prompt:
Chapter: The youth cringed as if discovered in a crime. By heavens, they had won
after all!  The imbecile line had remained and become victors. He could
hear cheering.

He lifted himself upon his toes and looked in the direction of the
fight.  A yellow fog lay wallowing on the treetops.  From beneath it
came the clatter of musketry.  Hoarse cries told of an advance.

He turned away amazed and angry.  He felt that he had been wronged.

He had fled, he told himself, because annihilation approached.  He had
done a good part in saving himself, who was a little piece of the army.
He had considered the time, he said, to be one in which it was the duty
of every little piece to rescue itself if possible.  Later the officers
could fit the little pieces together again, and make a battle front. If
none of the little pieces were wise enough to save themselves from the
flurry of death at such a time, why, then, where would be the army? It
was all plain that he had proceeded according to very correct and
commendable rules.  His actions had been sagacious things.  They had
been full of strategy.  They were the work of a master's legs.

Thoughts of his comrades came to him.  The brittle blue line had
withstood the blows and won. He grew bitter over it.  It seemed that
the blind ignorance and stupidity of those little pieces had betrayed
him.  He had been overturned and crushed by their lack of sense in
holding the position, when intelligent deliberation would have
convinced them that it was impossible.  He, the enlightened man who
looks afar in the dark, had fled because of his superior perceptions
and knowledge.  He felt a great anger against his comrades.  He knew it
could be proved that they had been fools.

He wondered what they would remark when later he appeared in camp.  His
mind heard howls of derision.  Their density would not enable them to
understand his sharper point of view.

He began to pity himself acutely.  He was ill used.  He was trodden
beneath the feet of an iron injustice.  He had proceeded with wisdom
and from the most righteous motives under heaven's blue only to be
frustrated by hateful circumstances.

A dull, animal-like rebellion against his fellows, war in the abstract,
and fate grew within him.  He shambled along with bowed head, his brain
in a tumult of agony and despair.  When he looked loweringly up,
quivering at each sound, his eyes had the expression of those of a
criminal who thinks his guilt and his punishment great, and knows that
he can find no words.

He went from the fields into a thick woods, as if resolved to bury
himself.  He wished to get out of hearing of the crackling shots which
were to him like voices.

The ground was cluttered with vines and bushes, and the trees grew
close and spread out like bouquets.  He was obliged to force his way
with much noise.  The creepers, catching against his legs, cried out
harshly as their sprays were torn from the barks of trees.  The
swishing saplings tried to make known his presence to the world.  He
could not conciliate the forest.  As he made his way, it was always
calling out protestations.  When he separated embraces of trees and
vines the disturbed foliages waved their arms and turned their face
leaves toward him.  He dreaded lest these noisy motions and cries
should bring men to look at him.  So he went far, seeking dark and
intricate places.

After a time the sound of musketry grew faint and the cannon boomed in
the distance.  The sun, suddenly apparent, blazed among the trees.  The
insects were making rhythmical noises.  They seemed to be grinding
their teeth in unison.  A woodpecker stuck his impudent head around the
side of a tree.  A bird flew on lighthearted wing.

Off was the rumble of death.  It seemed now that Nature had no ears.

This landscape gave him assurance.  A fair field holding life.  It was
the religion of peace. It would die if its timid eyes were compelled to
see blood.  He conceived Nature to be a woman with a deep aversion to
tragedy.

He threw a pine cone at a jovial squirrel, and he ran with chattering
fear.  High in a treetop he stopped, and, poking his head cautiously
from behind a branch, looked down with an air of trepidation.

The youth felt triumphant at this exhibition. There was the law, he
said.  Nature had given him a sign.  The squirrel, immediately upon
recognizing danger, had taken to his legs without ado.  He did not
stand stolidly baring his furry belly to the missile, and die with an
upward glance at the sympathetic heavens.  On the contrary, he had fled
as fast as his legs could carry him; and he was but an ordinary
squirrel, too--doubtless no philosopher of his race.  The youth wended,
feeling that Nature was of his mind. She re-enforced his argument with
proofs that lived where the sun shone.

Once he found himself almost into a swamp. He was obliged to walk upon
bog tufts and watch his feet to keep from the oily mire.  Pausing at
one time to look about him he saw, out at some black water, a small
animal pounce in and emerge directly with a gleaming fish.

The youth went again into the deep thickets. The brushed branches made
a noise that drowned the sounds of cannon.  He walked on, going from
obscurity into promises of a greater obscurity.

At length he reached a place where the high, arching boughs made a
chapel.  He softly pushed the green doors aside and entered.  Pine
needles were a gentle brown carpet.  There was a religious half light.

Near the threshold he stopped, horror-stricken at the sight of a thing.

He was being looked at by a dead man who was seated with his back
against a columnlike tree.  The corpse was dressed in a uniform that
once had been blue, but was now faded to a melancholy shade of green.
The eyes, staring at the youth, had changed to the dull hue to be seen
on the side of a dead fish.  The mouth was open. Its red had changed to
an appalling yellow. Over the gray skin of the face ran little ants.
One was trundling some sort of a bundle along the upper lip.

The youth gave a shriek as he confronted the thing.  He was for moments
turned to stone before it.  He remained staring into the liquid-looking
eyes.  The dead man and the living man exchanged a long look.  Then the
youth cautiously put one hand behind him and brought it against a tree.
Leaning upon this he retreated, step by step, with his face still
toward the thing.  He feared that if he turned his back the body might
spring up and stealthily pursue him.

The branches, pushing against him, threatened to throw him over upon
it.  His unguided feet, too, caught aggravatingly in brambles; and with
it all he received a subtle suggestion to touch the corpse.  As he
thought of his hand upon it he shuddered profoundly.

At last he burst the bonds which had fastened him to the spot and fled,
unheeding the underbrush.  He was pursued by a sight of the black ants
swarming greedily upon the gray face and venturing horribly near to the
eyes.

After a time he paused, and, breathless and panting, listened.  He
imagined some strange voice would come from the dead throat and squawk
after him in horrible menaces.

The trees about the portal of the chapel moved soughingly in a soft
wind.  A sad silence was upon the little guarding edifice.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Henry continues his flight from the front line even after he learns that his comrades have repelled the charge of the enemy. As he continues to retreat, he rationalizes his flight by first suggesting that his comrades were fools to stay and fight. Indeed, if they weren't wise enough to see that their position was going to be overrun, wasn't he just being wiser to run? According to his reasoning, his flight was the wise thing to do. As his retreat continues, he becomes angrier with his regiment, and he reinforces his anger by mentally criticizing his comrades for their willingness to stay. He further rationalizes his retreat when he sees a squirrel scamper away from him as he moves through the forest. He thinks that all creatures in nature move to safety when their existence is threatened. As a result, he rationalizes that he was only doing the natural thing when he fled because he feared that his existence was in question. As he moves further away from the front, he sees a thicket which might offer him some protection. He squeezes through the branches, and he comes face to face with a dead soldier. Henry immediately backs out of the thicket and continues his retreat.


prompt:
Chapter: The trees began softly to sing a hymn of twilight.  The sun sank until
slanted bronze rays struck the forest.  There was a lull in the noises
of insects as if they had bowed their beaks and were making a
devotional pause.  There was silence save for the chanted chorus of the
trees.

Then, upon this stillness, there suddenly broke a tremendous clangor of
sounds.  A crimson roar came from the distance.

The youth stopped.  He was transfixed by this terrific medley of all
noises.  It was as if worlds were being rended.  There was the ripping
sound of musketry and the breaking crash of the artillery.

His mind flew in all directions.  He conceived the two armies to be at
each other panther fashion.  He listened for a time.  Then he began to
run in the direction of the battle.  He saw that it was an ironical
thing for him to be running thus toward that which he had been at such
pains to avoid.  But he said, in substance, to himself that if the
earth and the moon were about to clash, many persons would doubtless
plan to get upon the roofs to witness the collision.

As he ran, he became aware that the forest had stopped its music, as if
at last becoming capable of hearing the foreign sounds.  The trees
hushed and stood motionless.  Everything seemed to be listening to the
crackle and clatter and earshaking thunder.  The chorus pealed over the
still earth.

It suddenly occurred to the youth that the fight in which he had been
was, after all, but perfunctory popping.  In the hearing of this
present din he was doubtful if he had seen real battle scenes.  This
uproar explained a celestial battle; it was tumbling hordes a-struggle
in the air.

Reflecting, he saw a sort of a humor in the point of view of himself
and his fellows during the late encounter.  They had taken themselves
and the enemy very seriously and had imagined that they were deciding
the war.  Individuals must have supposed that they were cutting the
letters of their names deep into everlasting tablets of brass, or
enshrining their reputations forever in the hearts of their countrymen,
while, as to fact, the affair would appear in printed reports under a
meek and immaterial title.  But he saw that it was good, else, he said,
in battle every one would surely run save forlorn hopes and their ilk.

He went rapidly on.  He wished to come to the edge of the forest that
he might peer out.

As he hastened, there passed through his mind pictures of stupendous
conflicts.  His accumulated thought upon such subjects was used to form
scenes.  The noise was as the voice of an eloquent being, describing.

Sometimes the brambles formed chains and tried to hold him back. Trees,
confronting him, stretched out their arms and forbade him to pass.
After its previous hostility this new resistance of the forest filled
him with a fine bitterness.  It seemed that Nature could not be quite
ready to kill him.

But he obstinately took roundabout ways, and presently he was where he
could see long gray walls of vapor where lay battle lines.  The voices
of cannon shook him.  The musketry sounded in long irregular surges
that played havoc with his ears.  He stood regardant for a moment.  His
eyes had an awestruck expression.  He gawked in the direction of the
fight.

Presently he proceeded again on his forward way.  The battle was like
the grinding of an immense and terrible machine to him.  Its
complexities and powers, its grim processes, fascinated him.  He must
go close and see it produce corpses.

He came to a fence and clambered over it. On the far side, the ground
was littered with clothes and guns.  A newspaper, folded up, lay in the
dirt.  A dead soldier was stretched with his face hidden in his arm.
Farther off there was a group of four or five corpses keeping mournful
company.  A hot sun had blazed upon the spot.

In this place the youth felt that he was an invader.  This forgotten
part of the battle ground was owned by the dead men, and he hurried, in
the vague apprehension that one of the swollen forms would rise and
tell him to begone.

He came finally to a road from which he could see in the distance dark
and agitated bodies of troops, smoke-fringed.  In the lane was a
blood-stained crowd streaming to the rear. The wounded men were
cursing, groaning, and wailing.  In the air, always, was a mighty swell
of sound that it seemed could sway the earth. With the courageous words
of the artillery and the spiteful sentences of the musketry mingled red
cheers.  And from this region of noises came the steady current of the
maimed.

One of the wounded men had a shoeful of blood.  He hopped like a
schoolboy in a game. He was laughing hysterically.

One was swearing that he had been shot in the arm through the
commanding general's mismanagement of the army.  One was marching with
an air imitative of some sublime drum major. Upon his features was an
unholy mixture of merriment and agony.  As he marched he sang a bit of
doggerel in a high and quavering voice:

  "Sing a song 'a vic'try,
    A pocketful 'a bullets,
  Five an' twenty dead men
    Baked in a--pie."

Parts of the procession limped and staggered to this tune.

Another had the gray seal of death already upon his face.  His lips
were curled in hard lines and his teeth were clinched.  His hands were
bloody from where he had pressed them upon his wound.  He seemed to be
awaiting the moment when he should pitch headlong.  He stalked like the
specter of a soldier, his eyes burning with the power of a stare into
the unknown.

There were some who proceeded sullenly, full of anger at their wounds,
and ready to turn upon anything as an obscure cause.

An officer was carried along by two privates. He was peevish.  "Don't
joggle so, Johnson, yeh fool," he cried.  "Think m' leg is made of
iron? If yeh can't carry me decent, put me down an' let some one else
do it."

He bellowed at the tottering crowd who blocked the quick march of his
bearers.  "Say, make way there, can't yeh?  Make way, dickens take it
all."

They sulkily parted and went to the roadsides.  As he was carried past
they made pert remarks to him.  When he raged in reply and threatened
them, they told him to be damned.

The shoulder of one of the tramping bearers knocked heavily against the
spectral soldier who was staring into the unknown.

The youth joined this crowd and marched along with it.  The torn bodies
expressed the awful machinery in which the men had been entangled.

Orderlies and couriers occasionally broke through the throng in the
roadway, scattering wounded men right and left, galloping on followed
by howls.  The melancholy march was continually disturbed by the
messengers, and sometimes by bustling batteries that came swinging and
thumping down upon them, the officers shouting orders to clear the way.

There was a tattered man, fouled with dust, blood and powder stain from
hair to shoes, who trudged quietly at the youth's side.  He was
listening with eagerness and much humility to the lurid descriptions of
a bearded sergeant.  His lean features wore an expression of awe and
admiration.  He was like a listener in a country store to wondrous
tales told among the sugar barrels.  He eyed the story-teller with
unspeakable wonder.  His mouth was agape in yokel fashion.

The sergeant, taking note of this, gave pause to his elaborate history
while he administered a sardonic comment.  "Be keerful, honey, you 'll
be a-ketchin' flies," he said.

The tattered man shrank back abashed.

After a time he began to sidle near to the youth, and in a different
way try to make him a friend.  His voice was gentle as a girl's voice
and his eyes were pleading.  The youth saw with surprise that the
soldier had two wounds, one in the head, bound with a blood-soaked rag,
and the other in the arm, making that member dangle like a broken bough.

After they had walked together for some time the tattered man mustered
sufficient courage to speak.  "Was pretty good fight, wa'n't it?" he
timidly said.  The youth, deep in thought, glanced up at the bloody and
grim figure with its lamblike eyes.  "What?"

"Was pretty good fight, wa'n't it?

"Yes," said the youth shortly.  He quickened his pace.

But the other hobbled industriously after him. There was an air of
apology in his manner, but he evidently thought that he needed only to
talk for a time, and the youth would perceive that he was a good fellow.

"Was pretty good fight, wa'n't it?" he began in a small voice, and then
he achieved the fortitude to continue.  "Dern me if I ever see fellers
fight so.  Laws, how they did fight!  I knowed th' boys 'd like when
they onct got square at it. Th' boys ain't had no fair chanct up t'
now, but this time they showed what they was.  I knowed it 'd turn out
this way.  Yeh can't lick them boys. No, sir!  They're fighters, they
be."

He breathed a deep breath of humble admiration.  He had looked at the
youth for encouragement several times.  He received none, but gradually
he seemed to get absorbed in his subject.

"I was talkin' 'cross pickets with a boy from Georgie, onct, an' that
boy, he ses, 'Your fellers 'll all run like hell when they onct hearn a
gun,' he ses.  'Mebbe they will,' I ses, 'but I don't b'lieve none of
it,' I ses; 'an' b'jiminey,' I ses back t' 'um, 'mebbe your fellers 'll
all run like hell when they onct hearn a gun,' I ses.  He larfed. Well,
they didn't run t' day, did they, hey?  No, sir!  They fit, an' fit,
an' fit."

His homely face was suffused with a light of love for the army which
was to him all things beautiful and powerful.

After a time he turned to the youth.  "Where yeh hit, ol' boy?" he
asked in a brotherly tone.

The youth felt instant panic at this question, although at first its
full import was not borne in upon him.

"What?" he asked.

"Where yeh hit?" repeated the tattered man.

"Why," began the youth, "I--I--that is--why--I--"

He turned away suddenly and slid through the crowd.  His brow was
heavily flushed, and his fingers were picking nervously at one of his
buttons.  He bent his head and fastened his eyes studiously upon the
button as if it were a little problem.

The tattered man looked after him in astonishment.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: The sound of a major battle stops Henry's flight. Indeed, it arouses his curiosity, so he makes his way back toward the battle through the forest. He first encounters a field with several dead soldiers. As he hurries past this field, he runs into many wounded men returning from the front lines for medical treatment. He sees several soldiers and one officer. One soldier, "a tattered man, fouled with dust blood, and powder stain from head to shoes," tries to befriend him. The man talks about the bravery shown by the regiment in the battle, but when he asks Henry where he is hit, Henry can't answer him because, of course, he has no wound, and he hurries away from his questioner.


prompt:
Chapter: The youth fell back in the procession until the tattered soldier was
not in sight.  Then he started to walk on with the others.

But he was amid wounds.  The mob of men was bleeding.  Because of the
tattered soldier's question he now felt that his shame could be viewed.
He was continually casting sidelong glances to see if the men were
contemplating the letters of guilt he felt burned into his brow.

At times he regarded the wounded soldiers in an envious way.  He
conceived persons with torn bodies to be peculiarly happy.  He wished
that he, too, had a wound, a red badge of courage.

The spectral soldier was at his side like a stalking reproach.  The
man's eyes were still fixed in a stare into the unknown.  His gray,
appalling face had attracted attention in the crowd, and men, slowing
to his dreary pace, were walking with him.  They were discussing his
plight, questioning him and giving him advice.

In a dogged way he repelled them, signing to them to go on and leave
him alone.  The shadows of his face were deepening and his tight lips
seemed holding in check the moan of great despair. There could be seen
a certain stiffness in the movements of his body, as if he were taking
infinite care not to arouse the passion of his wounds.  As he went on,
he seemed always looking for a place, like one who goes to choose a
grave.

Something in the gesture of the man as he waved the bloody and pitying
soldiers away made the youth start as if bitten.  He yelled in horror.
Tottering forward he laid a quivering hand upon the man's arm.  As the
latter slowly turned his waxlike features toward him, the youth
screamed:

"Gawd!  Jim Conklin!"

The tall soldier made a little commonplace smile.  "Hello, Henry," he
said.

The youth swayed on his legs and glared strangely.  He stuttered and
stammered.  "Oh, Jim--oh, Jim--oh, Jim--"

The tall soldier held out his gory hand.  There was a curious red and
black combination of new blood and old blood upon it.  "Where yeh been,
Henry?" he asked.  He continued in a monotonous voice, "I thought mebbe
yeh got keeled over.  There 's been thunder t' pay t'-day.  I was
worryin' about it a good deal."

The youth still lamented.  "Oh, Jim--oh, Jim--oh, Jim--"

"Yeh know," said the tall soldier, "I was out there."  He made a
careful gesture.  "An', Lord, what a circus!  An', b'jiminey, I got
shot--I got shot.  Yes, b'jiminey, I got shot."  He reiterated this
fact in a bewildered way, as if he did not know how it came about.

The youth put forth anxious arms to assist him, but the tall soldier
went firmly on as if propelled.  Since the youth's arrival as a
guardian for his friend, the other wounded men had ceased to display
much interest.  They occupied themselves again in dragging their own
tragedies toward the rear.

Suddenly, as the two friends marched on, the tall soldier seemed to be
overcome by a terror. His face turned to a semblance of gray paste. He
clutched the youth's arm and looked all about him, as if dreading to be
overheard.  Then he began to speak in a shaking whisper:

"I tell yeh what I'm 'fraid of, Henry--I 'll tell yeh what I 'm 'fraid
of.  I 'm 'fraid I 'll fall down--an' then yeh know--them damned
artillery wagons--they like as not 'll run over me.  That 's what I 'm
'fraid of--"

The youth cried out to him hysterically: "I 'll take care of yeh, Jim!
I'll take care of yeh!  I swear t' Gawd I will!"

"Sure--will yeh, Henry?" the tall soldier beseeched.

"Yes--yes--I tell yeh--I'll take care of yeh, Jim!" protested the
youth.  He could not speak accurately because of the gulpings in his
throat.

But the tall soldier continued to beg in a lowly way.  He now hung
babelike to the youth's arm.  His eyes rolled in the wildness of his
terror.  "I was allus a good friend t' yeh, wa'n't I, Henry?  I 've
allus been a pretty good feller, ain't I?  An' it ain't much t' ask, is
it?  Jest t' pull me along outer th' road?  I 'd do it fer you,
Wouldn't I, Henry?"

He paused in piteous anxiety to await his friend's reply.

The youth had reached an anguish where the sobs scorched him.  He
strove to express his loyalty, but he could only make fantastic
gestures.

However, the tall soldier seemed suddenly to forget all those fears. He
became again the grim, stalking specter of a soldier.  He went stonily
forward.  The youth wished his friend to lean upon him, but the other
always shook his head and strangely protested. "No--no--no--leave me
be--leave me be--"

His look was fixed again upon the unknown. He moved with mysterious
purpose, and all of the youth's offers he brushed aside. "No--no--leave
me be--leave me be--"

The youth had to follow.

Presently the latter heard a voice talking softly near his shoulders.
Turning he saw that it belonged to the tattered soldier.  "Ye 'd better
take 'im outa th' road, pardner.  There 's a batt'ry comin' helitywhoop
down th' road an' he 'll git runned over.  He 's a goner anyhow in
about five minutes--yeh kin see that.  Ye 'd better take 'im outa th'
road.  Where th' blazes does he git his stren'th from?"

"Lord knows!" cried the youth.  He was shaking his hands helplessly.

He ran forward presently and grasped the tall soldier by the arm. "Jim!
Jim!" he coaxed, "come with me."

The tall soldier weakly tried to wrench himself free.  "Huh," he said
vacantly.  He stared at the youth for a moment.  At last he spoke as if
dimly comprehending.  "Oh!  Inteh th' fields?  Oh!"

He started blindly through the grass.

The youth turned once to look at the lashing riders and jouncing guns
of the battery.  He was startled from this view by a shrill outcry from
the tattered man.

"Gawd!  He's runnin'!"

Turning his head swiftly, the youth saw his friend running in a
staggering and stumbling way toward a little clump of bushes.  His
heart seemed to wrench itself almost free from his body at this sight.
He made a noise of pain. He and the tattered man began a pursuit. There
was a singular race.

When he overtook the tall soldier he began to plead with all the words
he could find. "Jim--Jim--what are you doing--what makes you do this
way--you 'll hurt yerself."

The same purpose was in the tall soldier's face. He protested in a
dulled way, keeping his eyes fastened on the mystic place of his
intentions. "No--no--don't tech me--leave me be--leave me be--"

The youth, aghast and filled with wonder at the tall soldier, began
quaveringly to question him. "Where yeh goin', Jim?  What you thinking
about?  Where you going?  Tell me, won't you, Jim?"

The tall soldier faced about as upon relentless pursuers.  In his eyes
there was a great appeal. "Leave me be, can't yeh?  Leave me be fer a
minnit."

The youth recoiled.  "Why, Jim," he said, in a dazed way, "what's the
matter with you?"

The tall soldier turned and, lurching dangerously, went on.  The youth
and the tattered soldier followed, sneaking as if whipped, feeling
unable to face the stricken man if he should again confront them.  They
began to have thoughts of a solemn ceremony.  There was something
rite-like in these movements of the doomed soldier. And there was a
resemblance in him to a devotee of a mad religion, blood-sucking,
muscle-wrenching, bone-crushing.  They were awed and afraid. They hung
back lest he have at command a dreadful weapon.

At last, they saw him stop and stand motionless.  Hastening up, they
perceived that his face wore an expression telling that he had at last
found the place for which he had struggled.  His spare figure was
erect; his bloody hands were quietly at his side.  He was waiting with
patience for something that he had come to meet.  He was at the
rendezvous.  They paused and stood, expectant.

There was a silence.

Finally, the chest of the doomed soldier began to heave with a strained
motion.  It increased in violence until it was as if an animal was
within and was kicking and tumbling furiously to be free.

This spectacle of gradual strangulation made the youth writhe, and once
as his friend rolled his eyes, he saw something in them that made him
sink wailing to the ground.  He raised his voice in a last supreme call.

"Jim--Jim--Jim--"

The tall soldier opened his lips and spoke. He made a gesture.  "Leave
me be--don't tech me--leave me be--"

There was another silence while he waited.

Suddenly, his form stiffened and straightened. Then it was shaken by a
prolonged ague.  He stared into space.  To the two watchers there was a
curious and profound dignity in the firm lines of his awful face.

He was invaded by a creeping strangeness that slowly enveloped him. For
a moment the tremor of his legs caused him to dance a sort of hideous
hornpipe.  His arms beat wildly about his head in expression of implike
enthusiasm.

His tall figure stretched itself to its full height. There was a slight
rending sound.  Then it began to swing forward, slow and straight, in
the manner of a falling tree.  A swift muscular contortion made the
left shoulder strike the ground first.

The body seemed to bounce a little way from the earth.  "God!" said the
tattered soldier.

The youth had watched, spellbound, this ceremony at the place of
meeting.  His face had been twisted into an expression of every agony
he had imagined for his friend.

He now sprang to his feet and, going closer, gazed upon the pastelike
face.  The mouth was open and the teeth showed in a laugh.

As the flap of the blue jacket fell away from the body, he could see
that the side looked as if it had been chewed by wolves.

The youth turned, with sudden, livid rage, toward the battlefield.  He
shook his fist.  He seemed about to deliver a philippic.

"Hell--"

The red sun was pasted in the sky like a wafer.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Henry returns to walking along with the retreating soldiers. He worries that the soldiers may recognize that he has run from the battle and that they are looking at him and "contemplating the letters of guilt he felt burned into his brow." Indeed, he envies the wounded soldiers and wishes for an emblem of battle, his own " red badge of courage," -- the first reference to the novel's title and a symbol of bravery -- rather than having the feelings of guilt which he must keep within. Henry sees "the spectral soldier" stumbling along, waving others away, wanting to be alone. On closer scrutiny, Henry realizes that this dying soldier is Jim Conklin. Henry is overcome with grief at the sight of Jim's condition. Jim recognizes Henry and tells him that he has only one fear -- that he may be run over by a battery coming along the road. He asks Henry to get him out of the road, to keep him safe, if a battery approaches; Henry is so overcome with emotion that he can't answer his friend except with wild gestures. At that point, the tattered soldier overtakes Henry, and the two try to help Jim, but he waves them off. Suddenly, Jim begins to run through the field, followed by Henry and the tattered soldier. Jim stops, and, after several body-shaking convulsions, he stands tall and then dies.


prompt:
Chapter: The tattered man stood musing.

"Well, he was reg'lar jim-dandy fer nerve, wa'n't he," said he finally
in a little awestruck voice.  "A reg'lar jim-dandy."  He thoughtfully
poked one of the docile hands with his foot.  "I wonner where he got
'is stren'th from?  I never seen a man do like that before.  It was a
funny thing.  Well, he was a reg'lar jim-dandy."

The youth desired to screech out his grief. He was stabbed, but his
tongue lay dead in the tomb of his mouth.  He threw himself again upon
the ground and began to brood.

The tattered man stood musing.

"Look-a-here, pardner," he said, after a time. He regarded the corpse
as he spoke.  "He 's up an' gone, ain't 'e, an' we might as well begin
t' look out fer ol' number one.  This here thing is all over.  He 's up
an' gone, ain't 'e?  An' he 's all right here.  Nobody won't bother
'im.  An' I must say I ain't enjoying any great health m'self these
days."

The youth, awakened by the tattered soldier's tone, looked quickly up.
He saw that he was swinging uncertainly on his legs and that his face
had turned to a shade of blue.

"Good Lord!" he cried, "you ain't goin' t'--not you, too."

The tattered man waved his hand.  "Nary die," he said.  "All I want is
some pea soup an' a good bed.  Some pea soup," he repeated dreamfully.

The youth arose from the ground.  "I wonder where he came from.  I left
him over there." He pointed.  "And now I find 'im here.  And he was
coming from over there, too."  He indicated a new direction.  They both
turned toward the body as if to ask of it a question.

"Well," at length spoke the tattered man, "there ain't no use in our
stayin' here an' tryin' t' ask him anything."

The youth nodded an assent wearily.  They both turned to gaze for a
moment at the corpse.

The youth murmured something.

"Well, he was a jim-dandy, wa'n't 'e?" said the tattered man as if in
response.

They turned their backs upon it and started away.  For a time they
stole softly, treading with their toes.  It remained laughing there in
the grass.

"I'm commencin' t' feel pretty bad," said the tattered man, suddenly
breaking one of his little silences.  "I'm commencin' t' feel pretty
damn' bad."

The youth groaned.  "O Lord!"  He wondered if he was to be the tortured
witness of another grim encounter.

But his companion waved his hand reassuringly.  "Oh, I'm not goin' t'
die yit!  There too much dependin' on me fer me t' die yit.  No, sir!
Nary die!  I CAN'T!  Ye'd oughta see th' swad a' chil'ren I've got, an'
all like that."

The youth glancing at his companion could see by the shadow of a smile
that he was making some kind of fun.

As they plodded on the tattered soldier continued to talk.  "Besides,
if I died, I wouldn't die th' way that feller did.  That was th'
funniest thing.  I'd jest flop down, I would.  I never seen a feller
die th' way that feller did.

"Yeh know Tom Jamison, he lives next door t' me up home.  He's a nice
feller, he is, an' we was allus good friends.  Smart, too.  Smart as a
steel trap.  Well, when we was a-fightin' this atternoon,
all-of-a-sudden he begin t' rip up an' cuss an' beller at me.  'Yer
shot, yeh blamed infernal!'--he swear horrible--he ses t' me.  I put up
m' hand t' m' head an' when I looked at m' fingers, I seen, sure
'nough, I was shot.  I give a holler an' begin t' run, but b'fore I
could git away another one hit me in th' arm an' whirl' me clean
'round.  I got skeared when they was all a-shootin' b'hind me an' I run
t' beat all, but I cotch it pretty bad.  I've an idee I'd a' been
fightin' yit, if t'was n't fer Tom Jamison."

Then he made a calm announcement: "There's two of 'em--little ones--but
they 're beginnin' t' have fun with me now.  I don't b'lieve I kin walk
much furder."

They went slowly on in silence.  "Yeh look pretty peek-ed yerself,"
said the tattered man at last.  "I bet yeh 've got a worser one than
yeh think.  Ye'd better take keer of yer hurt.  It don't do t' let sech
things go.  It might be inside mostly, an' them plays thunder.  Where
is it located?"  But he continued his harangue without waiting for a
reply.  "I see 'a feller git hit plum in th' head when my reg'ment was
a-standin' at ease onct.  An' everybody yelled out to 'im: Hurt, John?
Are yeh hurt much?  'No,' ses he. He looked kinder surprised, an' he
went on tellin' 'em how he felt.  He sed he didn't feel nothin'. But,
by dad, th' first thing that feller knowed he was dead.  Yes, he was
dead--stone dead.  So, yeh wanta watch out.  Yeh might have some queer
kind 'a hurt yerself.  Yeh can't never tell. Where is your'n located?"

The youth had been wriggling since the introduction of this topic.  He
now gave a cry of exasperation and made a furious motion with his hand.
"Oh, don't bother me!" he said.  He was enraged against the tattered
man, and could have strangled him.  His companions seemed ever to play
intolerable parts.  They were ever upraising the ghost of shame on the
stick of their curiosity.  He turned toward the tattered man as one at
bay.  "Now, don't bother me," he repeated with desperate menace.

"Well, Lord knows I don't wanta bother anybody," said the other.  There
was a little accent of despair in his voice as he replied, "Lord knows
I 've gota 'nough m' own t' tend to."

The youth, who had been holding a bitter debate with himself and
casting glances of hatred and contempt at the tattered man, here spoke
in a hard voice.  "Good-by," he said.

The tattered man looked at him in gaping amazement.  "Why--why,
pardner, where yeh goin'?" he asked unsteadily.  The youth looking at
him, could see that he, too, like that other one, was beginning to act
dumb and animal-like.  His thoughts seemed to be floundering about in
his head.  "Now--now--look--a--here, you Tom Jamison--now--I won't have
this--this here won't do.  Where--where yeh goin'?"

The youth pointed vaguely.  "Over there," he replied.

"Well, now look--a--here--now," said the tattered man, rambling on in
idiot fashion.  His head was hanging forward and his words were
slurred.  "This thing won't do, now, Tom Jamison.  It won't do.  I know
yeh, yeh pig-headed devil.  Yeh wanta go trompin' off with a bad hurt.
It ain't right--now--Tom Jamison--it ain't. Yeh wanta leave me take
keer of yeh, Tom Jamison.  It ain't--right--it ain't--fer yeh t'
go--trompin' off--with a bad hurt--it ain't--ain't--ain't right--it
ain't."

In reply the youth climbed a fence and started away.  He could hear the
tattered man bleating plaintively.

Once he faced about angrily.  "What?"

"Look--a--here, now, Tom Jamison--now--it ain't--"

The youth went on.  Turning at a distance he saw the tattered man
wandering about helplessly in the field.

He now thought that he wished he was dead. He believed that he envied
those men whose bodies lay strewn over the grass of the fields and on
the fallen leaves of the forest.

The simple questions of the tattered man had been knife thrusts to him.
They asserted a society that probes pitilessly at secrets until all is
apparent.  His late companion's chance persistency made him feel that
he could not keep his crime concealed in his bosom.  It was sure to be
brought plain by one of those arrows which cloud the air and are
constantly pricking, discovering, proclaiming those things which are
willed to be forever hidden.  He admitted that he could not defend
himself against this agency. It was not within the power of vigilance.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: The tattered soldier's reaction to Jim's death is one of awe. He continues to talk non-stop to Henry and to call Jim a real "jim-dandy." Henry pays little attention to the tattered soldier's ramblings until the soldier, trying to be sympathetic to Henry's supposed wound, says, "Where is your'n located?" Henry tells him angrily, "Oh, don't bother me." Indeed, Henry walks away from the tattered soldier, leaving him in the field, even as the tattered soldier shows signs of becoming very disoriented from the effects of his wounds. Henry quickly forgets the tattered soldier and again begins to focus on his own condition, wishing he were dead, noting that the simple question asked by the tattered soldier is representative of a society that will not allow him to "keep his crime concealed in his bosom."


prompt:
Chapter: He became aware that the furnace roar of the battle was growing louder.
Great brown clouds had floated to the still heights of air before him.
The noise, too, was approaching.  The woods filtered men and the fields
became dotted.

As he rounded a hillock, he perceived that the roadway was now a crying
mass of wagons, teams, and men.  From the heaving tangle issued
exhortations, commands, imprecations.  Fear was sweeping it all along.
The cracking whips bit and horses plunged and tugged.  The white-topped
wagons strained and stumbled in their exertions like fat sheep.

The youth felt comforted in a measure by this sight.  They were all
retreating.  Perhaps, then, he was not so bad after all.  He seated
himself and watched the terror-stricken wagons.  They fled like soft,
ungainly animals.  All the roarers and lashers served to help him to
magnify the dangers and horrors of the engagement that he might try to
prove to himself that the thing with which men could charge him was in
truth a symmetrical act.  There was an amount of pleasure to him in
watching the wild march of this vindication.

Presently the calm head of a forward-going column of infantry appeared
in the road.  It came swiftly on.  Avoiding the obstructions gave it
the sinuous movement of a serpent.  The men at the head butted mules
with their musket stocks.  They prodded teamsters indifferent to all
howls.  The men forced their way through parts of the dense mass by
strength.  The blunt head of the column pushed.  The raving teamsters
swore many strange oaths.

The commands to make way had the ring of a great importance in them.
The men were going forward to the heart of the din.  They were to
confront the eager rush of the enemy.  They felt the pride of their
onward movement when the remainder of the army seemed trying to dribble
down this road.  They tumbled teams about with a fine feeling that it
was no matter so long as their column got to the front in time.  This
importance made their faces grave and stern. And the backs of the
officers were very rigid.

As the youth looked at them the black weight of his woe returned to
him.  He felt that he was regarding a procession of chosen beings.  The
separation was as great to him as if they had marched with weapons of
flame and banners of sunlight.  He could never be like them.  He could
have wept in his longings.

He searched about in his mind for an adequate malediction for the
indefinite cause, the thing upon which men turn the words of final
blame.  It--whatever it was--was responsible for him, he said.  There
lay the fault.

The haste of the column to reach the battle seemed to the forlorn young
man to be something much finer than stout fighting.  Heroes, he
thought, could find excuses in that long seething lane.  They could
retire with perfect self-respect and make excuses to the stars.

He wondered what those men had eaten that they could be in such haste
to force their way to grim chances of death.  As he watched his envy
grew until he thought that he wished to change lives with one of them.
He would have liked to have used a tremendous force, he said, throw off
himself and become a better.  Swift pictures of himself, apart, yet in
himself, came to him--a blue desperate figure leading lurid charges
with one knee forward and a broken blade high--a blue, determined
figure standing before a crimson and steel assault, getting calmly
killed on a high place before the eyes of all.  He thought of the
magnificent pathos of his dead body.

These thoughts uplifted him.  He felt the quiver of war desire.  In his
ears, he heard the ring of victory.  He knew the frenzy of a rapid
successful charge.  The music of the trampling feet, the sharp voices,
the clanking arms of the column near him made him soar on the red wings
of war.  For a few moments he was sublime.

He thought that he was about to start for the front.  Indeed, he saw a
picture of himself, dust-stained, haggard, panting, flying to the front
at the proper moment to seize and throttle the dark, leering witch of
calamity.

Then the difficulties of the thing began to drag at him.  He hesitated,
balancing awkwardly on one foot.

He had no rifle; he could not fight with his hands, said he resentfully
to his plan.  Well, rifles could be had for the picking.  They were
extraordinarily profuse.

Also, he continued, it would be a miracle if he found his regiment.
Well, he could fight with any regiment.

He started forward slowly.  He stepped as if he expected to tread upon
some explosive thing. Doubts and he were struggling.

He would truly be a worm if any of his comrades should see him
returning thus, the marks of his flight upon him.  There was a reply
that the intent fighters did not care for what happened rearward saving
that no hostile bayonets appeared there.  In the battle-blur his face
would, in a way be hidden, like the face of a cowled man.

But then he said that his tireless fate would bring forth, when the
strife lulled for a moment, a man to ask of him an explanation.  In
imagination he felt the scrutiny of his companions as he painfully
labored through some lies.

Eventually, his courage expended itself upon these objections.  The
debates drained him of his fire.

He was not cast down by this defeat of his plan, for, upon studying the
affair carefully, he could not but admit that the objections were very
formidable.

Furthermore, various ailments had begun to cry out.  In their presence
he could not persist in flying high with the wings of war; they
rendered it almost impossible for him to see himself in a heroic light.
He tumbled headlong.

He discovered that he had a scorching thirst. His face was so dry and
grimy that he thought he could feel his skin crackle.  Each bone of his
body had an ache in it, and seemingly threatened to break with each
movement.  His feet were like two sores.  Also, his body was calling
for food.  It was more powerful than a direct hunger. There was a dull,
weight like feeling in his stomach, and, when he tried to walk, his
head swayed and he tottered.  He could not see with distinctness. Small
patches of green mist floated before his vision.

While he had been tossed by many emotions, he had not been aware of
ailments.  Now they beset him and made clamor.  As he was at last
compelled to pay attention to them, his capacity for self-hate was
multiplied.  In despair, he declared that he was not like those others.
He now conceded it to be impossible that he should ever become a hero.
He was a craven loon. Those pictures of glory were piteous things.  He
groaned from his heart and went staggering off.

A certain mothlike quality within him kept him in the vicinity of the
battle.  He had a great desire to see, and to get news.  He wished to
know who was winning.

He told himself that, despite his unprecedented suffering, he had never
lost his greed for a victory, yet, he said, in a half-apologetic manner
to his conscience, he could not but know that a defeat for the army
this time might mean many favorable things for him.  The blows of the
enemy would splinter regiments into fragments.  Thus, many men of
courage, he considered, would be obliged to desert the colors and
scurry like chickens.  He would appear as one of them. They would be
sullen brothers in distress, and he could then easily believe he had
not run any farther or faster than they.  And if he himself could
believe in his virtuous perfection, he conceived that there would be
small trouble in convincing all others.

He said, as if in excuse for this hope, that previously the army had
encountered great defeats and in a few months had shaken off all blood
and tradition of them, emerging as bright and valiant as a new one;
thrusting out of sight the memory of disaster, and appearing with the
valor and confidence of unconquered legions. The shrilling voices of
the people at home would pipe dismally for a time, but various generals
were usually compelled to listen to these ditties. He of course felt no
compunctions for proposing a general as a sacrifice.  He could not tell
who the chosen for the barbs might be, so he could center no direct
sympathy upon him.  The people were afar and he did not conceive public
opinion to be accurate at long range.  It was quite probable they would
hit the wrong man who, after he had recovered from his amazement would
perhaps spend the rest of his days in writing replies to the songs of
his alleged failure.  It would be very unfortunate, no doubt, but in
this case a general was of no consequence to the youth.

In a defeat there would be a roundabout vindication of himself.  He
thought it would prove, in a manner, that he had fled early because of
his superior powers of perception.  A serious prophet upon predicting a
flood should be the first man to climb a tree.  This would demonstrate
that he was indeed a seer.

A moral vindication was regarded by the youth as a very important
thing.  Without salve, he could not, he thought, wear the sore badge of
his dishonor through life.  With his heart continually assuring him
that he was despicable, he could not exist without making it, through
his actions, apparent to all men.

If the army had gone gloriously on he would be lost.  If the din meant
that now his army's flags were tilted forward he was a condemned
wretch.  He would be compelled to doom himself to isolation.  If the
men were advancing, their indifferent feet were trampling upon his
chances for a successful life.

As these thoughts went rapidly through his mind, he turned upon them
and tried to thrust them away.  He denounced himself as a villain. He
said that he was the most unutterably selfish man in existence.  His
mind pictured the soldiers who would place their defiant bodies before
the spear of the yelling battle fiend, and as he saw their dripping
corpses on an imagined field, he said that he was their murderer.

Again he thought that he wished he was dead. He believed that he envied
a corpse.  Thinking of the slain, he achieved a great contempt for some
of them, as if they were guilty for thus becoming lifeless.  They might
have been killed by lucky chances, he said, before they had had
opportunities to flee or before they had been really tested.  Yet they
would receive laurels from tradition.  He cried out bitterly that their
crowns were stolen and their robes of glorious memories were shams.
However, he still said that it was a great pity he was not as they.

A defeat of the army had suggested itself to him as a means of escape
from the consequences of his fall.  He considered, now, however, that
it was useless to think of such a possibility.  His education had been
that success for that mighty blue machine was certain; that it would
make victories as a contrivance turns out buttons.  He presently
discarded all his speculations in the other direction.  He returned to
the creed of soldiers.

When he perceived again that it was not possible for the army to be
defeated, he tried to bethink him of a fine tale which he could take
back to his regiment, and with it turn the expected shafts of derision.

But, as he mortally feared these shafts, it became impossible for him
to invent a tale he felt he could trust.  He experimented with many
schemes, but threw them aside one by one as flimsy.  He was quick to
see vulnerable places in them all.

Furthermore, he was much afraid that some arrow of scorn might lay him
mentally low before he could raise his protecting tale.

He imagined the whole regiment saying: "Where's Henry Fleming?  He run,
didn't 'e? Oh, my!"  He recalled various persons who would be quite
sure to leave him no peace about it.  They would doubtless question him
with sneers, and laugh at his stammering hesitation.  In the next
engagement they would try to keep watch of him to discover when he
would run.

Wherever he went in camp, he would encounter insolent and lingeringly
cruel stares.  As he imagined himself passing near a crowd of comrades,
he could hear some one say, "There he goes!"

Then, as if the heads were moved by one muscle, all the faces were
turned toward him with wide, derisive grins.  He seemed to hear some
one make a humorous remark in a low tone. At it the others all crowed
and cackled.  He was a slang phrase.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Soon after leaving the tattered soldier, Henry walks up a small hill which overlooks a road. He sees two groups of soldiers on the road, one in retreat and one heading to the front. As he watches the two groups, he continues thinking about his situation. On the one hand, he feels that the retreating soldiers have vindicated his decision to run. On the other hand, he sees the enthusiasm, purpose, and drive of the advancing soldiers, and this inspires him to think about joining their column. He begins mentally arguing whether to join the troops, including assessing that he has no rifle and that he won't able to find his regiment. Just as he overcomes those doubts and is about to rejoin the advancing force, a greater doubt grips him. He wonders how he will explain his disappearance to his comrades once he returns to the front, and the more he considers their reactions to any answers that he might give them, the more he realizes that he will be open to great criticism and ridicule. At the conclusion of this internal debate, his courage is depleted, doubt wins out, and his resolve to rejoin the advancing troops is lost.


prompt:
Chapter: The column that had butted stoutly at the obstacles in the roadway was
barely out of the youth's sight before he saw dark waves of men come
sweeping out of the woods and down through the fields.  He knew at once
that the steel fibers had been washed from their hearts. They were
bursting from their coats and their equipments as from entanglements.
They charged down upon him like terrified buffaloes.

Behind them blue smoke curled and clouded above the treetops, and
through the thickets he could sometimes see a distant pink glare.  The
voices of the cannon were clamoring in interminable chorus.

The youth was horrorstricken.  He stared in agony and amazement.  He
forgot that he was engaged in combating the universe.  He threw aside
his mental pamphlets on the philosophy of the retreated and rules for
the guidance of the damned.

The fight was lost.  The dragons were coming with invincible strides.
The army, helpless in the matted thickets and blinded by the
overhanging night, was going to be swallowed.  War, the red animal,
war, the blood-swollen god, would have bloated fill.

Within him something bade to cry out.  He had the impulse to make a
rallying speech, to sing a battle hymn, but he could only get his
tongue to call into the air: "Why--why--what--what 's th' matter?"

Soon he was in the midst of them.  They were leaping and scampering all
about him. Their blanched faces shone in the dusk.  They seemed, for
the most part, to be very burly men. The youth turned from one to
another of them as they galloped along.  His incoherent questions were
lost.  They were heedless of his appeals. They did not seem to see him.

They sometimes gabbled insanely.  One huge man was asking of the sky:
"Say, where de plank road?  Where de plank road!"  It was as if he had
lost a child.  He wept in his pain and dismay.

Presently, men were running hither and thither in all ways.  The
artillery booming, forward, rearward, and on the flanks made jumble of
ideas of direction.  Landmarks had vanished into the gathered gloom.
The youth began to imagine that he had got into the center of the
tremendous quarrel, and he could perceive no way out of it.  From the
mouths of the fleeing men came a thousand wild questions, but no one
made answers.

The youth, after rushing about and throwing interrogations at the
heedless bands of retreating infantry, finally clutched a man by the
arm.  They swung around face to face.

"Why--why--" stammered the youth struggling with his balking tongue.

The man screamed: "Let go me!  Let go me!"  His face was livid and his
eyes were rolling uncontrolled.  He was heaving and panting. He still
grasped his rifle, perhaps having forgotten to release his hold upon
it.  He tugged frantically, and the youth being compelled to lean
forward was dragged several paces.

"Let go me!  Let go me!"

"Why--why--" stuttered the youth.

"Well, then!" bawled the man in a lurid rage.  He adroitly and fiercely
swung his rifle. It crushed upon the youth's head.  The man ran on.

The youth's fingers had turned to paste upon the other's arm.  The
energy was smitten from his muscles.  He saw the flaming wings of
lightning flash before his vision.  There was a deafening rumble of
thunder within his head.

Suddenly his legs seemed to die.  He sank writhing to the ground.  He
tried to arise.  In his efforts against the numbing pain he was like a
man wrestling with a creature of the air.

There was a sinister struggle.

Sometimes he would achieve a position half erect, battle with the air
for a moment, and then fall again, grabbing at the grass.  His face was
of a clammy pallor.  Deep groans were wrenched from him.

At last, with a twisting movement, he got upon his hands and knees, and
from thence, like a babe trying to walk, to his feet.  Pressing his
hands to his temples he went lurching over the grass.

He fought an intense battle with his body. His dulled senses wished him
to swoon and he opposed them stubbornly, his mind portraying unknown
dangers and mutilations if he should fall upon the field.  He went tall
soldier fashion. He imagined secluded spots where he could fall and be
unmolested.  To search for one he strove against the tide of his pain.

Once he put his hand to the top of his head and timidly touched the
wound.  The scratching pain of the contact made him draw a long breath
through his clinched teeth.  His fingers were dabbled with blood.  He
regarded them with a fixed stare.

Around him he could hear the grumble of jolted cannon as the scurrying
horses were lashed toward the front.  Once, a young officer on a
besplashed charger nearly ran him down.  He turned and watched the mass
of guns, men, and horses sweeping in a wide curve toward a gap in a
fence.  The officer was making excited motions with a gauntleted hand.
The guns followed the teams with an air of unwillingness, of being
dragged by the heels.

Some officers of the scattered infantry were cursing and railing like
fishwives.  Their scolding voices could be heard above the din.  Into
the unspeakable jumble in the roadway rode a squadron of cavalry.  The
faded yellow of their facings shone bravely.  There was a mighty
altercation.

The artillery were assembling as if for a conference.

The blue haze of evening was upon the field. The lines of forest were
long purple shadows. One cloud lay along the western sky partly
smothering the red.

As the youth left the scene behind him, he heard the guns suddenly roar
out.  He imagined them shaking in black rage.  They belched and howled
like brass devils guarding a gate.  The soft air was filled with the
tremendous remonstrance.  With it came the shattering peal of opposing
infantry.  Turning to look behind him, he could see sheets of orange
light illumine the shadowy distance.  There were subtle and sudden
lightnings in the far air.  At times he thought he could see heaving
masses of men.

He hurried on in the dusk.  The day had faded until he could barely
distinguish place for his feet.  The purple darkness was filled with
men who lectured and jabbered.  Sometimes he could see them
gesticulating against the blue and somber sky.  There seemed to be a
great ruck of men and munitions spread about in the forest and in the
fields.

The little narrow roadway now lay lifeless. There were overturned
wagons like sun-dried bowlders.  The bed of the former torrent was
choked with the bodies of horses and splintered parts of war machines.

It had come to pass that his wound pained him but little.  He was
afraid to move rapidly, however, for a dread of disturbing it.  He held
his head very still and took many precautions against stumbling.  He
was filled with anxiety, and his face was pinched and drawn in
anticipation of the pain of any sudden mistake of his feet in the gloom.

His thoughts, as he walked, fixed intently upon his hurt.  There was a
cool, liquid feeling about it and he imagined blood moving slowly down
under his hair.  His head seemed swollen to a size that made him think
his neck to be inadequate.

The new silence of his wound made much worriment.  The little
blistering voices of pain that had called out from his scalp were, he
thought, definite in their expression of danger. By them he believed
that he could measure his plight.  But when they remained ominously
silent he became frightened and imagined terrible fingers that clutched
into his brain.

Amid it he began to reflect upon various incidents and conditions of
the past.  He bethought him of certain meals his mother had cooked at
home, in which those dishes of which he was particularly fond had
occupied prominent positions.  He saw the spread table.  The pine walls
of the kitchen were glowing in the warm light from the stove.  Too, he
remembered how he and his companions used to go from the schoolhouse to
the bank of a shaded pool.  He saw his clothes in disorderly array upon
the grass of the bank.  He felt the swash of the fragrant water upon
his body.  The leaves of the overhanging maple rustled with melody in
the wind of youthful summer.

He was overcome presently by a dragging weariness.  His head hung
forward and his shoulders were stooped as if he were bearing a great
bundle.  His feet shuffled along the ground.

He held continuous arguments as to whether he should lie down and sleep
at some near spot, or force himself on until he reached a certain
haven.  He often tried to dismiss the question, but his body persisted
in rebellion and his senses nagged at him like pampered babies.

At last he heard a cheery voice near his shoulder: "Yeh seem t' be in a
pretty bad way, boy?"

The youth did not look up, but he assented with thick tongue.  "Uh!"

The owner of the cheery voice took him firmly by the arm.  "Well," he
said, with a round laugh, "I'm goin' your way.  Th' hull gang is goin'
your way.  An' I guess I kin give yeh a lift."  They began to walk like
a drunken man and his friend.

As they went along, the man questioned the youth and assisted him with
the replies like one manipulating the mind of a child.  Sometimes he
interjected anecdotes.  "What reg'ment do yeh b'long teh?  Eh?  What's
that?  Th' 304th N' York?  Why, what corps is that in?  Oh, it is? Why,
I thought they wasn't engaged t'-day--they 're 'way over in th' center.
Oh, they was, eh?  Well, pretty nearly everybody got their share 'a
fightin' t'-day.  By dad, I give myself up fer dead any number 'a
times.  There was shootin' here an' shootin' there, an' hollerin' here
an' hollerin' there, in th' damn' darkness, until I couldn't tell t'
save m' soul which side I was on. Sometimes I thought I was sure 'nough
from Ohier, an' other times I could 'a swore I was from th' bitter end
of Florida.  It was th' most mixed up dern thing I ever see.  An' these
here hull woods is a reg'lar mess.  It'll be a miracle if we find our
reg'ments t'-night.  Pretty soon, though, we 'll meet a-plenty of
guards an' provost-guards, an' one thing an' another.  Ho! there they
go with an off'cer, I guess.  Look at his hand a-draggin'.  He 's got
all th' war he wants, I bet. He won't be talkin' so big about his
reputation an' all when they go t' sawin' off his leg.  Poor feller! My
brother 's got whiskers jest like that. How did yeh git 'way over here,
anyhow?  Your reg'ment is a long way from here, ain't it?  Well, I
guess we can find it.  Yeh know there was a boy killed in my comp'ny
t'-day that I thought th' world an' all of.  Jack was a nice feller. By
ginger, it hurt like thunder t' see ol' Jack jest git knocked flat. We
was a-standin' purty peaceable fer a spell, 'though there was men
runnin' ev'ry way all 'round us, an' while we was a-standin' like that,
'long come a big fat feller.  He began t' peck at Jack's elbow, an' he
ses: 'Say, where 's th' road t' th' river?'  An' Jack, he never paid no
attention, an' th' feller kept on a-peckin' at his elbow an' sayin':
'Say, where 's th' road t' th' river?'  Jack was a-lookin' ahead all
th' time tryin' t' see th' Johnnies comin' through th' woods, an' he
never paid no attention t' this big fat feller fer a long time, but at
last he turned 'round an' he ses: 'Ah, go t' hell an' find th' road t'
th' river!'  An' jest then a shot slapped him bang on th' side th'
head.  He was a sergeant, too.  Them was his last words.  Thunder, I
wish we was sure 'a findin' our reg'ments t'-night.  It 's goin' t' be
long huntin'.  But I guess we kin do it."

In the search which followed, the man of the cheery voice seemed to the
youth to possess a wand of a magic kind.  He threaded the mazes of the
tangled forest with a strange fortune.  In encounters with guards and
patrols he displayed the keenness of a detective and the valor of a
gamin.  Obstacles fell before him and became of assistance.  The youth,
with his chin still on his breast, stood woodenly by while his
companion beat ways and means out of sullen things.

The forest seemed a vast hive of men buzzing about in frantic circles,
but the cheery man conducted the youth without mistakes, until at last
he began to chuckle with glee and self-satisfaction. "Ah, there yeh
are!  See that fire?"

The youth nodded stupidly.

"Well, there 's where your reg'ment is.  An' now, good-by, ol' boy,
good luck t' yeh."

A warm and strong hand clasped the youth's languid fingers for an
instant, and then he heard a cheerful and audacious whistling as the
man strode away.  As he who had so befriended him was thus passing out
of his life, it suddenly occurred to the youth that he had not once
seen his face.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Henry sees that the advancing soldiers are suddenly streaming out of the woods in full retreat. As they flee, they run straight toward his position, and soon he is surrounded by fearful, disoriented soldiers, determined to move to a safer position. Henry grabs one soldier and attempts to ask him why he is retreating, but the soldier has no intention of talking to Henry, and, when Henry doesn't release him, the soldier strikes him over the head with his rifle. Henry is badly dazed by the blow, and he struggles to stay conscious as he runs with the retreating soldiers. Henry then hears "a cheery voice," the voice of a soldier who recognizes that Henry is hurting and who helps him walk along. The cheery-voiced soldier's conversation rambles over many topics. During this one-way conversation, the cheery soldier learns that Henry's regiment is the 304th. The two continue walking, they eventually arrive at the campsite of Henry's regiment, and the cheery soldier leaves him.


prompt:
Chapter: The youth went slowly toward the fire indicated by his departed friend.
As he reeled, he bethought him of the welcome his comrades would give
him.  He had a conviction that he would soon feel in his sore heart the
barbed missiles of ridicule.  He had no strength to invent a tale; he
would be a soft target.

He made vague plans to go off into the deeper darkness and hide, but
they were all destroyed by the voices of exhaustion and pain from his
body.  His ailments, clamoring, forced him to seek the place of food
and rest, at whatever cost.

He swung unsteadily toward the fire.  He could see the forms of men
throwing black shadows in the red light, and as he went nearer it
became known to him in some way that the ground was strewn with
sleeping men.

Of a sudden he confronted a black and monstrous figure.  A rifle barrel
caught some glinting beams.  "Halt! halt!"  He was dismayed for a
moment, but he presently thought that he recognized the nervous voice.
As he stood tottering before the rifle barrel, he called out: "Why,
hello, Wilson, you--you here?"

The rifle was lowered to a position of caution and the loud soldier
came slowly forward.  He peered into the youth's face.  "That you,
Henry?"

"Yes, it's--it's me."

"Well, well, ol' boy," said the other, "by ginger, I'm glad t' see yeh!
I give yeh up fer a goner.  I thought yeh was dead sure enough."  There
was husky emotion in his voice.

The youth found that now he could barely stand upon his feet.  There
was a sudden sinking of his forces.  He thought he must hasten to
produce his tale to protect him from the missiles already at the lips
of his redoubtable comrades. So, staggering before the loud soldier, he
began: "Yes, yes.  I've--I've had an awful time.  I've been all over.
Way over on th' right.  Ter'ble fightin' over there.  I had an awful
time.  I got separated from th' reg'ment.  Over on th' right, I got
shot.  In th' head.  I never see sech fightin'.  Awful time.  I don't
see how I could 'a got separated from th' reg'ment.  I got shot, too."

His friend had stepped forward quickly. "What?  Got shot?  Why didn't
yeh say so first?  Poor ol' boy, we must--hol' on a minnit; what am I
doin'.  I'll call Simpson."

Another figure at that moment loomed in the gloom.  They could see that
it was the corporal. "Who yeh talkin' to, Wilson?" he demanded. His
voice was anger-toned.  "Who yeh talkin' to?  Yeh th' derndest
sentinel--why--hello, Henry, you here?  Why, I thought you was dead
four hours ago!  Great Jerusalem, they keep turnin' up every ten
minutes or so!  We thought we'd lost forty-two men by straight count,
but if they keep on a-comin' this way, we'll git th' comp'ny all back
by mornin' yit.  Where was yeh?"

"Over on th' right.  I got separated"--began the youth with
considerable glibness.

But his friend had interrupted hastily.  "Yes, an' he got shot in th'
head an' he's in a fix, an' we must see t' him right away."  He rested
his rifle in the hollow of his left arm and his right around the
youth's shoulder.

"Gee, it must hurt like thunder!" he said.

The youth leaned heavily upon his friend. "Yes, it hurts--hurts a good
deal," he replied. There was a faltering in his voice.

"Oh," said the corporal.  He linked his arm in the youth's and drew him
forward.  "Come on, Henry.  I'll take keer 'a yeh."

As they went on together the loud private called out after them: "Put
'im t' sleep in my blanket, Simpson.  An'--hol' on a minnit--here's my
canteen.  It's full 'a coffee.  Look at his head by th' fire an' see
how it looks.  Maybe it's a pretty bad un.  When I git relieved in a
couple 'a minnits, I'll be over an' see t' him."

The youth's senses were so deadened that his friend's voice sounded
from afar and he could scarcely feel the pressure of the corporal's
arm. He submitted passively to the latter's directing strength.  His
head was in the old manner hanging forward upon his breast.  His knees
wobbled.

The corporal led him into the glare of the fire.  "Now, Henry," he
said, "let's have look at yer ol' head."

The youth sat down obediently and the corporal, laying aside his rifle,
began to fumble in the bushy hair of his comrade.  He was obliged to
turn the other's head so that the full flush of the fire light would
beam upon it.  He puckered his mouth with a critical air.  He drew back
his lips and whistled through his teeth when his fingers came in
contact with the splashed blood and the rare wound.

"Ah, here we are!" he said.  He awkwardly made further investigations.
"Jest as I thought," he added, presently.  "Yeh've been grazed by a
ball.  It's raised a queer lump jest as if some feller had lammed yeh
on th' head with a club. It stopped a-bleedin' long time ago.  Th' most
about it is that in th' mornin' yeh'll feel that a number ten hat
wouldn't fit yeh.  An' your head'll be all het up an' feel as dry as
burnt pork. An' yeh may git a lot 'a other sicknesses, too, by mornin'.
Yeh can't never tell.  Still, I don't much think so.  It's jest a damn'
good belt on th' head, an' nothin' more.  Now, you jest sit here an'
don't move, while I go rout out th' relief. Then I'll send Wilson t'
take keer 'a yeh."

The corporal went away.  The youth remained on the ground like a
parcel.  He stared with a vacant look into the fire.

After a time he aroused, for some part, and the things about him began
to take form.  He saw that the ground in the deep shadows was cluttered
with men, sprawling in every conceivable posture.  Glancing narrowly
into the more distant darkness, he caught occasional glimpses of
visages that loomed pallid and ghostly, lit with a phosphorescent glow.
These faces expressed in their lines the deep stupor of the tired
soldiers.  They made them appear like men drunk with wine.  This bit of
forest might have appeared to an ethereal wanderer as a scene of the
result of some frightful debauch.

On the other side of the fire the youth observed an officer asleep,
seated bolt upright, with his back against a tree.  There was something
perilous in his position.  Badgered by dreams, perhaps, he swayed with
little bounces and starts, like an old toddy-stricken grandfather in a
chimney corner.  Dust and stains were upon his face.  His lower jaw
hung down as if lacking strength to assume its normal position.  He was
the picture of an exhausted soldier after a feast of war.

He had evidently gone to sleep with his sword in his arms.  These two
had slumbered in an embrace, but the weapon had been allowed in time to
fall unheeded to the ground.  The brass-mounted hilt lay in contact
with some parts of the fire.

Within the gleam of rose and orange light from the burning sticks were
other soldiers, snoring and heaving, or lying deathlike in slumber.  A
few pairs of legs were stuck forth, rigid and straight.  The shoes
displayed the mud or dust of marches and bits of rounded trousers,
protruding from the blankets, showed rents and tears from hurried
pitchings through the dense brambles.

The fire crackled musically.  From it swelled light smoke.  Overhead
the foliage moved softly.  The leaves, with their faces turned toward
the blaze, were colored shifting hues of silver, often edged with red.
Far off to the right, through a window in the forest could be seen a
handful of stars lying, like glittering pebbles, on the black level of
the night.

Occasionally, in this low-arched hall, a soldier would arouse and turn
his body to a new position, the experience of his sleep having taught
him of uneven and objectionable places upon the ground under him.  Or,
perhaps, he would lift himself to a sitting posture, blink at the fire
for an unintelligent moment, throw a swift glance at his prostrate
companion, and then cuddle down again with a grunt of sleepy content.

The youth sat in a forlorn heap until his friend the loud young soldier
came, swinging two canteens by their light strings.  "Well, now, Henry,
ol' boy," said the latter, "we'll have yeh fixed up in jest about a
minnit."

He had the bustling ways of an amateur nurse.  He fussed around the
fire and stirred the sticks to brilliant exertions.  He made his
patient drink largely from the canteen that contained the coffee.  It
was to the youth a delicious draught. He tilted his head afar back and
held the canteen long to his lips.  The cool mixture went caressingly
down his blistered throat.  Having finished, he sighed with comfortable
delight.

The loud young soldier watched his comrade with an air of satisfaction.
He later produced an extensive handkerchief from his pocket.  He folded
it into a manner of bandage and soused water from the other canteen
upon the middle of it.  This crude arrangement he bound over the
youth's head, tying the ends in a queer knot at the back of the neck.

"There," he said, moving off and surveying his deed, "yeh look like th'
devil, but I bet yeh feel better."

The youth contemplated his friend with grateful eyes.  Upon his aching
and swelling head the cold cloth was like a tender woman's hand.

"Yeh don't holler ner say nothin'," remarked his friend approvingly. "I
know I'm a blacksmith at takin' keer 'a sick folks, an' yeh never
squeaked.  Yer a good un, Henry.  Most 'a men would a' been in th'
hospital long ago.  A shot in th' head ain't foolin' business."

The youth made no reply, but began to fumble with the buttons of his
jacket.

"Well, come, now," continued his friend, "come on.  I must put yeh t'
bed an' see that yeh git a good night's rest."

The other got carefully erect, and the loud young soldier led him among
the sleeping forms lying in groups and rows.  Presently he stooped and
picked up his blankets.  He spread the rubber one upon the ground and
placed the woolen one about the youth's shoulders.

"There now," he said, "lie down an' git some sleep."

The youth, with his manner of doglike obedience, got carefully down
like a crone stooping.  He stretched out with a murmur of relief and
comfort.  The ground felt like the softest couch.

But of a sudden he ejaculated: "Hol' on a minnit!  Where you goin' t'
sleep?"

His friend waved his hand impatiently. "Right down there by yeh."

"Well, but hol' on a minnit," continued the youth.  "What yeh goin' t'
sleep in?  I've got your--"

The loud young soldier snarled: "Shet up an' go on t' sleep.  Don't be
makin' a damn' fool 'a yerself," he said severely.

After the reproof the youth said no more. An exquisite drowsiness had
spread through him. The warm comfort of the blanket enveloped him and
made a gentle languor.  His head fell forward on his crooked arm and
his weighted lids went softly down over his eyes.  Hearing a splatter
of musketry from the distance, he wondered indifferently if those men
sometimes slept.  He gave a long sigh, snuggled down into his blanket,
and in a moment was like his comrades.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: As Henry approaches the campfire, he is stopped by a sentry. The sentry is Wilson, who is overjoyed to see Henry because he feared that Henry had been killed in battle. As the two talk, Henry explains his disappearance by saying that he got separated from the company, and he extends this falsehood by saying that he also got shot in the head. The corporal, Simpson, overhears this conversation and asks Wilson what is going on. Wilson explains that Henry has returned, and Simpson comments that if men continue to return at this rate over the course of the night, by morning, the entire company will be back. Simpson tells Henry to sit down, and Henry does so with great relief. Wilson comforts Henry, dresses his head wound , lets him have some coffee, and gives him his blankets for the night.


prompt:
Chapter: When the youth awoke it seemed to him that he had been asleep for a
thousand years, and he felt sure that he opened his eyes upon an
unexpected world.  Gray mists were slowly shifting before the first
efforts of the sun rays.  An impending splendor could be seen in the
eastern sky.  An icy dew had chilled his face, and immediately upon
arousing he curled farther down into his blanket.  He stared for a
while at the leaves overhead, moving in a heraldic wind of the day.

The distance was splintering and blaring with the noise of fighting.
There was in the sound an expression of a deadly persistency, as if it
had not begun and was not to cease.

About him were the rows and groups of men that he had dimly seen the
previous night.  They were getting a last draught of sleep before the
awakening.  The gaunt, careworn features and dusty figures were made
plain by this quaint light at the dawning, but it dressed the skin of
the men in corpselike hues and made the tangled limbs appear pulseless
and dead.  The youth started up with a little cry when his eyes first
swept over this motionless mass of men, thick-spread upon the ground,
pallid, and in strange postures.  His disordered mind interpreted the
hall of the forest as a charnel place.  He believed for an instant that
he was in the house of the dead, and he did not dare to move lest these
corpses start up, squalling and squawking.  In a second, however, he
achieved his proper mind. He swore a complicated oath at himself.  He
saw that this somber picture was not a fact of the present, but a mere
prophecy.

He heard then the noise of a fire crackling briskly in the cold air,
and, turning his head, he saw his friend pottering busily about a small
blaze.  A few other figures moved in the fog, and he heard the hard
cracking of axe blows.

Suddenly there was a hollow rumble of drums.  A distant bugle sang
faintly.  Similar sounds, varying in strength, came from near and far
over the forest.  The bugles called to each other like brazen
gamecocks.  The near thunder of the regimental drums rolled.

The body of men in the woods rustled.  There was a general uplifting of
heads.  A murmuring of voices broke upon the air.  In it there was much
bass of grumbling oaths.  Strange gods were addressed in condemnation
of the early hours necessary to correct war.  An officer's peremptory
tenor rang out and quickened the stiffened movement of the men.  The
tangled limbs unraveled.  The corpse-hued faces were hidden behind
fists that twisted slowly in the eye sockets.

The youth sat up and gave vent to an enormous yawn.  "Thunder!" he
remarked petulantly. He rubbed his eyes, and then putting up his hand
felt carefully of the bandage over his wound. His friend, perceiving
him to be awake, came from the fire.  "Well, Henry, ol' man, how do yeh
feel this mornin'?" he demanded.

The youth yawned again.  Then he puckered his mouth to a little pucker.
His head, in truth, felt precisely like a melon, and there was an
unpleasant sensation at his stomach.

"Oh, Lord, I feel pretty bad," he said.

"Thunder!" exclaimed the other.  "I hoped ye'd feel all right this
mornin'.  Let's see th' bandage--I guess it's slipped."  He began to
tinker at the wound in rather a clumsy way until the youth exploded.

"Gosh-dern it!" he said in sharp irritation; "you're the hangdest man I
ever saw!  You wear muffs on your hands.  Why in good thunderation
can't you be more easy?  I'd rather you'd stand off an' throw guns at
it.  Now, go slow, an' don't act as if you was nailing down carpet."

He glared with insolent command at his friend, but the latter answered
soothingly. "Well, well, come now, an' git some grub," he said.  "Then,
maybe, yeh'll feel better."

At the fireside the loud young soldier watched over his comrade's wants
with tenderness and care.  He was very busy marshaling the little black
vagabonds of tin cups and pouring into them the streaming, iron colored
mixture from a small and sooty tin pail.  He had some fresh meat, which
he roasted hurriedly upon a stick.  He sat down then and contemplated
the youth's appetite with glee.

The youth took note of a remarkable change in his comrade since those
days of camp life upon the river bank.  He seemed no more to be
continually regarding the proportions of his personal prowess.  He was
not furious at small words that pricked his conceits.  He was no more a
loud young soldier.  There was about him now a fine reliance.  He
showed a quiet belief in his purposes and his abilities.  And this
inward confidence evidently enabled him to be indifferent to little
words of other men aimed at him.

The youth reflected.  He had been used to regarding his comrade as a
blatant child with an audacity grown from his inexperience,
thoughtless, headstrong, jealous, and filled with a tinsel courage.  A
swaggering babe accustomed to strut in his own dooryard.  The youth
wondered where had been born these new eyes; when his comrade had made
the great discovery that there were many men who would refuse to be
subjected by him.  Apparently, the other had now climbed a peak of
wisdom from which he could perceive himself as a very wee thing.  And
the youth saw that ever after it would be easier to live in his
friend's neighborhood.

His comrade balanced his ebony coffee-cup on his knee.  "Well, Henry,"
he said, "what d'yeh think th' chances are?  D'yeh think we'll wallop
'em?"

The youth considered for a moment.  "Day-b'fore-yesterday," he finally
replied, with boldness, "you would 'a' bet you'd lick the hull
kit-an'-boodle all by yourself."

His friend looked a trifle amazed.  "Would I?" he asked.  He pondered.
"Well, perhaps I would," he decided at last.  He stared humbly at the
fire.

The youth was quite disconcerted at this surprising reception of his
remarks.  "Oh, no, you wouldn't either," he said, hastily trying to
retrace.

But the other made a deprecating gesture. "Oh, yeh needn't mind,
Henry," he said.  "I believe I was a pretty big fool in those days." He
spoke as after a lapse of years.

There was a little pause.

"All th' officers say we've got th' rebs in a pretty tight box," said
the friend, clearing his throat in a commonplace way.  "They all seem
t' think we've got 'em jest where we want 'em."

"I don't know about that," the youth replied. "What I seen over on th'
right makes me think it was th' other way about.  From where I was, it
looked as if we was gettin' a good poundin' yestirday."

"D'yeh think so?" inquired the friend.  "I thought we handled 'em
pretty rough yestirday."

"Not a bit," said the youth.  "Why, lord, man, you didn't see nothing
of the fight.  Why!" Then a sudden thought came to him.  "Oh! Jim
Conklin's dead."

His friend started.  "What?  Is he?  Jim Conklin?"

The youth spoke slowly.  "Yes.  He's dead. Shot in th' side."

"Yeh don't say so.  Jim Conklin. . . . poor cuss!"

All about them were other small fires surrounded by men with their
little black utensils. From one of these near came sudden sharp voices
in a row.  It appeared that two light-footed soldiers had been teasing
a huge, bearded man, causing him to spill coffee upon his blue knees.
The man had gone into a rage and had sworn comprehensively.  Stung by
his language, his tormentors had immediately bristled at him with a
great show of resenting unjust oaths. Possibly there was going to be a
fight.

The friend arose and went over to them, making pacific motions with his
arms.  "Oh, here, now, boys, what's th' use?" he said.  "We'll be at
th' rebs in less'n an hour.  What's th' good fightin' 'mong ourselves?"

One of the light-footed soldiers turned upon him red-faced and violent.
"Yeh needn't come around here with yer preachin'.  I s'pose yeh don't
approve 'a fightin' since Charley Morgan licked yeh; but I don't see
what business this here is 'a yours or anybody else."

"Well, it ain't," said the friend mildly.  "Still I hate t' see--"

There was a tangled argument.

"Well, he--," said the two, indicating their opponent with accusative
forefingers.

The huge soldier was quite purple with rage. He pointed at the two
soldiers with his great hand, extended clawlike.  "Well, they--"

But during this argumentative time the desire to deal blows seemed to
pass, although they said much to each other.  Finally the friend
returned to his old seat.  In a short while the three antagonists could
be seen together in an amiable bunch.

"Jimmie Rogers ses I'll have t' fight him after th' battle t'-day,"
announced the friend as he again seated himself.  "He ses he don't
allow no interferin' in his business.  I hate t' see th' boys fightin'
'mong themselves."

The youth laughed.  "Yer changed a good bit.  Yeh ain't at all like yeh
was.  I remember when you an' that Irish feller--"  He stopped and
laughed again.

"No, I didn't use t' be that way," said his friend thoughtfully.
"That's true 'nough."

"Well, I didn't mean--" began the youth.

The friend made another deprecatory gesture. "Oh, yeh needn't mind,
Henry."

There was another little pause.

"Th' reg'ment lost over half th' men yestirday," remarked the friend
eventually.  "I thought a course they was all dead, but, laws, they
kep' a-comin' back last night until it seems, after all, we didn't lose
but a few.  They'd been scattered all over, wanderin' around in th'
woods, fightin' with other reg'ments, an' everything.  Jest like you
done."

"So?" said the youth.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Henry sleeps soundly. He is awakened by the noise of battle. As he awakens, he sees the forms of men lying around him. Not remembering where he is, he thinks that he is surrounded by corpses and that he is resting among them. He soon remembers where he is, and the sound of the morning bugle calls all these "corpses," including himself, back to life. Wilson, the loud soldier, greets him heartily, but Henry responds angrily -- especially as he reacts to his throbbing head injury. Wilson, however, persists in helping Henry, and Henry marvels at how Wilson has changed from a boastful, agitated soldier to a veteran who can show compassion and care for a comrade. When Wilson asks Henry to assess the prospects for winning the next battle on this day, Henry responds as if he were a battle-hardened veteran, commenting on the ferocity of yesterday's battle and the tenacity of the rebel forces. Henry also mentions that Jim Conklin has been killed, and Wilson seems genuinely moved by this news. While Henry and Wilson are talking, three soldiers get into a heated argument, and Wilson tries to calm them down. Henry is impressed with Wilson's strength of character and his willingness to put himself in jeopardy for the good of others. Henry mentions that he recognizes how much that Wilson has changed. Wilson makes light of Henry's remarks, and the chapter closes when Wilson comments that the regiment's numbers are not as low as he had thought because many men are returning from being separated from the regiment, "Jest like you done."


prompt:
Chapter: The regiment was standing at order arms at the side of a lane, waiting
for the command to march, when suddenly the youth remembered the little
packet enwrapped in a faded yellow envelope which the loud young
soldier with lugubrious words had intrusted to him.  It made him start.
He uttered an exclamation and turned toward his comrade.

"Wilson!"

"What?"

His friend, at his side in the ranks, was thoughtfully staring down the
road.  From some cause his expression was at that moment very meek. The
youth, regarding him with sidelong glances, felt impelled to change his
purpose.  "Oh, nothing," he said.

His friend turned his head in some surprise, "Why, what was yeh goin'
t' say?"

"Oh, nothing," repeated the youth.

He resolved not to deal the little blow.  It was sufficient that the
fact made him glad.  It was not necessary to knock his friend on the
head with the misguided packet.

He had been possessed of much fear of his friend, for he saw how easily
questionings could make holes in his feelings.  Lately, he had assured
himself that the altered comrade would not tantalize him with a
persistent curiosity, but he felt certain that during the first period
of leisure his friend would ask him to relate his adventures of the
previous day.

He now rejoiced in the possession of a small weapon with which he could
prostrate his comrade at the first signs of a cross-examination.  He
was master.  It would now be he who could laugh and shoot the shafts of
derision.

The friend had, in a weak hour, spoken with sobs of his own death.  He
had delivered a melancholy oration previous to his funeral, and had
doubtless in the packet of letters, presented various keepsakes to
relatives.  But he had not died, and thus he had delivered himself into
the hands of the youth.

The latter felt immensely superior to his friend, but he inclined to
condescension.  He adopted toward him an air of patronizing good humor.

His self-pride was now entirely restored.  In the shade of its
flourishing growth he stood with braced and self-confident legs, and
since nothing could now be discovered he did not shrink from an
encounter with the eyes of judges, and allowed no thoughts of his own
to keep him from an attitude of manfulness.  He had performed his
mistakes in the dark, so he was still a man.

Indeed, when he remembered his fortunes of yesterday, and looked at
them from a distance he began to see something fine there.  He had
license to be pompous and veteranlike.

His panting agonies of the past he put out of his sight.

In the present, he declared to himself that it was only the doomed and
the damned who roared with sincerity at circumstance.  Few but they
ever did it.  A man with a full stomach and the respect of his fellows
had no business to scold about anything that he might think to be wrong
in the ways of the universe, or even with the ways of society.  Let the
unfortunates rail; the others may play marbles.

He did not give a great deal of thought to these battles that lay
directly before him.  It was not essential that he should plan his ways
in regard to them.  He had been taught that many obligations of a life
were easily avoided.  The lessons of yesterday had been that
retribution was a laggard and blind.  With these facts before him he
did not deem it necessary that he should become feverish over the
possibilities of the ensuing twenty-four hours.  He could leave much to
chance.  Besides, a faith in himself had secretly blossomed.  There was
a little flower of confidence growing within him.  He was now a man of
experience.  He had been out among the dragons, he said, and he assured
himself that they were not so hideous as he had imagined them. Also,
they were inaccurate; they did not sting with precision.  A stout heart
often defied, and defying, escaped.

And, furthermore, how could they kill him who was the chosen of gods
and doomed to greatness?

He remembered how some of the men had run from the battle.  As he
recalled their terror-struck faces he felt a scorn for them.  They had
surely been more fleet and more wild than was absolutely necessary.
They were weak mortals. As for himself, he had fled with discretion and
dignity.

He was aroused from this reverie by his friend, who, having hitched
about nervously and blinked at the trees for a time, suddenly coughed
in an introductory way, and spoke.

"Fleming!"

"What?"

The friend put his hand up to his mouth and coughed again.  He fidgeted
in his jacket.

"Well," he gulped, at last, "I guess yeh might as well give me back
them letters."  Dark, prickling blood had flushed into his cheeks and
brow.

"All right, Wilson," said the youth.  He loosened two buttons of his
coat, thrust in his hand, and brought forth the packet.  As he extended
it to his friend the latter's face was turned from him.

He had been slow in the act of producing the packet because during it
he had been trying to invent a remarkable comment upon the affair. He
could conjure nothing of sufficient point.  He was compelled to allow
his friend to escape unmolested with his packet.  And for this he took
unto himself considerable credit.  It was a generous thing.

His friend at his side seemed suffering great shame.  As he
contemplated him, the youth felt his heart grow more strong and stout.
He had never been compelled to blush in such manner for his acts; he
was an individual of extraordinary virtues.

He reflected, with condescending pity: "Too bad!  Too bad!  The poor
devil, it makes him feel tough!"

After this incident, and as he reviewed the battle pictures he had
seen, he felt quite competent to return home and make the hearts of the
people glow with stories of war.  He could see himself in a room of
warm tints telling tales to listeners.  He could exhibit laurels.  They
were insignificant; still, in a district where laurels were infrequent,
they might shine.

He saw his gaping audience picturing him as the central figure in
blazing scenes.  And he imagined the consternation and the ejaculations
of his mother and the young lady at the seminary as they drank his
recitals.  Their vague feminine formula for beloved ones doing brave
deeds on the field of battle without risk of life would be destroyed.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: As the regiment prepares to move out, Henry and Wilson are marching together. Henry realizes that he is still carrying the letters which Wilson had given him when Wilson thought that he was going to die in battle. With this realization, Henry becomes confident, almost swaggering. He decides not to mention the letters to Wilson, and instead rejoices, knowing that the secret of the letters gives him the power to snub any questions that Wilson may ask him about his head wound. Henry feels superior to his friend, and he begins to rationalize his former behavior. He looks with disdain on the other soldiers who ran because, of course, their running could not compare to his running. His retreat was heroic, while theirs was tragic. When Wilson asks for his letters back, Henry feels magnanimous in returning them without saying anything derogatory or deprecating. He feels that he is now "an individual of extraordinary virtues," and he looks forward to returning home to tell of the glories of war.