rf off her shoulders to wear for a sash. Both the
brothers had liked her; but by this public act she made it plain which
of them was her choice.

Then the company had marched off to the camp on the Tennessee border,
where the new troops were drilling; and as they marched some watchers
wept and others cheered--but the cheering predominated, for it was to be
only a sort of picnic anyhow--so everybody agreed. As the orators--who
mainly stayed behind--had pointed out, the Northern people would not
fight. And even if they should fight could not one Southerner whip four
Yankees? Certainly he could; any fool knew that much. In a month or two
months, or at most three months, they would all be tramping home again,
covered with glory and the spoils of war, and then--this by common
report and understanding--Miss Sally May Ghoulson and Abner Tilghman
would be married, with a big church wedding.

The Yankees, however, unaccountably fought, and it was not a ninety-day
picnic after all. It was not any kind of a picnic. And when it was over,
after four years and a month, Miss Sally May Ghoulson and Abner Tilghman
did not marry. It was just before the battle of Chickamauga when the
other men in the company first noticed that the two Tilghmans had become
as strangers, and worse than strangers, to each other. They quit
speaking to each other then and there, and to any man's knowledge they
never spoke again. They served the war out, Abner rising just before
the end to a captaincy, Edward serving always as a private in the ranks.
In a dour, grim silence they took the fortunes of those last hard,
hopeless days and after the surrender down in Mississippi they came back
with the limping handful that was left of the company; and in age they
were all boys still--but in experience, men, and in suffering,
grandsires.

Two months after they got back Miss Sally May Ghoulson was married to
Edward, the younger brother. Within a year she died, and after a decent
period of mourning Edward married a second time--only to be widowed
again after many years. His second wife bore him children and they
died--all except one, a daughter, who grew up and married badly; and
after her mother's death she came back to live with her deaf father and
minister to him. As for Captain Abner Tilghman, he never married--never,
so far as the watching eyes of the town might tell, looked with favor
upon another woman. And he never spoke to his brother or to any of his
brothe