"You can tell him all about it when you come home," she said.
"You can guard the place while we're gone, Grandfather," suggested little Caleb. "Perhaps the Confederates will come back."
"They wouldn't hurt nothing," answered the old man. "They was tired—tired—tired."
When the family drove away he sat on the porch. He waved his hand until he could see little Mary's fluttering handkerchief no more, then he fell asleep. As Henrietta said, he soon forgot. When he woke up a little later, he went down to the barn and patted Harry, then he went out to the mail-box to see whether by any chance he had missed a letter. He looked at the nasturtium bed, now aglow with yellow and orange and deep crimson blossoms, then he went back to the porch. He was lonely. He missed the sound of John's voice calling to the horses down in the south meadow or across the road in the wheat-field, he missed the chatter of the children, he missed even their mother's curt answers to his questions. For an instant he wondered where they had gone, then he sighed heavily as he remembered. Instead of sitting down again in his chair, he went into the house and upstairs. There he tiptoed warily up to the garret as if he were afraid that some one would follow him, and drew from a hiding-place which he fancied no one knew but himself an old coat, blue, with buttons of dull, tarnished brass. He thrust his arms into it, still whispering to himself, and smoothed it down. His fingers hesitated as they touched a jagged rent just in front of the shoulder.
"What— Oh, yes, I remember!"
Grandfather had never been quite so forgetful as this. On his way downstairs he took from its hook his old sword.
"Caleb says I must guard the house," he said smilingly.
When he reached the porch, he turned his chair so that it no longer faced toward Gettysburg, whither John and Henrietta and the children had gone, but toward the blue hills and Hagerstown. Once he picked up the sword and pointed with it, steadying it with both hands. "Through that gap they went," he said.
Then he dozed again. The old clock, which had stood on the kitchen mantelpiece since before he was born, struck ten, but he did not hear. Henrietta had told him where he could find some lunch, but he did not remember nor care. His dinner was set out beneath a white cloth on the kitchen table, but he had not curiosity enough to lift it and see what good things Henrietta had left for him. When he woke again, he began to sing in a shrill voice:—
"Away down South in Dixie,