Already the listeners were seeking professional opinion. Men choked close behind the gig where a thin, brown-faced boy in a tight blue jacket was standing at ease, pancake cap over one ear and thumbs hooked inside his belt. A woman giggled: “They’re asking Milo Vandercook about it. He just got back on furlough yesterday.”

The boy was not yet sixteen. His voice was husky and unhardened. “Well,” he was saying, “tell you. It’s like this. That was all cavalry. See? ’Course I’m—” he strangled with his own importance—“I’m in the infantry But old Joe Hooker ain’t going to let Lee out-smart him. Bet your buttons he ain’t. Old Joe, he—”

“What’ll happen if Lee comes up acrost the Potomac, Milo?” somebody called.

The boy wrinkled his forehead, and grandly he sucked a wad of tobacco into his cheek before he replied: “By gravy, if he does, we’ll just lick the poop out of him!” The men grunted, laughing, poking one another. The few girls moved away hastily, sniffling as they fled from this delightful vileness.

Dan found Elijah on the edge of the crowd, craning his neck. “What is it?” Hud asked. He had a willow basket on one arm, but he still carried his musket.

Bale explained, “Endsor just drove into town with a paper. There was a big cavalry fight somewhere down south—Beverly Ford, I guess it was. Beverly Ford and Brandy Station.” He took the basket from Elijah. “Come on, Hud. We’d better get this over to Doc’s before it melts away. The ladies won’t relish it, melted too soft.” Elijah kept looking back, and Dan growled, “Oh, come on. That was away down in Virginia and it happened last Tuesday.”

“Well,” Elijah said, “I’m coming as fast as I can.” But several times he turned and gazed again at the black, jostling mob beside the gig. Then a few long strides brought him abreast of Dan Bale. “You can’t believe much of that nonsense in the papers,” he declared. “Probably that was just another skirmish. Every time they have a little skirmish, the newspapers talk like it was a battle that amounted to something.”

Book Two: Elijah’s Army

Book Two

ELIJAH’S ARMY

Chapter 1

1.

Ty was downstairs, packing his things. He had carried not an ounce of baggage when he came—nothing but sidearms and gloves. Now he was filling a knapsack which he had brought while on his previous furlough. His mother prepared a housewife kit for him; he would never use it, but if the sullen acquiescence with which he received the gift was of any satisfaction to her, she might feel that her solicitousness had been worth while.