When his hands dropped, he was playing "The Long and Weary Day," and his mother was standing behind him humming it.

When he rose from the bench, she ran her fingers through his hair and spoke the words of the song, "'My lone watch keeping,' John, 'my lone watch keeping.' But I think it has been worth while." Then she left him and he went to bed, with the moon in his room, and the murmur of waters lulling him to sleep.

But he looked out into the sky a long time before his dream came, and then it slipped in gently through the door of a nameless hope.

For he wished to meet her in the moon that night, but when they did meet, the white veil of the falling waters of the dam blew across her face and he could not brush it away.
For one is bold in dreams.
A little after sunrise the next morning John rode away from his mother's door, on one of his horses, leading the other one.

He was going up the hill to get Bob Hendricks, and the two were to ride to Lawrence.