He wrote every fortnight, as regularly as possible. My Dear Parents & Wife, Thank you for your missives which were rec’d. in due time. Pleased to learn that all continues favorably at home. With the army, matters are much as before. We moved to this point on the 16th inst., the 72nd being detached from the Brigade for special guard duty at the bridgehead here. Have not been engaged with the enemy since I last wrote, though according to Dame Rumor we may expect action soon. Regret to say there was a double execution at this camp yesterday; two deserters; it being a matter of comment that the guilty parties were not reprieved by executive clemency. Without the strictest sort of discipline no army can—

“Did you find the silk handkerchiefs?”

“Yes.” He added a muffled, “Much obliged, I’m sure.”

His mother came lumbering from the kitchen—an unwieldy, round-nosed woman with eight silver ringlets, like flat coils of wire, pasted across her forehead. The polished parquet thundered as she moved; her bosom was a shaking bulwark of fichu and lace and old-gold chains.

She cried, “Honey boy, you never got those medicines!”

“Yes, I did. They’re already in here.”

She blocked the living-room doorway, a living pavilion of distended brown silk. “Did Gretel bring the grape conserve?” She screamed, “Gretel! Gret-ell. I told you to get a jar of grape—”

“For God’s sake,” said Tyler.

Irene said, “He didn’t care for it, mother. And the doctor said that he shouldn’t eat anything with nuts.”

Mrs. Fanning made a damp, grunting sound. “My baby boy,” she gasped. She kept striking at her mouth with a little wad of folded lace. “I’ve got a great notion to write to Colonel Baxter myself! I don’t know what he’s thinking of! You aren’t fit to stir foot out of this house—”

“I got my orders last night,” Tyler said. “Probably I’m as well off down there as here. Maybe I’ll get killed and it’ll be a good riddance of bad rubbish.” He chuckled ghoulishly, and now there seemed to be a mounting color in his cheeks. He snapped the buckles close against leather straps, sawing with all his strength at the bulging russet.

His wife came slowly down the stairs. “Demon’s ready. I hear the wheels.”

“Call father,” quavered Mrs. Fanning. “Oh, call f-f-father—”

Irene went into the library. Mr. Fanning was behind his desk, his carpet-slippered feet neatly paired on a green footstool, and a Philadelphia Press open in his hands. He wore a yellow linen coat and a white waistcoat, dusty with cigar ashes. His head was quite bald, but the gray mutton-chop whiskers along his cheeks were curly and luxuriant. He put down the paper and removed his spectacles.

“They are ready?”

She nodded. “Demon’s out in the carnage.”