d dippered out a pint of clear,
mountain water.

"Got mail fer you," Cletus said, waving an envelope. "Guvermint mail.
Fer Sonny."

Two weeks later, Jediah swung down the mountain to Owl Creek, carrying
a small sack with his good clothes and shoes in it. The draft notice
was stuffed into his overall pockets along with biscuits and meat Ma
had insisted he take.

"Go along now, Sonny," she had directed him, "and don't you fret none
about me. The corn's 'most ready. You got a good supply of firewood
in, more'n enought to last me all winter. If your guvermint need us
Cromwells to fight, then I reckon its our bounden duty. Your grandsire
and greatgrandsire both wuz soldiers and if'n your Pa hadn't gone and
gotten his leg busted and twisted afore the guvermint called him I
reckon he'd have been one, too. I've learned you all I can and you can
read 'n write 'n do sums. Just mind your manners and come on home when
they don't need you no more."

In Owl Creek the first real part of the excitement hit Jed. He had
been as far as Paulsburg, twenty miles farther and that was almost as
big as the county seat at Madison. Now he was going to go even beyond
Madison--right to the city. And then maybe the Army would send him
more places.

The Army did.

Everything had been wonderful, almost overwhelming, from the moment he
boarded a bus for the first time in his life until he arrived at Fort
McGruder. He could hardly believe the wealth of the government in
issuing him so many clothes and giving him so much personal gear. And
while the food wasn't what Ma would have cooked, there was lots of it.
He liked the other recruits who had ridden down to McGruder with him,
even though a couple of the city fellows had been kind of teasing.

He liked the barracks although his bunk mattress wasn't as soft as
Ma's eiderdown comforts. He liked everything--until the sergeant had
cussed at him this afternoon.

Now Jed lay on his bunk and counted the springs on the upper bunk
occupied by Private Harry Fisher. It was close to eight o'clock and
the barracks were full of scores of young soldiers. A crap game was
going on three bunks away and across the aisle; another country boy
was picking at a guitar. The bunk above sagged with the weight of
Harry Fisher, who was reading a book.

Jed's mind kept coming back to the cussin' out he had gotten, just for
not knowing the Army insisted on a body wearing shoes no matter what
he was doing. Jed had never