Nevertheless, Niede could not bring himself to drive the animals home when the rest of the neighbors did, on Monday. They appeared so confident that all danger was past. The rebels had gone clear to Harrisburg, men declared, and likely would capture Philadelphia too, and go back south by way of Washington. Some man came in from Taneytown on Sunday night, with a Baltimore newspaper. The Baltimore paper was certain that the enemy were cutting railroads for the sole purpose of leaving Baltimore and the capital defenseless when attacked from the north. Nein, men said, they will not come back here. They have taken everything along the main turnpikes, and when they go back to the south they will go by other roads. It is safe to bring the horses and cattle out of the woods.

Henry told them that he would wait. He gratified himself by imagining how silly his neighbors would look if the raiders returned on Monday night and found every stall and cow-shed crammed with occupants, ready for the taking. He was too smart for that, and anyway people said that gray riders had been seen on the Newville road again and again, and there were still people fleeing north from Frederick, and crying that more rebels came …

The sun had a confident, beaming promise on Tuesday morning. Looking at it as it crept above the pale yellow of the wheat, Niede was forced to admit that the war must be far away by now. His wheat was ready to cut, or would be in another day, and he would need his horses. You couldn’t go about harvest when you were spending half your time running back and forth to the woods. And he’d have to see about getting a man. He did have a cheap one—a boy, seventeen years old—who had been bound out by his grandfather. But the ungrateful lout ran away to the war, and hadn’t been heard from for six months. Men wanted a lot of wages … yes, and some of them even figured it in gold, and they ate as if food could be had for the asking. Times were bad, but he couldn’t get in his harvest alone. Amelia and the woman were no good in the field: Amelia acted sullen because her arms turned red, and her mother stood up for her … Uncle Otto couldn’t even milk. He was a no-good. But he would leave the woman some property when he died. It looked like he was going to live forever.