of Lettie. How I
disliked her, and wished she would keep out of my way, which she never
would do. Her face was clear to me, there in the dark. It grew
malicious; then it hardened into wickedness, and I slipped from watching
into a drowsy, half-waking sleep in my chair. The red bar of light
became the flame of cannon on a battlefield, I saw our men in a
life-and-death struggle with the enemy on a rough, wild mountainside.
Everywhere my father was leading them on, and by his side Irving Whately
bore the Springvale flag aloft. And then beside me lay the color-bearer
with white, agonized face, pleading with me. His words were ringing in
my ears, "Take care of Marjie, Phil; keep her from harm."

I woke with a start, stiff and shivering. With one half-dazed glance at
the black night and that sullen tell-tale light below me, I groped my
way to my bed and slept then the dreamless sleep of vigorous youth.

The rain continued for many hours. Yeager and his company could not get
away from town on account of the booming Neosho. Also several other
strange men seemed to have rained down from nobody asked where, and
while the surface of affairs was smooth there was a troubled
undercurrent. Nobody seemed to know just what to expect, yet a sense of
calamity pervaded the air. Meanwhile the rain poured down in
intermittent torrents. On the second evening of this miserable gloom I
strolled down to the tavern stables to find O'mie. Bud and John Anderson
and both the Mead boys were there, sprawled out on the hay. O'mie sat on
a keg in the wagon way, and they were all discussing affairs of State
like sages. I joined in and we fought the Civil War to a finish in half
an hour. In all the "solid North" there was no more loyal company on
that May night than that group of brawny young fellows full of the fire
of patriotism, who swore anew their eternal allegiance to the Union.

"It's a crime and a disgrace," declared Dave Mead, "that because we're
only boys we can't go to the War, and every one of us, except O'mie
here, muscled like oxen; while older, weaker men are being shot down at
Chancellorsville or staggering away from Bull Run."

"O'mie 'thgot the thtuff in him though. I'd back him againth David and
Goliath," Bud Anderson insisted.

"Yes, or Sodom and Gomorrah, or some other Bible characters," observed
Bill Mead. "You'd better join the Methodist Church South, Bud, and let
old Dodd labor with you."

Then O'mie spoke gravely:

"Boys,