em spread on boards in
the sun. Now and then she came from the kitchen to look at them, and
with a peach bough to drive the bees away. The close of summer found, as
ever, Thunder Run shrunken to something like old age; but even so his
murmur was always there like a wind in the trees. This morning there was
a fleet of clouds in the September sky. Their shadows drove across the
great landscape, the ridges and levels of the earth, out upon which
Thunder Run Mountain looked so steadily.

A woman, a neighbour living a mile beyond the schoolhouse, came by.
Sairy went over to the little picket fence and the two talked. "How is
she?"--"She's dead."--"Sho! You don't say so! Poor thing, poor thing! I
reckon I thought of her mor'n I slept last night.--'N the child?"

"Born dead."

Sairy struck her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "Sho! War killin'
'em even thar!"

The mountain woman spoke on in the slow mountain voice. "She had awful
dreams. Somebody was fool enough to tell her 'bout how dreadful thirsty
wounded folk get, lyin' thar all round the clock an' no one comin'! An'
some other fool read her out of an old newspaper 'bout Malvern Hill down
thar at Richmond. Mrs. Cole, she thought she was a soldier. An' when she
begun to suffer she thought she was wounded. She thought she was all
mangled and torn by a cannon ball. Yes'm, it was pitiful. An' she said
thar was a high hill. It was five miles high, she said. An' she said
thar was water at the top, which was foolish, but she couldn't help
that, an' God knows women go through enough to make them foolish! An'
she said thar was jest one path, an' thar was two children playing on
it, an' she couldn't make them understand. She begged us all night to
tell the children thar was a wounded soldier wantin' to get by. An' at
dawn she said the water was cold an' died."

The woman went on up Thunder Run Mountain. Sairy turned again the drying
apples, then brought her patching out upon the porch and sat down in a
low split-bottomed chair opposite Tom. The yellow cat at her feet
yawned, stretched, and went back to sleep. The china asters bloomed; the
sun drew out the odours of thyme and rue and tansy. Tom read a last
week's newspaper. _General Lee crosses the Potomac._

Christianna came down the road and unlatched the gate. "Come in, come
in, Christianna!" said Tom. "Come in and take a cheer! Letter came
yesterday--"

Christianna sat down on the edge of the porch, her back against