nchest troops blanched a little, jerked the head sidewise as the
shells burst and showered ruin. There came into Allan's mind a picture
in the old geography,--rocks thrown up by Vesuvius. He thought he was
speaking to the geography class. "I'll show you how they look. I was
lying, you see, at the edge of the crater, and they were all overhead."
The picture passed away, and he began to think that the minies'
unearthly shriek was much like the winter wind round Thunder Run
Mountain--Sairy and Tom--Was Sairy baking gingerbread?--Of course not;
they didn't have gingerbread now. Besides, you didn't want gingerbread
when you were thirsty.... _Oh, water, water, water, water!..._ Tom might
be taking the toll--if there was anybody to pay it, and if they kept the
roads up. Roses in bloom, and the bees in them and over the pansies....
The wrens sang, and Christianna came down the road. Roses and pansies,
with their funny little faces, and Sairy's blue gingham apron and the
blue sky. The water-bucket on the porch, with the gourd. He began to
mutter a little. "Time to take in, children--didn't you hear the bell? I
rang it loudly. I am ringing it now. Listen! Loud, loud--like church
bells--and cannons. The old lesson.... Curtius and the gulf."

In the next onrush a man stumbled and came to his knees beside him. Not
badly hurt, he was about to rise. Allan caught his arm. "For God's
sake--if you've got any water--" The man, a tall Alabamian, looked down,
nodded, jerked loose another U. S. canteen, and dropped it into the
other's hand. "All right, all right--not at all--not at all--" He ran
on, joining the hoar and shouting wave. Allan, the flask set to his
lips, found not water, but a little cold and weak coffee. It was
nectar--it was happiness--it was life--though he could have drunk ten
times the amount!

The cool draught and the strength that was in it revived him, drew his
wandering mind back from Thunder Run to Gaines's Mill. Again he wished
to know where was the Army of the Valley. It might be over there, in the
smoke pall, turning Fitz John Porter's right ... but he did not believe
it. Brigade after brigade had swept past him, had been broken, had
reformed, had again swept by into the wood that was so thick with the
dead. A. P. Hill continued to hurl them in, standing, magnificent
fighter! his eyes on the dark and bristling stronghold. On the hill,
behind the climbing breastworks and the iron giants atop, Fitz John
Porter, good