It was the most timid among them who developed the boldness of desperation and dared to hide themselves from the recruiting officer. They dropped out of sight, fled away to the hill country. Often they were brought back ignominiously and given a year in jail. Sometimes they were never heard of again.
For the most part, the young men shambled mechanically about the barnyard and behind the plow, trying with indifferent success to cultivate stoicism, afraid of being thought cowards, waiting in cold terror until their time should come.
Fear and hate lay at the hearts of the mothers. And having fewer pretenses to keep up than their sons and less respect for vested authority, they gave free voice to their feelings. Mothers whose sons had been caught in the draft said hard and bitter things behind the backs of the more fortunate ones whose offspring had escaped. There was weeping into midnight pillows, there was terror and dismay, envy, and hard suspicion.
Elmer, the second oldest Gibbs boy, shot himself in the foot while he was out hunting. Nobody knew why or what he was hunting at that time of year. He was lamed for life, so Dr. MacTaggert said; but he didn't have to go.
Marsh, his elder brother, was all agog to get into the fray. He had been listening to the talk of Bob and Ziemer; and being something of a braggart like his father, he had begun to lust for military adventures.
One afternoon when he was plowing near by, he took refuge in the Blackford kitchen from a heavy thunderstorm. From time to time, as he sat close to the door, he cast a swift glance at Judith who stood by the table ironing a Sunday shirt for Jerry. When she went to the stove to change her iron, he followed her movements with eyes that peered furtively from under the brim of his frayed straw hat.
"Well, Marsh," she said, "I hear you're a-goin' into the war."
"You betcha. Me an' Bob an' Ziemer is a-goin' to clean 'em up good."
"An' what you a-goin' to fight for, Marsh?"
"I dun--" He checked the word before it was out of his lips. "What we a-goin' to fight fer? Why, fer our rights, o' course. An' we're a-goin' to lick 'em, too, the hull lot of 'em."
"Haow do you mean, the hull lot of 'em? Who all air you a-goin' to lick?"