She was not sent to Ralston. The war broke out and altered the aspect of things even at the Cross-roads. The bank in which Tom's modest savings were deposited was swept away by misfortune; the primitive resources of Hamlin County were depleted, as the resources of all the land were. But for the existence of the white, vine-embowered house and the garden full of scents and bloom, Tom's position at the close of the rebellion was far less fortunate than it had been at the time the mystery of Blair's Hollow had occurred. In those old, happy-go-lucky days the three rooms behind the store and the three meals Mornin cooked for him had been quite sufficient for free and easy peace. He had been able to ensure himself these primitive comforts with so little expenditure that money had scarcely seemed an object. He had taken eggs in exchange for sugar, bacon in exchange for tea, and butter in exchange for everything. Now he had no means of resource but the store, and the people were poorer than they had been. Farms had gone to temporary ruin through unavoidable neglect during the absence of their masters. More than one honest fellow had marched away and never returned, and their widows were left to struggle with the land and their children. The Cross-roads store, which had thriven so wonderfully for a year or two before the breaking out of the war, began to wear a less cheerful aspect. As far as he himself was concerned, Tom knew that life was a simple enough thing, but by his side there was growing up a young goddess. She was not aware that she was a young goddess. There was no one in the vicinity of the Cross-roads who could have informed her that she presented somewhat of that aspect, and that she was youth and happiness and Nature's self at once. Tom continually indulged in deep reflection on his charge after she was twelve years old. She shot up into the tall suppleness of a lovely young birch, and she was a sweetly glowing thing. A baby had been a different matter; the baby had not been so difficult to manage; but when he found himself day by day confronting the sweetness of child-womanhood in the eyes that were gold-brown pools, and the softening grace of the fair young body, he began to be conscious of something like alarm. He was not at all sure what he ought to do at this crisis, and whether life confining its experiences entirely to Talbot's Cross-roads was all that was required. "I don't know whether it's right, by thunder," he said. "I don't know whether it's right; and that's what a man who's taken the place of a young mother ought to know." There came a Sunday when one of the occasional "preachings" was to be held at the log-cabin church a few miles distant, and they were going together, as they always did.