“This isn’t like The War we fought, a decent war of man against man on the earth God gave them to fight over. This war—it’s like nothing that ever was before in civilized times—robbing and burning towns by the hundred, shooting down unarmed people in gangs, killing men with poisonous gases like you would so many rats, sinking ships without giving folks a chance for their lives, dropping bombs from airships on homes and schools and hospitals.
“It makes our hearts sick for people to suffer such things; and it makes our blood boil for people to do them. So we’ve talked it over together, we old Confeds, and we’re all of one mind. We want to help the women and children and the pieces of men left by this hellish fighting. So here is the money, please, ma’am�—he held out a purse to Mrs. Wilson—“that you-all so generously raised to send us to the Reunion. We bring it to you as our contribution to the Red Cross.�
“Oh!� cried Patsy, “but you mustn’t miss it, the grandest of all Reunions. You must go.�
He shook his head.
“This is what Marse Robert would do, if he was here to-day,� he said simply, looking up now in his old age, as to a beacon, to the hero he had adoringly followed in youth.
Mrs. Wilson controlled her voice and spoke: “We accept your offering; don’t we?� She turned to her companions, and every head was bowed. “We accept it in the noble spirit in which it is given, a spirit worthy of your peerless leader. And we thank you from our hearts, in the name of suffering humanity, to whose service it is consecrated.�
“But for you to give up the Reunion, the Reunion that you’ve looked forward to!� mourned Miss Fanny.
The old men glanced at one another with a sort of shy glee. Then Captain Anderson said: “That isn’t all. We are going to volunteer! They’re going to have that draft and raise soldiers. Folks said at first they’d just need American dollars and food and steel; but they’re calling for soldiers now. And I tell you they’ll need American valor. As long as war is war, they’ll want men. The young soldiers, the drafted boys, will do their best. But we—well, we are going to write to the President and tell him we are ready to go, and we seasoned old soldiers will show those youngsters what fighting is!�
While the old heroes were making their offering, Dick Osborne was creeping along the edge of a field near The Village, carrying in his arms something bundled up in a newspaper. He scrambled through the churchyard hedge and crept into the woodshed at the back of the church. Now that its winter uses were over, no one else gave the shed a look or a thought, and Dick had hidden here his mining tools and a bundle with something white in it.
His garden task was off his hands at last, and he had planned to spend to-day at the old mine; but Patsy had watched him keenly all the morning, and this afternoon David and Steve were at work in a cornfield near the road. Usually it would be easy enough to elude them, but not to-day, burdened with the tools he had to carry. And anyway, he had devised a plan to lend interest and excitement to the long, weary way to the mine. In order to carry out his plan and avoid embarrassing questions, he had obtained permission to spend the night with his cousin at the mill.