ou,
grandfather? Does it make you happy? Why are you smiling? Look at me--I
understand; you want something. Shall I open the curtains? And raise the
window? Ah, you wish to hear. Hark! Horsemen are passing at a gallop.
What is it you wish--to see them? But they are gone, dear. If any of our
soldiers come, you shall see them. That makes you happy?--_that_ is what
you desire?--to see one of our own soldiers? If they pass, I shall go
out and bring one here to you--truly, I will." She paused, marveling at
the strange light that glimmered across the ravaged visage. Then she
blew out the dip and stole into the hall.

"Billy!" she called, hearing him fumbling at the front door.

"Oh, Celia! The cavalry trumpets! Do you hear? I'm going out. Perhaps
_he_ may pass the house."

"Wait for me," she said; "I am not dressed. Run to the cabin and wake
Moses, dear!"

She heard him open the door; the deadened thunder of the cannonade
filled the house for an instant, shut out by the closing door, only to
swell again to an immense unbroken volume of solemn harmony. The
bird-music had ceased; distant hilltops grew brighter.

Down in the village lights faded from window and cabin; a cavalryman,
signaling from the church tower, whirled his flaming torch aside and
picked up a signal flag. Suddenly the crash of a rifled cannon saluted
the rising sun; a shell soared skyward through the misty glory, towered,
curved, and fell, exploding among the cavalrymen, completely ruining the
breakfasts of chief-trumpeter O'Halloran and kettle-drummer Pillsbury.

For a moment a geyser of ashes, coffee, and bacon rained among the men.

"Hell!" said Pillsbury, furiously wiping his face with his dripping
sleeve and spitting out ashes.

"Young kettle-drums, he don't love his vittles," observed a trooper,
picking up the cap that had been jerked from his head by a whirring
fragment.

"Rich feedin' is the sp'ilin' o' this here hoss band," added the
farrier, stanching the flow of blood from his scalp; "quit quar'lin'
with your rations, kettle-drums!"

"Y'orter swaller them cinders," insisted another; "they don't cost
nothin'!"

The band, accustomed to chaffing, prepared to retire to the ambulance,
where heretofore their fate had always left them among luggage,
surgeons, and scared camp niggers during an engagement.

The Rhode Island battery, placed just north of the church, had opened;
the cavalry in the meadow could see them--see the whirl of smoke, t