And Nick laughed gently daily
That he alone had guessed
The mystery of the elder Funk
That had puzzled all the rest.
And younger Nick thought gently:
"Since that chap asked for Funk
There's been commotion in this town,
And daddy's always drunk."
VI.
But once the ring of rapid hoofs
Came sudden in the night,
And on the Blue Ridge summits flashed
The camp-fire's baleful light.
Young Nick was in the saddle,
With half the valley men,
To find that old man's fighting sons
Who kept the ferry glen.
And like the golden ore that grew
To his divining rod,
The shining, armed soldiery
Swarmed o'er the clover sod;
O'er Crampton's gap the columns fought,
And by Antietam fords,
Till all the world, Nick Hammer thought,
At Funkstown had drawn swords.
VII.
Together, as in quiet days
Before the battle's roar,
Nick Hammer and his one-legg'd son
Smoked by the tavern door.
The dead who slept on Sharpsburg Heights
Were not more still than they;
They leaned together like the hills,
But nothing had to say;
Save once, as at his wooden stump
The young man looked awhile,
And damned the man who made that war—
He saw Nick Hammer smile.
"My little boy," the old man said,
"Think long as I have thunk—
You'll find this war rests on the head
Of that 'air Mister Funk!"