“I know that you--and you,” said he, pointing to men as he spoke, “brought arms with you. You’d better give them up to me.” “And you an American!” growled one of the men. The sheriff did not retort. He was scarcely past middle age; but there was a great, slow patience in his face that made him look old. He shook his head and said: “It’s only for your own sake.” _The Modern Paul Revere_ “Look!” cried a farmer. “Who is coming here?” The man who was coming was a man on a motorcycle. Man and machine were so coated with dust, were speeding so desperately, that even without war in the land one would stare at this flying thing, one would wait with eyes and lips open to learn what startling message it was carrying. Man, roaring motor, and their brother pillar of dust crashed by. They had disappeared before the breathless watchers realized that the man had waved an arm at them and had screamed: “Soldiers!” A farmer ran to his wagon and pulled out a rifle from its hiding place under the wagon-seat. “Come on, boys!” he said. “Listen! Listen!” The sheriff shouldered forward. “Men! Neighbors! Old friends! For God’s sake, listen! You have no right to fight.” “What?” The sheriff’s young brother, sturdy, handsome, suddenly ferocious, brought his face close to him. “No right to defend our country? Are you crazy, Jim?” The patient man shook his head again. “It is against the rules of war.” “Then curse the rules of war!” shouted the younger. “Are you a coward?” The sheriff reached out and touched his brother’s arm. It was a secret, almost a timid, act. The brother threw off the appealing hand. “Don’t touch me!” He spoke through set teeth. “If you are a coward and traitor, may you be damned through all eternity! Again! For the last time! Will you fight?” The sheriff raised his hands, dumbly. The men went to their wagons and returned with arms. _New England’s Stone Wall_ “To that stone wall yonder!” said one. He pointed into a field with a rough stone wall dividing its center three or four hundred yards from the road. This man was an old hunter, and the others had followed him often. He took command now as a matter of course. The sheriff watched them flounder through the plowed field. He stood still, for a minute. Then he hurried to his house, emerged with a gun, and joined the party. Two miles away a squad of ten cavalrymen cantered over a ridge and examined the country through their field-glasses. They studied the ground foot by foot, almost inch by inch. Satisfied, they trotted toward the village. Around a turn they came on a little knot of women and children who scurried, screaming, into the ditch. A rider headed off a woman who was carrying a child. He stooped to her from his tall black horse. Laughing, he nodded and said something to her in a foreign language. Stooping still lower, he snatched the child suddenly and swung it out of the trembling woman’s arm. He lifted it, and danced it up and down.