On the rear porch someone was singing softly: oh, let not, my own love, the summer winds winging their sweet-laden zephyrs o’er land and o’er sea— When Dan came out the singer was gone, and he never knew who it was … the staff officer had been correct; the pump was useless. You’d work the handle endlessly and bring up only a few spasms of turbid water. Men had been drawing water from the well at Mrs. Knouse’s, despite her warning sign; there were trampled paths all through her flowers. Bale walked past the stable and looked across the field toward the Fanning house. Dun figures strolled in the yard—one soldier carried a pail into the garden and dumped something from it, then went back to the barn. A squad worked in the pasture, and at first Dan didn’t know what they were doing. They had a long row of colored wads on the ground and at the end of the row stood two soldiers with shovels. They’d roll one of the wads away from the rest, cover it with swift waves of loose dirt, and then roll another wad beside it and start digging again … wads, wads, he thought, blots of blue and tan on the landscape. My God—they give them short shrift, once they are dead.

The Confederate army had spread along the ridge: past Schmuckers’, past the Schultz house, far beyond McMillens’ and Blisses’, the farms were alive with a gray-black froth of men and teams. Bale looked toward Granite Ridge, and there existed some sort of germ-life as well, remote and dusty with the constant stirring of the Taneytown road, but still a life which gave off sound.

Irene and the Fannings would be sleeping late, or keeping well to their rooms. Dan wondered if the Union army were retreating—they’d had all night in which to retreat, and he had thought that the rebels would set out on their trail at the first crack of dawn. But in this stifling morning there seemed no hint of running away, or of pursuit. All around the valley rim strange picnics were taking place: the broken grain waited, splintered by the wheels of artillery which hunted along the slopes.

He turned. Mrs. Knouse’s little box-house, so still. It frightened him. The rebels had not taken possession of it … he didn’t know why, he wasn’t a soldier. He hated all armies. He climbed over the fence and walked around the Knouse place. The doors were locked, the windows shuttered. He rapped at the kitchen door, and cried the old woman’s name. Two officers came out on his porch and looked across curiously.

There was no inside cellar entrance, Bale remembered. He thudded his fist on the folded doors of the outer cellarway. She did not reply though he called and called.

“Who’s down there?” they asked, across the fence.