So, as the day wore on, the crowd about the door of the post-office increased. At five o’clock a special messenger would arrive from Carbon Creek with a list of the men that day drafted from Mount Hermon township, the list having been sent by telegraph from Easton to that station. When finally the messenger arrived, Bob was listening with breathless interest to a discussion concerning the Emancipation Proclamation, and it was only when he heard some one shout, “Here’s the list!” that he realized what had happened. “Let Adam Johns read it,” demanded a man in the crowd. Whereupon the young schoolmaster, mounting a chair, and unfolding the paper placed in his hands, began to read. And the very first name that he read was his own. He looked out calmly over the group of men before him, his face paling somewhat with the shock of the news. “I will go,” he said. “I ought to have gone before. I am ashamed to have waited for--for this--but--” “You’re all right, Adam!” interrupted some one in the crowd, who knew how the schoolmaster’s widowed mother leaned on him for comfort and support, “you’re all right. There’s a dozen of us here that’ll be sons to her when you go.” The young man wiped from his eyes the sudden moisture that dimmed his sight, and went on with the reading of the list. It was not a long one. There were some surprises, but there was no demonstration. For the most part the reading was greeted with the silence of intense earnestness. And the very last name on the list was the name of Rhett Bannister. The schoolmaster’s hand grasping the paper fell to his side. For an instant no one spoke. Then a man shouted, “Hurrah for the draft!” and another one cried, “Uncle Sam’s got him now!” and then, amid the confusion of voices, men were heard everywhere congratulating one another on the drafting of Rhett Bannister. With flushed face Bob started for the door, and the crowd parted to let him pass. But outside he ran into a group of his schoolmates, the same boys who had court-martialed him and dismissed him in disgrace from their company three months before. “Old man got struck with lightnin’ this time, didn’t he, Bob?” called out Sam Powers. “He’ll skedaddle for Pike County when he hears about it,” added “Brilly.” “Better run home an’ tell him, quick.” “He don’t dare to,” responded Sam. “I’ll dare you,” he continued, shaking his forefinger in Bob’s face, “to go home an’ tell your copperhead dad he’s drafted!” “Aw, shucks!” exclaimed Bill Hinkle. “You fellows are smart, ain’t you! Let him alone. He ain’t done nothin’ to you. Aw, shucks!” And then Bob got angry. “It’s none o’ you fellows’ business,” he said, “whether my father’s drafted or not. You’re bullies an’ cowards, the whole lot of you! Get out o’ my way!”