In the children grandfather had his first attentive listeners.
"Will it be like the war?" they asked, eagerly.
"Oh, something. There won't be near so many, and they won't kill nobody. But it'll be a great time. They'll drill all day long."
"Will their horses' hoofs sound like dry leaves rustlin'?" asked little Mary, who always remembered most clearly what the old man had said.
"Yes, like leaves a-rustlin'," repeated the old man. "You must be good children, now, so you don't miss the grand review."
All through the early summer they talked of the encampment. Because of it the annual Memorial Day visit to the battle-field was omitted. Each night the children heard the story of the battle and the retreat, until they listened for commands, faintly given, and the sound of thousands of weary feet. Grandfather often got up in the night and looked out across the yard to the road. Sometimes they heard him whispering to himself as he went back to bed. He got down his old sword and spent many hours trying to polish away the rust which had been gathering for forty years.
"You expect to wear the sword, father?" asked Henrietta, laughing.
News of the encampment reached them constantly. Three weeks before it opened, they were visited by a man who wished to hire horses for the use of the cavalry and the artillery. John debated for a moment. The wheat was in, the oats could wait until the encampment was over, the price paid for horse hire was good. He told the man that he might have Dick, one of the heavy draft horses.
Grandfather ran to meet the children as they came from a neighbor's.
"Dick's going to the war," he cried excitedly.
"I mean to the encampment. He's been hired. He's going to help pull one of the cannons for the artill'ry."
The next week John drove into town with a load of early apples. He was offered work at a dozen different places. Supplies were being sent in, details of soldiers were beginning to lay out the camp and put up tents, Gettysburg was already crowded with visitors. Grandfather made him tell it all the second time; then he explained the formation of an army to the children.
"First comes a company, that's the smallest, then a regiment, then a brigade. A quartermaster looks after supplies, a sutler is a fellow who sells things to the soldiers. But, children, you should 'a' seen 'em marching by that night!" Grandfather always came back to the retreat. "They hadn't any sutlers to sell 'em anything to eat. I wish—I wish I'd sneaked out and given 'em something."