Asher was just fifteen when the Civil War swept the nation off its feet. The Quaker spirit of Mercy Pennington made fighting repulsive to his father, but in Asher the old Huguenot courage of Jean Aydelot blazed forth, together with the rash partisanship of a young hot-blood whose life has been hemmed in too narrowly by forest walls. Almost before Cloverdale knew there was a war, the Third Ohio Regiment was on its way to the front. Among its bearded men was one beardless youth, a round-faced drummer boy of fifteen, the only child of the big farmhouse beside the National road. In company with him was his boyhood chum, Jim Shirley, son of the Cloverdale tavern keeper. * * * * * An April sun was slipping behind the treetops, and the twilight mists were already rising above the creek. Francis Aydelot and his wife sat on the veranda watching Asher in the glory of a military suit and brass buttons coming up the pike with springing step. "How strong he is! I'm glad he is at home again," the mother was saying. "Yes, he's here to stay at last. I have his plans all settled," Francis Aydelot declared. "But, Francis, a man must make some plans for himself. Asher may not agree," Mrs. Aydelot spoke earnestly. "How can our boy know as well as his father does what is best for him? He must agree, that's all. We have gone over this matter often enough together. I won't have any Jim Shirley in my family. He's gone away and nobody knows where he is, just when his father needs him to take the care of the tavern off his hands." "What made Jim go away from Cloverdale?" Mrs. Aydelot asked. "Nobody seems to know exactly. He left just before his brother, Tank, married that Leigh girl up the Clover valley somewhere. But everything's settled for Asher. He will be marrying one of the Cloverdale girls pretty soon and stay right here in town. We'll take it up with him now. There's no use waiting." "And yet I wish we might wait till he speaks of it himself. Remember, he's been doing his own thinking in the time he's been away," the mother insisted. Just then, Asher reached the corner of the door yard. Catching sight of the two, he put his hands on the top of the paling fence, leaped lightly over it, and came across to the veranda, where he sat down on the top step. "Just getting in from town? The place hasn't changed much, has it?" the father declared. "No, not much," Asher replied absently, looking out with unseeing eyes at the lengthening woodland shadows, "a church or two more, some brick sidewalk, and a few stores and homes--just added on, not improved. I miss Jim Shirley everywhere. The older folks seem the same, but some of the girls are pushing baby-carriages and the boys are getting round-shouldered and droopy-jawed." He drew himself up with military steadiness as he spoke.