He dozed awhile. Disordered dreams trooped across his sweaty slumber, and all the time he was aware that more wagons went past the house than had gone past in many days, and off in the green distance the drums rattled and throbbed … He got up at noon, and bathed, and went down into the kitchen. The bread remaining in the house had dried out since Sunday; he should have brought more from the baker’s. But there were cheese and fresh milk and soda crackers, and he opened a jar of peaches. He ate, and washed two days’ accumulation of dirty dishes; all the time, the clock whispered gutturally at him. He thought: “That’s the clock. Same one. It was ticking Sunday night … beside this table I wrapped the bandage, here I put my arms around her. We went into the living room to the couch. So remarkably unreal and remote—an experience in the life of someone else.” He walked to the window and peered across at the Fannings’. House, barn and out-buildings baked in a mid-day glare; chickens wandered drearily about in the scratched blue shade. And Demon nowhere in sight; his mistress must have permitted him to go to the village with his drum. But surely he couldn’t go to war, if anything so idiotic occurred—

Dan took a bucket out to the well. Beyond the fringe of hollyhocks, past the faded palings of the yard fence, he could hear the jingle of Cybo’s bell. There was a growl, a scuffle; someone cried shoosh! Cybo sprang through a gap in the barrier and scuttled across the Bale yard.

Mrs. Knouse rose up out of larkspurs, her mouldy face shadowed by a sunbonnet. “That dumb critter,” she scolded, “he makes dirt in my lilies!”

Her chin was brown and dripping; she held a trowel in one gloved hand and a peach-basket in the other. “I will not leave my plants for them bad men to take,” she explained, fiercely. There was fresh earth pressed across the front of her gray calico apron. “Not these bulbs, you bet. I’ll put ’em down in the cellar where they can’t be stole.”

Dan heard himself asking, “You mean—the rebels? Why, that was just a raid. They went right back south. And Chambersburg wasn’t burned, they’ve learned: only a building or two. Just cavalry, according to word received downtown. It’s said that they headed back toward Hagerstown and—”

She shrieked, “If they come here, they’ll never find my tulpen! These are exquisite plants, Daniel, and if they come to Gettysburg they’ll never find ’em down in the cellar under my washtubs—”

He said, weakly, “I don’t think it’s that serious,” and went back into the house with his water pail.