Inside the pasture Elijah’s army was going up and down. Dan counted: thirty-four of them. Four squads of eight, with two shorter boys closing file in the rear. At one side, braced against his crutch, stood a sickly-looking man with one leg. That was Bart McKosh; he used to drive the butcher’s cart for Mr. Rosenvelt. He said, “Left oblique. March!” Dan nudged closer; a woman spoke to him. Her face—half hidden and it was growing dark … the Wade girl from Breckenridge street, the younger one. Her father had been an invalid for years, and her mother used to do all the mending for Pentland Bale and his grandson. She made Dan’s shirts, and Ginny helped with the seams. “Why, Gin,” he called, “I didn’t know you. You’re quite grown up!” She nodded amiably, and moved away through the crowd. Bart McKosh said: “By fours … huh.” His voice sounded thin and peevish, much as Tyler Fanning had sounded. He crutched slowly toward the middle of the field.

Dan could pick out Elijah. His height made that easy. He was in the front rank, looking straight ahead, and supremely conscious of the staring faces so close to him. The dusk came, thicker and thicker. None of the men wore a uniform. They were in their shirt sleeves; it must be hot work, drilling. Someone began to applaud: there was a loose patter of hands all along the fence. Bart’s voice squealed up again—dropped with a snarl. You couldn’t understand his words. He seemed to be saying quahaw! hoord—har! Clumsy feet came down, true and even on the turf.

The fifes and drums started a new tune. There were five musicians in a little knot in the center of the lawn, around whom the squads swung in their futile wheelings. Old man Holder was beating the bass, and one of the other drummers seemed to be a colored man; he had white hair. Dan squinted. It was Demon, Fannings’ Demon. The fifes larked higher; they sounded like birds. Dan felt his toe thudding mechanically against the damp earth.

He said to a man who leaned upon the fence beside him, “What’s that piece?”

“Garry Owen.” The man kept chewing calmly on a burnt match; he did not turn his head. There was a flash of silver from his open coat. Presently his eyes shot side-ways. “Oh,” he said. “It’s young Bale, ain’t it? Don’t you remember me? John Burns.”

They shook hands. Bale asked, “What’s the badge?”