[Footnote 1:  Copyright, 1912, by Percy Mackaye.  All rights reserved.]

[Footnote 2:  A suggestion for the appropriate arrangement of these mounds may be found in the map of the battle-field annexed to the volume by Captain R.K.  Beecham, entitled Gettysburg (A.C.  McClurg, 1911).]

LINK
(snapping his eyes wide open, sits up)

Hello!  Cat-nappin’ was I, Polly?

POLLY
Just
A kitten-nap, I guess.

(Laying the hoe down, she approaches)

The yoke done?

LINK
(giving a final whittle to the yoke-collar thong)

Thar! 
When he’s ben steamed a spell, and bended snug,
I guess this feller’ll sarve t’ say “Gee” to—­
(Lifting the other yoke-collar from beside his chair, he
holds the whittled thong next to it, comparing the two
with expert eye)
and “Haw” to him.  Beech every time, Sir; beech
or walnut.  Hang me if I’d shake a whip
at birch, for ox-yokes.—­Polly, are ye thar?

POLLY
Yes, Uncle Link.

LINK
What’s that I used to sing ye?

“Polly, put the kittle on,
Polly, put the kittle on,
Polly, put the kittle on—­”

(Chuckling’)

We’ll give this feller a dose of ox-yoke tea!

POLLY
The kettle’s boilin’.

LINK
Wall, then, steep him good.

(POLLY takes from LINK the collar-thong, carries it to the
work-bench, shoves it into the narrow end of the box, which she
then closes tight and connects—­by a piece of hose—­to the spout
of the kettle.  At the farther end of the box, steam then emerges
through a small hole.)

POLLY
You’re feelin’ smart to-day.

LINK
Smart!—­Wall, if I
could git a hull man to swap legs with me,
mebbe I’d arn my keep.  But this here settin’
dead an’ alive, without no legs, day in,
day out, don’t make an old hoss wuth his oats.

POLLY
(cheerfully)

I guess you’ll soon be walkin’ round.

LINK
Not if
that doctor feller has his say:  He says
I can’t never go agin this side o’ Jordan;
and looks like he’s ’bout right.—­Nine months to-morrer,
Polly, gal, sence I had that stroke.

POLLY
(pointing to the ox-yoke)

You’re fitter
sittin’ than most folks standin’.

LINK
(briskly)

Oh, they can’t
keep my two hands from makin’ ox-yokes.  That’s
my second natur’ sence I was a boy.

(Again in the distance a bugle sounds. LINK starts.)

What’s that?

POLLY
Why, that’s the army veterans
down to the graveyard.  This is Decoration
mornin’:  you ain’t forgot?

LINK
So’t is, so’t is. 
Roger, your young man—­ha! (chuckling) he come and axed me
was I a-goin’ to the cemetery. 
“Me?  Don’t I look it?” says I. Ha!  “Don’t I look it?”