An army of rebels is approaching our border … I now appeal to all the citizens of Pennsylvania, who love liberty and are mindful of the history and traditions of their revolutionary fathers, and who feel that it is a sacred duty to guard and maintain the free institutions of our country, who hate treason and its abettors, and who are willing to defend their homes and their firesides, and do invoke them to rise in their might and rush to the rescue in this hour of imminent peril. The issue is one of preservation or destruction.

“That officer, he says Abe Lincoln’s called for a hundred thousand men.”

“What I want to know is, what’s the army doing? Whynt they chase them rebels and give ’em a trimming? Whynt—”

“But Ezra says they got to go for six months already. They won’t take ’em by the army less nor that; six months is all.”

“—Got harvest ahead, and the hay ain’t in. And maybe he gets killed yet.”

The old sage with the yellow whiskers nodded his head. He was a creaking, rheumy-eyed man with a bad breath; his name was Truckenmiller, and neighbors were fond of telling how he had worn out three wives. All of his sons had run away as soon as they were grown, but now he was too old to harm anyone … He said, “Blinder Eifer schadet nur.” But no one was paying much attention to him. He sagged on the broken bench in front of the store, making little dents in the dust with the tip of his cane.

Then he looked up again and poked his cane at Dan. “Maybe you go,” he said. “A strong young man to make war, ja? Das Alter wägt, die Jugend wagt.”

The scattering conversations stopped, dead. People behind Dan turned to stare at him, and those in front of him were studious in their close scrutiny of the proclamation … Bale thought of telling the moth-eaten tyrant that youth had more reason for careful consideration than age. But it would do no good. These people had made up their minds concerning him; perhaps there were those who envied him his solitary courage, but he rather doubted it. He moved silently through the group and walked around the corner into Chambersburg street … Far to the north, on the campus, there was a burst of cheering. The drum corps skirled up: Zu Lauterbach hab ich mein Strumpf ver-lor’n in a grandiose and gaudy spasm. Dan wondered if Demon was there, playing. And then the woman came into his mind and stayed until he went home and fell upon his bed.