Old Mrs. Knouse trotted out, the fringe dripping from her shawl. Her bonnet jerked briefly at him. She clacked, “Goin’ to the drill?”

“The drill?” he echoed stupidly.

“I was pretty sure you wouldn’t be goin’ once to meetin’, Daniel.” She chuckled. The prim little gate banged behind her; she scooted away, east, along the path which led to the first board sidewalk, tucking up her skirts unnecessarily as she circled the shallow puddles left from yesterday’s rain. The pink sunset was kind to her knobby shoulders.

Dan waited indecisively, rapping his pipe against his palm. That was what it all meant, of course. It seemed as if he had heard military music in some hidden distance, for the past half hour. And an hour before some boys from the seminary had sauntered past, poking and threatening one another with guns. He had supposed that they were merely larking around.

“Elijah’s army,” he said, with ashamed malice. Hud had not mentioned the drill, since the discussion on Tuesday. Sometime we’ll have to argue this out—

He cried to himself, very suddenly, “Of course I’ll have to go! He’s expecting me to see him. The poor devil—truss and all—he’s proud, he wants to march—”

He got his coat and hat. A coolness came down from western mountains as the sun oozed lower behind them. Mrs. Wurke had gone to church; the empty house breathed behind Dan as he went away toward the village, a house still smelling of elderly death, pained by it, and refusing all tranquillity.

The Knouse woman was a little goblin, far ahead. He walked slowly, not wishing to overtake her. Few people sat on the stoops and galleries along the way—none whom he recognized except Mr. and Mrs. Clinkhofer, sitting in fat, doughy silence as they had sat for all the evenings of his life. The martial music shrilled up again, far ahead. A fife, maybe two, playing O, My Love She’s But a Lassie Yet. The boards were hollow and thudding under his feet; you could still smell a misty penetration of the rain which had come on Wednesday.