and here it is black, and here it is yellow as gold. They
melted rubber car-springs in naphtha and varnished it with that, and
they're going to fill it with city gas at the gas works--"

The bubbles floated in the clear air, above and beyond the zone of
smoke. It was now between four and five in the afternoon. The slant rays
of the sun struck them and turned them mother-of-pearl. An old man
lifted a dry, thin voice like a grasshopper's. "Once I went to Niagara,
and there was a balloon ascension. Everybody held their breath when the
fellow went up, and he got into some trouble, I don't remember just what
it was, and we almost died of anxiety until he came down; and when he
landed we almost cried we were so glad, and we patted him on the back
and hurrahed--and he was a Yankee, too! And now it's war time, and
there's nothing I 'd like better than to empty a revolver into that fine
windbag!"

The sound in the air became heavier. A man on horseback spurred along
the base of the hill. The people nearest stopped him. "Tell you? I
can't tell you! Nobody ever knows anything about a battle till it's
over, and not much then. Is Jackson over there? I don't know. He ought
to be, so I reckon he is! If he isn't, it's A. P. Hill's battle, all
alone."

He was gone. "I don't believe it's much more than long-range firing
yet," said the soldier. "Our batteries on the Chickahominy--and they are
answering from somewhere beyond Beaver Dam Creek. No musketry. Hello!
The tune's changing!"

It changed with such violence that after a moment's exclamation the
people sat or stood in silence, pale and awed. Speculation ceased. The
plunging torrent of sound whelmed the mind and stilled the tongue. The
soldier held out a moment. "Close range now. The North's always going to
beat us when it comes to metal soldiers. I wonder how many they've got
over there, anyhow!" Then he, too, fell silent.

The deep and heavy booming shook air and earth. It came no longer in
distinct shocks but with a continuous roar. The smoke screen grew denser
and taller, mounting toward the balloons. There was no seeing for that
curtain; it could only be noted that bodies of grey troops moved toward
it, went behind it. A thin, elderly man, a school-teacher, borrowed the
glass, fixed it, but could see nothing. He gave it back with a shake of
the head, sat down again on the parched grass, and veiled his eyes with
his hand. "'Hell is murky,'" he said.

No lull occurred in th