But the next morning Miss Lucy smiled so sweetly at him as he came into the schoolroom, that he knew he was forgiven, and that thrill was lost by the thump of joy that startled his heart when he saw a bunch of dog-tooth violets in his ink bottle, and in his geography found a candy heart with a motto on it so fervent that he did not eat it for three long abstemious days of sheer devotion, in which there were eyes and eyes and eyes from the little girl in the scarlet gown.
It is strange that the boy did not remember how Sycamore Ridge took the call to arms for the war between the states.

All he remembered of the great event in our history as it touched the town was that one day he heard there was going to be a war.

And then everything seemed to change.

A dread came over the people.

It fell upon the school, where every child had a father who was going away.
And it was because Madison Hendricks, the first man to leave for the war, was father of Bob and Elmer Hendricks that John's first associations of the great Civil War go back to the big black-bearded man.