And then, the next year, Ed Matthews, who had been east to college, was drafted. And Doc Matthews called Will out of the field where he was cutting wheat with a cradle, and told him he would give him five hundred dollars to go in Ed’s place.

Will walked to the house, laid the sack of gold pieces in his mother’s lap and said, “I’m going, Mother. There’s the money to hire the work done.”

He left from the new Dubuque and Sioux City station two miles from his father’s place. Grandpa Deal was there, sick at heart, joking the boys. Grandma Deal, in her black cap tied under her wrinkled face, was there, scolding that Will was going, that the coach would be crowded,—scolding and sputtering in her little nagging way. Why didn’t they stand back? Why didn’t they go to-morrow? What made every one so noisy? Maggie O’Conner Mackenzie, in her white cap tied under her plump, placid face, was there. And Abbie Mackenzie, in a sprigged delaine over hoop skirts, and with a little pancake flowered hat tipped over her forehead, was there. Oh, God, stop the wind blowing by,—the wind that blows Time away. Stop the clock hands until I can think whether Will Deal ought to go to war.

And then, something happened. The train was ready to start. There were good-bys and noise and tears and confusion. Will Deal shook his father’s one hand, and kissed his mother’s little wrinkled cheeks and Regina and Louise,—and started to shake hands with Abbie Mackenzie, but suddenly kissed her instead. And if battles have been lost and kingdoms have fallen over less, who is there to blame Abbie Mackenzie, that her own little kingdom was in a state of revolution when she left the station and drove home in the lumber-wagon across the prairie and over the damp, dark river road?

In the fall of ’64, when she was seventeen, Abbie herself was teaching the home school,—in a new white schoolhouse with green blinds, but standing in the same spot where the hazel-brush grew in tangled masses down toward the river bank. There was only one big boy in school that autumn, a harmless unfortunate, whom Grandpa Deal termed a “three-quarters wit.” The others were “with Sherman.” And Sherman was before Atlanta.

Abbie’s thoughts seemed always with them, those boys in shabby blue: James and Dennie and all the old neighborhood schoolmates. Through the monotonously droning reading of the McGuffey readers, the ciphering and the cramped copybook work, she thought of them. “God bring them all safe home. Please bring them home, God, . . . James and Dennie and Will Deal.” There were other friends and schoolmates, but no one so big and fine and clean as Will Deal, and so understanding. Whenever she craved understanding, she always thought of Will Deal, who did not laugh at her fancies, but gave her sympathy instead.

Ed Matthews, who had paid his way out of the draft, came home that fall for a few days. Ed was going to be a doctor like his father. Several times he had stopped his horse at the schoolhouse door and, with the reins over his arm, talked to Abbie. She was a little proud of the attention. It was rather complimentary to be singled out from all the girls in the neighborhood for attention from Ed. She could not quite make up her mind whether she really liked Ed or not. Will Deal didn’t like him,—had never liked him. But Will was prejudiced. And it was nice to see a young man dress as Ed did. In his riding outfit he certainly looked tony. There were some rumors around about Ed,—something about his drinking at times, and riding at dusk down a by-road which decent people avoided,—but no one had verified them, so far as Abbie knew, and, anyway, people were probably jealous of him and his opportunities.