"Seems as if I might ride Harry," he said tentatively.
"O father, you couldn't," John answered gently. "You know how it will be, noise and confusion and excitement. Harry isn't used to it. You couldn't manage him."
"Seems as though if Dick goes, Harry ought to go, too. 'Tain't fair for Dick to go, and not Harry," he whispered childishly.
It was better that his father should be disappointed than that Henrietta should be opposed. His father would forget in a few days and Henrietta would remember for weeks.
The next day when the man came for Dick they found grandfather in the stable patting the horse and talking about the war. He watched Dick out of sight, and then sat down in his armchair on the porch whispering to himself.
The children protested vigorously when they found that the old man was not going, but they were soon silenced by their mother. Grandfather was old, it was much better that he should not go.
"You can tell him all about it when you come home," she said.
"You can guard the place while we're gone, Grandfather," suggested little Caleb. "Perhaps the Confederates will come back."
"They wouldn't hurt nothing," answered the old man. "They was tired—tired—tired."
When the family drove away he sat on the porch. He waved his hand until he could see little Mary's fluttering handkerchief no more, then he fell asleep. As Henrietta said, he soon forgot. When he woke up a little later, he went down to the barn and patted Harry, then he went out to the mail-box to see whether by any chance he had missed a letter. He looked at the nasturtium bed, now aglow with yellow and orange and deep crimson blossoms, then he went back to the porch. He was lonely. He missed the sound of John's voice calling to the horses down in the south meadow or across the road in the wheat-field, he missed the chatter of the children, he missed even their mother's curt answers to his questions. For an instant he wondered where they had gone, then he sighed heavily as he remembered. Instead of sitting down again in his chair, he went into the house and upstairs. There he tiptoed warily up to the garret as if he were afraid that some one would follow him, and drew from a hiding-place which he fancied no one knew but himself an old coat, blue, with buttons of dull, tarnished brass. He thrust his arms into it, still whispering to himself, and smoothed it down. His fingers hesitated as they touched a jagged rent just in front of the shoulder.