Zelph nodded. “I was lissenin’ yesdy,” he told Nason frankly. “I was lissenin’ outside the winder when you was in the house talkin’. I wouldn’t choose to be mistooken for a Englishman, Cap’n Nason, nor for a Tory, on account of how they’re hated around here.” To my father he added, “I wouldn’t be no good around here no more, Cap’n Asa, not till the war’s over, on account of never knowin’ when I might be mistooken for an Englishman. Meks my hand tremmle, jest thinkin’ ’bout it, Cap’n Asa, so’s I’d drop dishes—bus’ ’em all over the place! In the army, they won’t be no dishes to drop.”

My father and Nason eyed Zelph distrustfully; but it was Nason’s wife, Phoebe, who settled the matter. She had come back to walk with her husband, and now she nudged him warningly. “Steven, don’t fly in the face of Providence! This boy knows how to make rabbit stew and fish chowder! There’ll be times when a good fish chowder’ll be more help to you than all the powder and generals and sharpshooters in the world.” She laughed and added, “When anybody thinks war consists of a lot of nice walks, it’s high time he completed his education.”

Nason nodded grimly; so Zelph, grinning happily at the vacation in store for him, slapped Bessie on the rump with the ends of the reins and clumped past our little column to escape the crowd of townsfolk who stood at the Wells crossroads, watching our approach.

In spite of the poverty of the town and its people, the place had a gala air, for two red blankets hung from upstairs windows of Littlefield’s Ordinary; and farmers, flushed and noisy with rum, stood in the doorway, shouting encouragements at the militia company drawn up across the road.

Some of the militiamen wore no shoes; but they might have looked worse; for all of them had muskets, and they wore red handkerchiefs around their necks to provide a flavor of uniformity. Also there was a man thumping on a drum, and a number of women and children and old men standing around with food on bark trays and in milk pails; and in front of the crowd was a barrel of beer on a wooden horse.

Sitting on the steps of the ordinary was Doc Means, fumbling helplessly with a number of clumsy parcels, each one thrust into the leg of a woolen stocking for protection. He was tucking the bundles into his brown smock, only to remove them and poke them in elsewhere, as if hopeful of so disposing them that they would interfere neither with his comfort nor his appearance. The odor of his asafoetida bag was powerful—so powerful that it rose piercingly above the scent of dust, crushed grass, unwashed bodies and stale beer.