st of them may have roamed just where this orchard stands. And
later on lots of the great Americans rode about these parts, some of the
younger ones carrying their beautiful ladies on pillions behind them.
You are a cold-blooded New Englander, Warner, and you believe that anyone
fighting against you ought to burn forever, but as for me I feel sorry
for Virginia. I don't care what she's done, but I don't like to see the
Old Dominion, the Mother of Presidents, stamped flat."

"I'm not cold-blooded at all, but I don't gush. I don't forget that this
state produced George Washington, but I want victory for our side just
the same, no matter how much of Virginia we may have to tread down.
Is that farm house over there still empty?"

"Of course, or we wouldn't have taken the apples. It belongs to a man
named Haynes, and he left ahead of us with his family for Richmond.
I fancy it will be a long time before Haynes and his people sleep in
their own rooms again. Come, fellows, we'd better be going back.
Colonel Winchester is kind to us, but he doesn't want his officers to
be prowling about as they please too long."

They walked together toward the edge of the orchard and looked at the
farm house, from the chimneys of which no smoke had risen in weeks.
Dick felt sure it would be used later on as headquarters by some general
and his staff, but for the present it was left alone. And being within
the Union lines no plunderer had dared to touch it.

It was a two-story wooden house, painted white, with green shutters,
all closed now. The doors were also locked and sealed until such time
as the army authorities wished to open them, but on the portico, facing
the Southern lines were two benches, on which the three youths sat, and
looked again over the great expanse of rolling country, dotted at
intervals by puffs of smoke from the long lines of trenches. Where they
sat it was so still that they could hear the faint crackle of the distant
rifles, and now and then the heavier crash of a cannon.

Dick's mind went back to the Wilderness and its gloomy shades, the
sanguinary field of Spottsylvania, and then the terrific mistake of
Cold Harbor. The genius of Lee had never burned more brightly. He had
handled his diminishing forces with all his old skill and resolution,
but Grant had driven on and on. No matter what his losses the North
always filled up his ranks again, and poured forward munitions and
supplies in a vast and unbro