Dan's whistle stopped abruptly.

"On a dish of fried chicken and a pot of coffee," he replied at once.

"What's become of the waffles?" demanded Jack indignantly. "I say, old man,
do you remember the sinful waste on those blessed Christmas Eves at
Chericoke? I've been trying to count the different kinds of meat--roast
beef, roast pig, roast goose, roast turkey--"

"Hold your tongue, won't you?"

"Well, I was just thinking that if I ever reach home alive I'll deliver the
Major a lecture on his extravagance."

"It isn't the Major; it's grandma," groaned Dan.

"Oh, that queen among women!" exclaimed Jack fervently; "but the wines are
the Major's, I reckon,--it seems to me I recall some port of which he was
vastly proud."

Dan delivered a blow that sent Jack on his knees in the stubble of an old
corn field.

"If you want to make me eat you, you're going straight about it," he
declared.

"Look out!" cried Jack, struggling to his feet, "there's a light over there
among the trees," and they walked on briskly up a narrow country lane which
led, after several turnings, to a large frame house well hidden from the
road.

In the doorway a woman was standing, with a lamp held above her head, and
when she saw them she gave a little breathless call.

"Is that you, Jim?"

Dan went up the steps and stood, cap in hand, before her. The lamplight was
full upon his ragged clothes and upon his pallid face with its strong
high-bred lines of mouth and chin.

"I thought you were my husband," said the woman, blushing at her mistake.
"If you want food you are welcome to the little that I have--it is very
little." She led the way into the house, and motioned, with a pitiable
gesture, to a table that was spread in the centre of the sitting room.

"Will you sit down?" she asked, and at the words, a child in the corner of
the room set up a frightened cry.

"It's my supper--I want my supper," wailed the child.

"Hush, dear," said the woman, "they are our soldiers."

"Our soldiers," repeated the child, staring, with its thumb in its mouth
and the tear-drops on its cheeks.

For an instant Dan looked at them as they stood there, the woman holding
the child in her arms, and biting her thin lips from which hunger had
drained all the red. There was scant food on the table, and as his gaze
went back to it, it seemed to him that, for the first time, he grasped the
full meaning of a war for the people of the soil. This was the real
th