“Yes,” he said, shaking his head and making threats to himself, “an’ Bob’s gwine wid him.”

As Crittenden climbed the stiles, old Keziah filled the kitchen-door.

“Time you gittin’ back, suh,” she cried with mock severity.  “I been studyin’ ‘bout you.  Little mo’ an’ I’d ‘a’ been comin’ fer you myself.  Yes—­suh.”

And she gave a loud laugh that rang through the yard and ended in a soft, queer little whoop that was musical.  Crittenden smiled but, instead of answering, raised his hand warningly and, as he approached the portico, he stepped from the gravel-walk to the thick turf and began to tiptoe.  At the foot of the low flight of stone steps he stopped—­smiling.

The big double front door was wide open, and straight through the big, wide hallway and at the entrance of the dining-room, a sword—­a long cavalry sabre—­hung with a jaunty gray cap on the wall.  Under them stood a boy with his hands clasped behind him and his chin upraised.  The lad could see the bullet-hole through the top, and he knew that on the visor was a faded stain of his father’s blood.  As a child, he had been told never to touch the cap or sword and, until this moment, he had not wanted to take them down since he was a child; and even now the habit of obedience held him back for a while, as he stood looking up at them.  Outside, a light wind rustled the leaves of the rose-bush at his mother’s window, swept through the open door, and made the curtain at his elbow swell gently.  As the heavy fold fell back to its place and swung out again, it caught the hilt of the sword and made the metal point of the scabbard clank softly against the wall.  The boy breathed sharply, remembered that he was grown, and reverently reached upward.  There was the stain where the blood had run down from the furrowed wound that had caused his father’s death, long after the war and just before the boy was born.  The hilt was tarnished, and when he caught it and pulled, the blade came out a little way and stuck fast.  Some one stepped on the porch outside and he turned quickly, as he might have turned had some one caught him unsheathing the weapon when a child.

“Hold on there, little brother.”

Crittenden stopped in the doorway, smiling affectionately, and the boy thrust the blade back to the hilt.

“Why, Clay,” he cried, and, as he ran forward, “Are you going?” he asked, eagerly.

“I’m the first-born, you know,” added Crittenden, still smiling, and the lad stretched the sabre out to him, repeating eagerly, “Are you going?”

The older brother did not answer, but turned, without taking the weapon, and walked to the door and back again.

“Are you?”

“Me?  Oh, I have to go,” said the boy solemnly and with great dignity, as though the matter were quite beyond the pale of discussion.

“You do?”

“Yes; the Legion is going.”

“Only the members who volunteer—­nobody has to go.”