mother caught the spirit and a moment later declared with a new tone in her voice that that was better than mrs and still they were better off than she for they still had two left to help each other while she had not a soul i ll care o us all repeated the girl once more it was only a few things that mills took with him that morning when he set out in the darkness to overtake the company before they should break camp � hardly his old game bag half full for the of the boys had stripped the little cabin of everything that could be of use he might only have seemed to be going hunting as he down the path with his old long gun in his hand and his game bag over his shoulder and disappeared in h k little the darkness from the eyes of the two women standing in the cabin door the next morning mrs mills paid mrs the first visit she had paid on that side the branch since the day three years before when and the boys had the row with little it might have seemed accidental but mrs was the first person in the district to know that all the mills men were gone to the army she went over again from time to time for it was not a period to keep up open and she was younger than mrs and better off but never went and mrs never asked after her or came ii the company in which little and the mi uses had was one of the many hundred companies which joined and were in the army it was in no way particularly by anything that it did it was commanded by the gentleman who did most toward getting it up and the officers were gentlemen the seventy odd men who made the rank and file were of all classes from the sons of the oldest and in the neighborhood to little and the in the district the war was very different from what those who went into it expected it to be until it had gone on some time it seemed mainly marching and and staying in camp quite as seemed to many and and doing nothing much of the especially later on � was given to marching and getting food but and camp duties at first took up most of it this was hard on the poorer men no one knew what it was to them io little some some fell sick of the former class was little he was too strong to be sickly as one of the mills boys was who died of fever in hospital only three months after they went in and too silent to be as the other who was jolly and could dance and sing a good song and was soon very popular in the company more popular even than old who was popular in several rights as being about the oldest man in the company and as having a sort of dry wit when he was in a good humor which he generally was little was hardly distinguished at all unless by the fact that he was somewhat taller than most of his comrades and somewhat more he was only a common soldier of a common class in an ordinary company such a company as was common in the army he still had the little which he had picked up in the path that morning he left home he had asked both of the mills boys vaguely if they ever had owned such a piece of property but they had not and when old told him that he had not either he had contented himself and carried it about with him somewhat wrapped up and tied in an old piece of and in his inside jacket pocket for safety with a vague feeling that some day he might find the owner or re little turn it he was never on specially good terms with the mi uses indeed there was always a trace of coolness between them and him he could not give it to them now and then he and it in a secret place and read a little in the testament but that was all he never touched a needle or so much as a pin and when he the parcel he generally counted them to see that they were all there so the war went on with battles coming a little oftener and food growing ever a little but the company was about as before nothing particular � what with killing and fever a little a good deal faded and little just one in a crowd marching with the rest sleeping with the rest fighting with the rest starving with the rest he was hardly known for a long time except for his silence outside of his mess men were fighting and getting killed or wounded constantly as for him he was never touched and as he did what he was ordered silently and was silent when he got through there was no one to sing his praise even when he was sent out on the line as a sharp if he did anything no one knew it he would disappear over a crest or in a wood and as silent as if he were hunting in the of the ot little clean his gun cut up wood eat what he could get and sit by the fire and listen to the talk as silent awake as asleep one other thing distinguished him he could handle an axe better than any man in the company but no one thought much of that � least of all little it only brought him a little more work occasionally one day in the heat of a battle which the men knew was being won if shooting and cheering and rapid advancing could tell anything the advance 