g to breakfast in
Winchester, men! All the dear old cooks are getting ready for us--rolls
and waffles and broiled chicken and poached eggs and coffee--and all the
ladies in muslin and ribbons are putting flowers on the table and
saying, 'The Army of the Valley is coming home!'--Isn't that a Sunday
morning breakfast worth waiting for? The sooner we whip Banks the sooner
we'll be eating it."

"All right. All right," said the men. "We'll whip him all right."

"We're sure to whip him now we've got Steve back!"

"That's so. Where've you been anyway, Steve, and how many did you kill
on the road?"

"I killed three," said Steve. "General Ewell's over thar in the woods,
and he's going to advance 'longside of us, on the Front Royal road.
Rockbridge 'n the rest of the batteries are to hold the ridge up there,
no matter what happens! Banks ain't got but six thousand men, and it
ought ter be an easy job--"

"Good Lord! Steve's been absent at a council of war--talking familiarly
with generals! Always thought there must be more in him than appeared,
since there couldn't well be less--"

"Band's playing! 'The Girl I Left Behind Me'!"

"That's Winchester! Didn't we have a good time there 'fore and after
Bath and Romney? 'Most the nicest Valley town!--and we had to go away
and leave it blue as indigo--"

"I surely will be glad to see Miss Fanny again--"

"Company C over there's most crazy. It all lives there--"

"Three miles! That ain't much. I feel rested. There goes the 2d! Don't
it swing off long and steady? Lord, we've got the hang of it at last!"

"Will Cleave's got to be sergeant.--'N he's wild about a girl in
Winchester. Says his mother and sister are there, too, and he can't
sleep for thinking of the enemy all about them. Children sure do grow up
quick in war time!"

"A lot of things grow up quick--and a lot of things don't grow at all.
There goes the 4th--long and steady! Our turn next."

Steve again saw from afar the approach of the nightmare. It stood large
on the opposite bank of Abraham's Creek, and he must go to meet it. He
was wedged between comrades--Sergeant Coffin was looking straight at him
with his melancholy, bad-tempered eyes--he could not fall out, drop
behind! The backs of his hands began to grow cold and his unwashed
forehead was damp beneath matted, red-brown elf locks. From considerable
experience he knew that presently sick stomach would set in. When the
company splashed through Abraham's Creek