large beams.

On the right, at back, a door opens into the shed from the house
kitchen. Opposite it, a door leads from the shed into the barn.
In the foreground, against the right wall, is a work-bench. On
this are tools, a long, narrow, wooden box, and a small
oil-stove, with steaming kettle upon it.

Against the left wall, what remains of the year's wood supply is
stacked, the uneven ridges sloping to a jumble of stovewood and
kindlings mixed with small chips of the floor, which is piled
deep with mounds of crumbling bark, chips and wood-dust.

Not far from this mounded pile, at right centre of the scene,
stands a wooden armchair, in which LINK TADBOURNE, in his
shirt-sleeves, sits drowsing. Silhouetted by the sunlight beyond,
his sharp-drawn profile is that of an old man, with white hair
cropped close, and gray moustache of a faded black hue at the
outer edges. Between his knees is a stout thong of wood, whittled
round by the drawshave which his sleeping hand still holds in his
lap. Against the side of his chair rests a thick wooden yoke and
collar. Near him is a chopping-block.

In the woodshed there is no sound or motion except the hum and
floating steam from the tea-kettle. Presently the old man murmurs
in his sleep, clenching his hand. Slowly the hand relaxes again.

From the door, right, comes POLLY--a sweet-faced girl of
seventeen, quietly mature for her age. She is dressed simply. In
one hand she carries a man's wide-brimmed felt hat, over the
other arm a blue coat. These she brings toward LINK. Seeing him
asleep, she begins to tiptoe, lays the coat and hat on the
chopping-block, goes to the bench, and trims the wick of the
oil-stove, under the kettle. Then she returns and stands near
LINK, surveying the shed.

On closer scrutiny, the jumbled woodpile has evidently a certain
order in its chaos; some of the splittings have been piled in
irregular ridges; in places, the deep layer of wood-dust and
chips has been scooped, and the little mounds slope and rise like
miniature valleys and hills. [2]

Taking up a hoe, POLLY--with careful steps--moves among the
hollows, placing and arranging sticks of kindling, scraping and
smoothing the little mounds with the hoe. As she does so, from
far away, a bugle sounds.

[Footnote 1: Copyright, 1912, by Percy Mackaye. All rights
reserved.]

[Footnote 2: A suggestion for the appropriate arrangement of
these mounds may be found in the map of the battle-field annexe