Johnny! It would be a long time before I should
see it again,--five months were a long time; then there was the risk,
coming down in the freshets, and the words I'd said last night. I
thought, you see, if I should kiss it once,--I needn't wake her
up,--maybe I should go off feeling better. So I stood there looking: she
was lying so still, I couldn't see any more stir to her than if she had
her breath held in. I wish I had done it, Johnny,--I can't get over
wishing I'd done it, yet. But I was just too proud, and I turned round
and went out, and shut the door.

We were going to meet down at the post-office, the whole gang of us, and
I had quite a spell to walk. I was going in on Bob Stokes's team. I
remember how fast I walked with my hands in my pockets, looking along up
at the stars,--the sun was putting them out pretty fast,--and trying not
to think of Nancy. But I didn't think of anything else.

It was so early, that there wasn't many folks about to see us off; but
Bob Stokes's wife,--she lived nigh the office, just across the
road,--she was there to say good by, kissing of him, and crying on his
shoulder. I don't know what difference that should make with Bob Stokes,
but I snapped him up well, when he came along, and said good morning.

There were twenty-one of us just, on that gang, in on contract for Dove
and Beadle. Dove and Beadle did about the heaviest thing on woodland of
anybody, about that time. Good, steady men we were, most of us,--none of
your blundering Irish, that wouldn't know a maple from a hickory, with
their gin-bottles in their pockets,--but our solid, Down-East Yankee
heads, owning their farms all along the river, with schooling enough to
know what they were about 'lection day. You didn't catch any of _us_
voting your new-fangled tickets when we had meant to go up on Whig, for
want of knowing the difference, nor visa vussy. To say nothing of Bob
Stokes, and Holt, and me, and another fellow,--I forget his name,--being
members in good and reg'lar standing, and paying in our five dollars to
the parson every quarter, charitable.

Yes, though I say it that shouldn't say it, we were as fine a looking
gang as any in the county, starting off that morning in our red
uniform,--Nancy took a sight of pains with my shirt, sewing it up stout,
for fear it should bother me ripping, and I with nobody to take a
stitch for me all winter. The boys went off in good spirits, singing
till they were out of sight of town