“No, it’s trouble. More than anyone wants, I’m afraid.” He clenched his hands, wondering at the calmness with which she faced him. “Look here,” he said, again, “you’d better go inside.” The m’s were skating through the air, high above: invisible birds, they seemed. From a great distance came a hollow reverberation, and as if in delayed answer a ball of noisy smoke frayed up, north of the Schmucker house on the ridge. The woman did not move, though she clutched her pan of lettuce more tightly … Loo, men yelled, looroo aaray, incoherent howlings, and out of their jargon launched one shriek which shafted higher, higher, a sliver from all the agony ever born in the world. Dan’s hand clutched Irene Fanning’s elbow; he drew her along with him. “That scream,” she whispered, “oh, heaven, what—?” “Horse,” he said.

He helped her up on the stoop; Mr. Fanning opened the door for them. His face was drawn, pearl-colored. “I believe,” he said, “that we had better take refuge in the cellar. Gretel is already there.” He cried, “Mother! Mother, come down from upstairs—” and hurried lamely into the front hall. Irene put her pan on the kitchen table, and drew off her gardening-gloves. “Are you coming to the cellar with us?” she asked.

Dan shook his head. “You’d best take drinking water, and perhaps some food. If the shooting comes near, this kitchen will not be safe.”

“You speak as if you knew.”

“I do know,” he said. “There were hundreds killed in Minnesota during the uprising last year. I may not be in the army, but I know how bullets can go through plank doors.”

She made a grimace. “Will you reach me some candles? They’re up in the high cupboard.” The front stairway was shivering as Mrs. Fanning grunted her way down; window glass kept up a constant vibration under the impact of artillery. “They haven’t got many cannon,” Dan said. “Maybe it’s just as well for those of us who live here.”

“The rebels—perhaps they have more—”

He stood on the wide shelf and handed down the bundle of white candles, and a glutinous block of old-fashioned matches. “No,” she said, “not those. The parlor matches are right there in a box. Over farther. There.”

He pressed a sheaf of loose matches into her hand … fingers I have fondled, fingers which have caressed me … “Thank you, Mr. Bale.”

Fanning cried from the passageway, “Daughter. Where is Demon?”

“He’s out in the field,” Bale answered. “I’ll go fetch him.”

“Thank you,” Irene said, again. “I believe he is trying to drive Pansy and Pincus into the barn.”