The woman went on up Thunder Run Mountain. Sairy turned again the drying apples, then brought her patching out upon the porch and sat down in a low split-bottomed chair opposite Tom. The yellow cat at her feet yawned, stretched, and went back to sleep. The china asters bloomed; the sun drew out the odours of thyme and rue and tansy. Tom read a last week's newspaper. General Lee crosses the Potomac.

Christianna came down the road and unlatched the gate. "Come in, come in, Christianna!" said Tom. "Come in and take a cheer! Letter came yesterday—"

Christianna sat down on the edge of the porch, her back against the pillar. She took off her sunbonnet. "Violetta learned to do a heap of things while I was down t' Richmond. I took a heap of them back, too, but somehow I've got more time than I used to have. Somehow I jest wander round—"

Tom took a tin box from beside the tobacco box. "'T would be awful if the letter didn't come once't every ten days or two weeks! Reckon I'd go plumb crazy, an' so would Sairy—"

Sairy turned the garment she was patching. "Sho! I wouldn't go crazy. What's the use when it's happening all the time? I ain't denying that most of the light would go out of things. Stop imaginin' an' read Christianna what he says about furin' parts."

"After Gaines's Mill it was twelve days," said Tom, "an' the twelfth day we didn't say a word, only Sairy read the Bible. An' now he's well and rejoined at Leesburg."

He cleared his throat. "Dear Aunt Sairy and Tom:—It's fine to get back to the Army! It's an Army that you can love. I do love it. But I love Thunder Run and the School House and Tom and Sairy Cole, too, and sometimes I miss them dreadfully! I rejoined at Leesburg. The 65th—I can't speak of the 65th—you know why. It breaks my heart. But it's reorganized. The boys were glad to see me, and I was glad to see them. Tell Christianna that Billy's all right. He's sergeant now, and he does fine. And Dave's all right, too, and the rest of the Thunder Run men. The War's done a heap for Mathew Coffin. It's made a real man of him. Tom, I wish you could have seen us fording the Potomac. It was like a picture book. All a pretty silver morning, with grey plovers wheeling overhead, and the Maryland shore green and sweet, and the water cool to your waist, and the men laughing and calling and singing 'Maryland, my Maryland!' Fitzhugh Lee was ahead with the cavalry. It was pretty to see the horses go over, and the blessed guns that we know and love, every iron man of them, and all the white covered wagons. Our division crossed last, Old Jack at the head. When we came up from the river into Maryland we turned toward Frederick. The country's much like our own and the people pleasant enough. You know we've got the Maryland Line, and a number besides. They're fine men, a little dashing, but mighty steady, too. They've expressed themselves straight along as positively certain that all Maryland would rise and join us. There's a line of the song, you know:—

"Huzzah! huzzah!
She breathes, she burns, she'll come, she'll come,
Maryland! my Maryland!"

"She hasn't come yet. The people evidently don't dislike us, and as a matter of course we aren't giving them any reason to. But their farms are all nice and green and well tilled, and we haven't seen a burned house or mill, and the children are going to school, and the stock is all sleek and well fed—and if they haven't seen they've heard of the desolation on our side of the river. They've got a pretty good idea of what War is and they're where more people would be if they had that idea beforehand. They are willing to keep out of it.—So they're respectful, and friendly, and they crowd around to try to get a glimpse of General Lee and General Jackson, but they don't volunteer—not in shoals as the Marylanders said they would! The Maryland Line looks disdain at them. Mathew Coffin is dreadfully fretted about the way we're dressed. He says that's the reason Maryland won't come. But the mess laughs at him. It says that if Virginia doesn't mind, Maryland needn't. I wish you could see us, Aunt Sairy. When I think of how I went away from you and Tom with that trunk full of lovely clean things!—Now we are gaunt and ragged and shoeless and dirty—" Tom stopped to wipe his spectacles.