bellion's over and Jack Ketch's waiting for
you--waiting for every last dirty ragamuffin and slave-driver that calls
himself general or president, and for the rest of you, too! Pity you
didn't have just one neck so's he could do the whole damn thirteen
millions of you at once!--Jeff Davis and Lee and Johnston were hanged at
noon. This very moment Little Mac's in Richmond, marching down whatever
your damned Pennsylvania Avenue's called--"

A negro body servant marching in the rear of one of the contemptuous
companies broke ranks and rushed over to the reviling soldier. "You damn
po' white trash, shet yo' mouf or I'll mek you! Callin' Main Street
'Pennsylvania Avenue,' and talkin' 'bout hangin' gent'men what you ain't
got 'bility in you ter mek angry enuff ter swear at you! 'N Richmon'
fallen! Richmon' ain' half as much fallen as you is! Richmon' ain' never
gwine ter fall. I done wait on Marse Robert Lee once't at Shirley, an he
ain't er gwine ter let it! '_Pennsylvania_ Avenue!'"

Half a mile from Middletown they came up with a forlorn little company.
On a high bank above the road, huddled beneath three cedars, appeared
the theatrical troupe which had amused General Banks's army in
Strasburg. Men and women there were, a dozen actors, and they had with
them a cart bearing their canvas booth and the poor finery of their
wardrobe. One of the women nursed a baby; they all looked down like
wraiths upon the passing soldiers.

Firing broke out ahead. "Newtown," said the men beside Steve. "I've got
friends there. Told 'em when we came up the Valley after Kernstown we'd
come down again! 'N here we are, bigger 'n life and twice as natural!
That's Rockbridge making that awful noise. Must be a Yankee
battery--There it opens! Oh, we're going to have a chance, too!"

They were moving at double-quick. Steve simulated a stumble, caught
himself, groaned and fell out of line. The wall to the left blazed. He
uttered a yell and sprang back. "That's right!" said the man. "It's
taken most a year to learn it, but you feel a whole heap safer in line
than out of it when firing's going on. That's a nice little--what d'ye
call it?--they've planted there--"

"Avalanche," panted Steve. "O Gawd!" A minie ball had pierced the
other's brain. He fell without a sound, and Steve went on.

The troops entered the hamlet at a run, passing two of the Rockbridge
guns planted on a hillock and hurling shell against a Federal battery at
the far end of the s