into the woods he charged, yelling, and came out upon the mountain road
that led far down to the pike. Here a new impulse took him and he moved
down this road to form a junction with his father. For some time the way
was comparatively level. By and by he came to heavier timber and deeper
and steeper descents. He went ever more and more loiteringly, for his
father did not appear. He thought of turning back, yet his longing
carried him forward. He was tired, but his mother did not like him to
walk long distances when he was tired, so it wouldn't be right to turn
back. He decided to wait for his father and ride home.

Meantime he would go to the next turn in the road and look. He looked in
vain. And so at the next--the next--the next. He went slowly, for his
feet were growing tender. Sometimes he almost caught a butterfly.
Sometimes he slew more Yankees. Always he talked to himself with a soft
bumbling like a bee's.

But at last he ceased even this and sa