And so, with flashing eye, heaving breast, erect head, he passed through the crowd of boys untouched. Awed and silenced by his outburst of wrath, they dared not molest him. But, as he went down the road through the gathering twilight toward his home, he began to wonder if, after all, Sam Powers was not right. Would he dare to tell his father? CHAPTER IV THE DRAFTED COPPERHEAD Would he dare to tell his father about the draft? The question kept repeating itself in Bob Bannister’s mind, and the answer to it grew more and more uncertain as he drew nearer to his home. Already he could see the gabled roof of the house, and, back of it, dimly outlined against the gray sky, the white blades of the windmill, free from their lashing, whirling swiftly in the rising wind. The windmill did the work of three men for Rhett Bannister. It sawed his wood, pumped his water, churned his milk, threshed his grain, and drove the machinery by which he manufactured his stock in trade. A few years before the beginning of the war he had secured a patent on a design for a beehive, ingeniously adapted to the instinct of the bees, and so arranged as to make their product removable quickly, easily, and at any time. His success in the manufacture and sale of these hives had been so great that for a time he was quite unable to supply the demand for them. Then the war came, and with it, and as a consequence of it, his ever-growing unpopularity; and, almost before he knew it, his business had so fallen away that it became necessary for him to dismiss his hired help, and he himself had little to do save to manufacture and store his product in hope of better times. Indeed, for the last few weeks the whir of the wheel had been an unusual sound, and Bob wondered as he drew near, that it should be going on this day, especially at so late an hour. So, instead of stopping at the house, he went straight on to the shop entrance, to discover, if possible, the cause of this unwonted activity. At the bench, in the gloom, he saw his father, fashioning, with the power-saw, a heavy block of wood into the form of a brace. The man did not look up from his work as the boy entered; perhaps he did not hear him come. “I’m back, father,” said Bob; “I saw the windmill going and I came on over here.” “Yes; you’re late. What kept you?” “Why, nothing in particular.” “Were there any letters?” Then Bob remembered that in his eagerness to hear the discussion concerning the Emancipation Proclamation, in his excitement over the reading of the draft-list, and in his haste to get away after his father’s name had been announced, he had forgotten to inquire for his mail. “Why, I--didn’t get the mail,” he stammered. “I--I--didn’t ask for it.” “Why not?” The man laid down his work, slipped the belt from the pulley, and turned toward Bob. “Because--” replied the boy, “because I wanted to get away.”