“Listen! Listen!” The sheriff shouldered forward. “Men! Neighbors! Old friends! For God’s sake, listen! You have no right to fight.”
“What?” The sheriff’s young brother, sturdy, handsome, suddenly ferocious, brought his face close to him. “No right to defend our country? Are you crazy, Jim?”
The patient man shook his head again. “It is against the rules of war.”
“Then curse the rules of war!” shouted the younger. “Are you a coward?”
The sheriff reached out and touched his brother’s arm. It was a secret, almost a timid, act. The brother threw off the appealing hand.
“Don’t touch me!” He spoke through set teeth. “If you are a coward and traitor, may you be damned through all eternity! Again! For the last time! Will you fight?”
The sheriff raised his hands, dumbly. The men went to their wagons and returned with arms.
New England’s Stone Wall
“To that stone wall yonder!” said one.
He pointed into a field with a rough stone wall dividing its center three or four hundred yards from the road. This man was an old hunter, and the others had followed him often. He took command now as a matter of course.