The ring of war had spread northeast across the valley beyond the railroad ditch; now the battle was a milling crescent from the Fairfield road to the alms-house. At noon the village had been possessed by new Federal troops who roared up the Emmetsburg road. They brought with them a fresh and enormous dust cloud to settle over the village, making it unreal and misty. Within ten minutes you could watch them edging out from the northern limits of the town, wary little tides of dark figures overspreading the fields. They stopped, thinning, dammed by an unseen obstacle which shunted their bulk toward the west. Miniature horses dragged the many-wheeled batteries into position and let them begin to pound.

Dan stood for a moment on the front porch. He had a pipe in his hand … what was he going to do with it … he looked at the fields across the Mummasburg road, and tried to think of water-fowl on a prairie slough. Smoke drifted in soapy puffs from the woods in front of the McClean farm, and beyond the college buildings endless torrents of men disintegrated among the gleaming planes of wheat. Field by field, the ripe crops went out of existence. An hour, two hours before they had been happy lakes of tan; then they were trodden flat, and lost their color forever. Out of the farms to the north came moaning billows of dust, turreted with more of the rosy flags. A fuzz of smoke cooked between the two armies, and the wheat broke down and was forgotten.

Well, he thought, I must keep alive. No matter what they do to this country and to each other, I have my right to continue. Feed, stuff my body, put into it the breads and the meat and the lumps of butter, the pitchers of milk … no, there is no milk, The Germels’ elves did not come last night; steel hoofs walked their farm.

Only when he opened the buttery door and smelled an air of cheese, only then did he feel the nausea of a man unused to wading through such puddles on his floor. He closed the door and went out into the yard. The high sun roared at him; the whole round horizon bulged up and down, pimpled with noise. Didn’t know you bothered carrying off the dead ones, said a voice. Then he was inside the water-closet: Mrs. Knouse must not see him, sick. In all the horrid sweat which drenched him, he knew that he was incapable still of retching in his own dooryard—the war had not beaten him yet.

He strangled for a long time, leaning forward with the top of his head against the rear wall, but no relief came. He went out to the pump and splashed his face with water and lay down, clutching the grass in his fists, holding tight to the terrible earth.