In the woodshed there is no sound or motion except the hum and floating steam from the tea-kettle. Presently the old man murmurs in his sleep, clenching his hand. Slowly the hand relaxes again.
From the door, right, comes POLLY--a sweet-faced girl of seventeen, quietly mature for her age. She is dressed simply. In one hand she carries a man's wide-brimmed felt hat, over the other arm a blue coat. These she brings toward LINK. Seeing him asleep, she begins to tiptoe, lays the coat and hat on the chopping-block, goes to the bench, and trims the wick of the oil-stove, under the kettle. Then she returns and stands near LINK, surveying the shed.
On closer scrutiny, the jumbled woodpile has evidently a certain order in its chaos; some of the splittings have been piled in irregular ridges; in places, the deep layer of wood-dust and chips has been scooped, and the little mounds slope and rise like miniature valleys and hills. [2]
Taking up a hoe, POLLY--with careful steps--moves among the hollows, placing and arranging sticks of kindling, scraping and smoothing the little mounds with the hoe. As she does so, from far away, a bugle sounds.
[Footnote 1: Copyright, 1912, by Percy Mackaye. All rights reserved.]
[Footnote 2: A suggestion for the appropriate arrangement of these mounds may be found in the map of the battle-field annexed to the volume by Captain R.K. Beecham, entitled _Gettysburg_ (A.C. McClurg, 1911).]
LINK (_snapping his eyes wide open, sits up_)
LINK (_giving a final whittle to the yoke-collar thong_)
Thar! When he's ben steamed a spell, and bended snug, I guess this feller'll sarve t' say "Gee" to-- (_Lifting the other yoke-collar from beside his chair, he holds the whittled thong next to it, comparing the two with expert eye_) and "Haw" to him. Beech every time, Sir; beech or walnut. Hang me if I'd shake a whip at birch, for ox-yokes.--Polly, are ye thar?
"Polly, put the kittle on, Polly, put the kittle on, Polly, put the kittle on--"
We'll give this feller a dose of ox-yoke tea!
(POLLY _takes from_ LINK _the collar-thong, carries it to the work-bench, shoves it into the narrow end of the box, which she then closes tight and connects--by a piece of hose--to the spout of the kettle. At the farther end of the box, steam then emerges through a small hole._)