"Nor in the least likely to be."
"We can't tell. It is good to be ready."
"But what do you mean?" I remember saying. "You speak as if we might be at war. Who is there for us to fight?"
"Anybody that wants putting in order," said Preston. "The Indians."
"O Preston, Preston!" I exclaimed. "The Indians! when we have been doing them wrong ever since the white men came here; and you want to do them more wrong!"
"I want to hinder them from doing us wrong. But I don't care about the Indians, little Daisy. I would just as lief fight the Yankees."
"Preston, I think you are very wrong."
"You think all the world is," he said.
We were silent, and I felt very dissatisfied. What was all this military schooling a preparation for, perhaps? How could we
know. Maybe these heads and hands, so gay to-day in their mock fight, would be grimly and sadly at work by and by, in real encounter with some real enemy.