prompt:
Chapter: The roarings that had stretched in a long line of sound across the face
of the forest began to grow intermittent and weaker.  The stentorian
speeches of the artillery continued in some distant encounter, but the
crashes of the musketry had almost ceased.  The youth and his friend of
a sudden looked up, feeling a deadened form of distress at the waning
of these noises, which had become a part of life.  They could see
changes going on among the troops.  There were marchings this way and
that way.  A battery wheeled leisurely.  On the crest of a small hill
was the thick gleam of many departing muskets.

The youth arose.  "Well, what now, I wonder?" he said.  By his tone he
seemed to be preparing to resent some new monstrosity in the way of
dins and smashes.  He shaded his eyes with his grimy hand and gazed
over the field.

His friend also arose and stared.  "I bet we're goin' t' git along out
of this an' back over th' river," said he.

"Well, I swan!" said the youth.

They waited, watching.  Within a little while the regiment received
orders to retrace its way. The men got up grunting from the grass,
regretting the soft repose.  They jerked their stiffened legs, and
stretched their arms over their heads. One man swore as he rubbed his
eyes.  They all groaned "O Lord!"  They had as many objections to this
change as they would have had to a proposal for a new battle.

They trampled slowly back over the field across which they had run in a
mad scamper.

The regiment marched until it had joined its fellows.  The reformed
brigade, in column, aimed through a wood at the road.  Directly they
were in a mass of dust-covered troops, and were trudging along in a way
parallel to the enemy's lines as these had been defined by the previous
turmoil.

They passed within view of a stolid white house, and saw in front of it
groups of their comrades lying in wait behind a neat breastwork.  A row
of guns were booming at a distant enemy. Shells thrown in reply were
raising clouds of dust and splinters.  Horsemen dashed along the line
of intrenchments.

At this point of its march the division curved away from the field and
went winding off in the direction of the river.  When the significance
of this movement had impressed itself upon the youth he turned his head
and looked over his shoulder toward the trampled and debris-strewed
ground.  He breathed a breath of new satisfaction.  He finally nudged
his friend.  "Well, it's all over," he said to him.

His friend gazed backward.  "B'Gawd, it is," he assented.  They mused.

For a time the youth was obliged to reflect in a puzzled and uncertain
way.  His mind was undergoing a subtle change.  It took moments for it
to cast off its battleful ways and resume its accustomed course of
thought.  Gradually his brain emerged from the clogged clouds, and at
last he was enabled to more closely comprehend himself and circumstance.

He understood then that the existence of shot and counter-shot was in
the past.  He had dwelt in a land of strange, squalling upheavals and
had come forth.  He had been where there was red of blood and black of
passion, and he was escaped.  His first thoughts were given to
rejoicings at this fact.

Later he began to study his deeds, his failures, and his achievements.
Thus, fresh from scenes where many of his usual machines of reflection
had been idle, from where he had proceeded sheeplike, he struggled to
marshal all his acts.

At last they marched before him clearly. From this present view point
he was enabled to look upon them in spectator fashion and to criticise
them with some correctness, for his new condition had already defeated
certain sympathies.

Regarding his procession of memory he felt gleeful and unregretting,
for in it his public deeds were paraded in great and shining
prominence. Those performances which had been witnessed by his fellows
marched now in wide purple and gold, having various deflections.  They
went gayly with music.  It was pleasure to watch these things.  He
spent delightful minutes viewing the gilded images of memory.

He saw that he was good.  He recalled with a thrill of joy the
respectful comments of his fellows upon his conduct.

Nevertheless, the ghost of his flight from the first engagement
appeared to him and danced.  There were small shoutings in his brain
about these matters.  For a moment he blushed, and the light of his
soul flickered with shame.

A specter of reproach came to him.  There loomed the dogging memory of
the tattered soldier--he who, gored by bullets and faint for blood, had
fretted concerning an imagined wound in another; he who had loaned his
last of strength and intellect for the tall soldier; he who, blind with
weariness and pain, had been deserted in the field.

For an instant a wretched chill of sweat was upon him at the thought
that he might be detected in the thing.  As he stood persistently
before his vision, he gave vent to a cry of sharp irritation and agony.

His friend turned.  "What's the matter, Henry?" he demanded.  The
youth's reply was an outburst of crimson oaths.

As he marched along the little branch-hung roadway among his prattling
companions this vision of cruelty brooded over him.  It clung near him
always and darkened his view of these deeds in purple and gold.
Whichever way his thoughts turned they were followed by the somber
phantom of the desertion in the fields. He looked stealthily at his
companions, feeling sure that they must discern in his face evidences
of this pursuit.  But they were plodding in ragged array, discussing
with quick tongues the accomplishments of the late battle.

"Oh, if a man should come up an' ask me, I'd say we got a dum good
lickin'."

"Lickin'--in yer eye!  We ain't licked, sonny. We're goin' down here
aways, swing aroun', an' come in behint 'em."

"Oh, hush, with your comin' in behint 'em. I've seen all 'a that I
wanta.  Don't tell me about comin' in behint--"

"Bill Smithers, he ses he'd rather been in ten hundred battles than
been in that heluva hospital.  He ses they got shootin' in th'
night-time, an' shells dropped plum among 'em in th' hospital.  He ses
sech hollerin' he never see."

"Hasbrouck?  He's th' best off'cer in this here reg'ment.  He's a
whale."

"Didn't I tell yeh we'd come aroun' in behint 'em?  Didn't I tell yeh
so?  We--"

"Oh, shet yeh mouth!"

For a time this pursuing recollection of the tattered man took all
elation from the youth's veins.  He saw his vivid error, and he was
afraid that it would stand before him all his life.  He took no share
in the chatter of his comrades, nor did he look at them or know them,
save when he felt sudden suspicion that they were seeing his thoughts
and scrutinizing each detail of the scene with the tattered soldier.

Yet gradually he mustered force to put the sin at a distance.  And at
last his eyes seemed to open to some new ways.  He found that he could
look back upon the brass and bombast of his earlier gospels and see
them truly.  He was gleeful when he discovered that he now despised
them.

With this conviction came a store of assurance.  He felt a quiet
manhood, nonassertive but of sturdy and strong blood.  He knew that he
would no more quail before his guides wherever they should point.  He
had been to touch the great death, and found that, after all, it was
but the great death.  He was a man.

So it came to pass that as he trudged from the place of blood and wrath
his soul changed. He came from hot plowshares to prospects of clover
tranquilly, and it was as if hot plowshares were not.  Scars faded as
flowers.

It rained.  The procession of weary soldiers became a bedraggled train,
despondent and muttering, marching with churning effort in a trough of
liquid brown mud under a low, wretched sky.  Yet the youth smiled, for
he saw that the world was a world for him, though many discovered it to
be made of oaths and walking sticks.  He had rid himself of the red
sickness of battle.  The sultry nightmare was in the past. He had been
an animal blistered and sweating in the heat and pain of war.  He
turned now with a lover's thirst to images of tranquil skies, fresh
meadows, cool brooks--an existence of soft and eternal peace.

Over the river a golden ray of sun came through the hosts of leaden
rain clouds.

[Transcriber's Note: I have tried to retain the inconsistent renderings
of contractions as joined or separate, e.g., "we 'll" or "we'll."

I have made the following changes to the text:

PAGE  PARA.  LINE  ORIGINAL          CHANGED TO
  18     3      3  estabiish         establish
  40     3      2  skirmish          skirmish-
  78     4      4  a air             an air
 130            2  recognzied        recognized
 130     4     12  could a'          could 'a
 139     2      4  not began         not begun
 193     2     16  illusions to      allusions to]

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

completion: As Henry and Wilson rest, they see a large number of troop movements and changes in artillery positions. These movements and changes are not occurring in a rapid, hurried fashion by men preparing for battle, but, rather, in a slower, more leisurely fashion by men beginning to withdraw. The officers begin to organize the troops for a return to their previous position. The regiment links up with the other regiments in the brigade, as well as with a mass of other troops, and the entire division moves away from the front. The importance of these linkages and this massive movement prompts Henry to say to Wilson, "Well, it's all over." Wilson's reply, "B'Gawd, it is," sends Henry into a detailed, introspective assessment of his entire war experience to this point. It then begins to rain. As Henry walks in this rain shower, he realizes that "he had rid himself of the red sickness of battle. The sultry nightmare was in the past." As he continues on the road back to his camp, he looks to the sky, and he feels "an existence of soft and eternal peace" -- just as the sun breaks through the clouds.


prompt:
Chapter: The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs
revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.  As the landscape
changed from brown to green, the army awakened, and began to tremble
with eagerness at the noise of rumors.  It cast its eyes upon the
roads, which were growing from long troughs of liquid mud to proper
thoroughfares.  A river, amber-tinted in the shadow of its banks,
purled at the army's feet; and at night, when the stream had become of
a sorrowful blackness, one could see across it the red, eyelike gleam
of hostile camp-fires set in the low brows of distant hills.

Once a certain tall soldier developed virtues and went resolutely to
wash a shirt.  He came flying back from a brook waving his garment
bannerlike.  He was swelled with a tale he had heard from a reliable
friend, who had heard it from a truthful cavalryman, who had heard it
from his trustworthy brother, one of the orderlies at division
headquarters.  He adopted the important air of a herald in red and
gold. "We're goin' t' move t'morrah--sure," he said pompously to a
group in the company street.  "We're goin' 'way up the river, cut
across, an' come around in behint 'em."

To his attentive audience he drew a loud and elaborate plan of a very
brilliant campaign. When he had finished, the blue-clothed men
scattered into small arguing groups between the rows of squat brown
huts.  A negro teamster who had been dancing upon a cracker box with
the hilarious encouragement of twoscore soldiers was deserted.  He sat
mournfully down.  Smoke drifted lazily from a multitude of quaint
chimneys.

"It's a lie! that's all it is--a thunderin' lie!" said another private
loudly.  His smooth face was flushed, and his hands were thrust sulkily
into his trousers' pockets.  He took the matter as an affront to him.
"I don't believe the derned old army's ever going to move.  We're set.
I've got ready to move eight times in the last two weeks, and we ain't
moved yet."

The tall soldier felt called upon to defend the truth of a rumor he
himself had introduced. He and the loud one came near to fighting over
it.

A corporal began to swear before the assemblage.  He had just put a
costly board floor in his house, he said.  During the early spring he
had refrained from adding extensively to the comfort of his environment
because he had felt that the army might start on the march at any
moment.  Of late, however, he had been impressed that they were in a
sort of eternal camp.

Many of the men engaged in a spirited debate. One outlined in a
peculiarly lucid manner all the plans of the commanding general.  He
was opposed by men who advocated that there were other plans of
campaign.  They clamored at each other, numbers making futile bids for
the popular attention.  Meanwhile, the soldier who had fetched the
rumor bustled about with much importance.  He was continually assailed
by questions.

"What's up, Jim?"

"Th' army's goin' t' move."

"Ah, what yeh talkin' about?  How yeh know it is?"

"Well, yeh kin b'lieve me er not, jest as yeh like.  I don't care a
hang."

There was much food for thought in the manner in which he replied.  He
came near to convincing them by disdaining to produce proofs. They grew
excited over it.

There was a youthful private who listened with eager ears to the words
of the tall soldier and to the varied comments of his comrades. After
receiving a fill of discussions concerning marches and attacks, he went
to his hut and crawled through an intricate hole that served it as a
door.  He wished to be alone with some new thoughts that had lately
come to him.

He lay down on a wide bank that stretched across the end of the room.
In the other end, cracker boxes were made to serve as furniture. They
were grouped about the fireplace.  A picture from an illustrated weekly
was upon the log walls, and three rifles were paralleled on pegs.
Equipments hung on handy projections, and some tin dishes lay upon a
small pile of firewood.  A folded tent was serving as a roof.  The
sunlight, without, beating upon it, made it glow a light yellow shade.
A small window shot an oblique square of whiter light upon the
cluttered floor. The smoke from the fire at times neglected the clay
chimney and wreathed into the room, and this flimsy chimney of clay and
sticks made endless threats to set ablaze the whole establishment.

The youth was in a little trance of astonishment. So they were at last
going to fight.  On the morrow, perhaps, there would be a battle, and
he would be in it.  For a time he was obliged to labor to make himself
believe.  He could not accept with assurance an omen that he was about
to mingle in one of those great affairs of the earth.

He had, of course, dreamed of battles all his life--of vague and bloody
conflicts that had thrilled him with their sweep and fire.  In visions
he had seen himself in many struggles.  He had imagined peoples secure
in the shadow of his eagle-eyed prowess.  But awake he had regarded
battles as crimson blotches on the pages of the past.  He had put them
as things of the bygone with his thought-images of heavy crowns and
high castles.  There was a portion of the world's history which he had
regarded as the time of wars, but it, he thought, had been long gone
over the horizon and had disappeared forever.

From his home his youthful eyes had looked upon the war in his own
country with distrust. It must be some sort of a play affair.  He had
long despaired of witnessing a Greeklike struggle. Such would be no
more, he had said.  Men were better, or more timid.  Secular and
religious education had effaced the throat-grappling instinct, or else
firm finance held in check the passions.

He had burned several times to enlist.  Tales of great movements shook
the land.  They might not be distinctly Homeric, but there seemed to be
much glory in them.  He had read of marches, sieges, conflicts, and he
had longed to see it all. His busy mind had drawn for him large
pictures extravagant in color, lurid with breathless deeds.

But his mother had discouraged him.  She had affected to look with some
contempt upon the quality of his war ardor and patriotism.  She could
calmly seat herself and with no apparent difficulty give him many
hundreds of reasons why he was of vastly more importance on the farm
than on the field of battle.  She had had certain ways of expression
that told him that her statements on the subject came from a deep
conviction.  Moreover, on her side, was his belief that her ethical
motive in the argument was impregnable.

At last, however, he had made firm rebellion against this yellow light
thrown upon the color of his ambitions.  The newspapers, the gossip of
the village, his own picturings had aroused him to an uncheckable
degree.  They were in truth fighting finely down there.  Almost every
day the newspapers printed accounts of a decisive victory.

One night, as he lay in bed, the winds had carried to him the
clangoring of the church bell as some enthusiast jerked the rope
frantically to tell the twisted news of a great battle.  This voice of
the people rejoicing in the night had made him shiver in a prolonged
ecstasy of excitement.  Later, he had gone down to his mother's room
and had spoken thus: "Ma, I'm going to enlist."

"Henry, don't you be a fool," his mother had replied.  She had then
covered her face with the quilt.  There was an end to the matter for
that night.

Nevertheless, the next morning he had gone to a town that was near his
mother's farm and had enlisted in a company that was forming there.
When he had returned home his mother was milking the brindle cow.  Four
others stood waiting.  "Ma, I've enlisted," he had said to her
diffidently.  There was a short silence.  "The Lord's will be done,
Henry," she had finally replied, and had then continued to milk the
brindle cow.

When he had stood in the doorway with his soldier's clothes on his
back, and with the light of excitement and expectancy in his eyes
almost defeating the glow of regret for the home bonds, he had seen two
tears leaving their trails on his mother's scarred cheeks.

Still, she had disappointed him by saying nothing whatever about
returning with his shield or on it.  He had privately primed himself
for a beautiful scene.  He had prepared certain sentences which he
thought could be used with touching effect.  But her words destroyed
his plans.  She had doggedly peeled potatoes and addressed him as
follows: "You watch out, Henry, an' take good care of yerself in this
here fighting business--you watch out, an' take good care of yerself.
Don't go a-thinkin' you can lick the hull rebel army at the start,
because yeh can't.  Yer jest one little feller amongst a hull lot of
others, and yeh've got to keep quiet an' do what they tell yeh.  I know
how you are, Henry.

"I've knet yeh eight pair of socks, Henry, and I've put in all yer best
shirts, because I want my boy to be jest as warm and comf'able as
anybody in the army.  Whenever they get holes in 'em, I want yeh to
send 'em right-away back to me, so's I kin dern 'em.

"An' allus be careful an' choose yer comp'ny. There's lots of bad men
in the army, Henry. The army makes 'em wild, and they like nothing
better than the job of leading off a young feller like you, as ain't
never been away from home much and has allus had a mother, an'
a-learning 'em to drink and swear.  Keep clear of them folks, Henry.  I
don't want yeh to ever do anything, Henry, that yeh would be 'shamed to
let me know about.  Jest think as if I was a-watchin' yeh.  If yeh keep
that in yer mind allus, I guess yeh'll come out about right.

"Yeh must allus remember yer father, too, child, an' remember he never
drunk a drop of licker in his life, and seldom swore a cross oath.

"I don't know what else to tell yeh, Henry, excepting that yeh must
never do no shirking, child, on my account.  If so be a time comes when
yeh have to be kilt or do a mean thing, why, Henry, don't think of
anything 'cept what's right, because there's many a woman has to bear
up 'ginst sech things these times, and the Lord 'll take keer of us all.

"Don't forgit about the socks and the shirts, child; and I've put a cup
of blackberry jam with yer bundle, because I know yeh like it above all
things.  Good-by, Henry.  Watch out, and be a good boy."

He had, of course, been impatient under the ordeal of this speech.  It
had not been quite what he expected, and he had borne it with an air of
irritation.  He departed feeling vague relief.

Still, when he had looked back from the gate, he had seen his mother
kneeling among the potato parings.  Her brown face, upraised, was
stained with tears, and her spare form was quivering.  He bowed his
head and went on, feeling suddenly ashamed of his purposes.

From his home he had gone to the seminary to bid adieu to many
schoolmates.  They had thronged about him with wonder and admiration.
He had felt the gulf now between them and had swelled with calm pride.
He and some of his fellows who had donned blue were quite overwhelmed
with privileges for all of one afternoon, and it had been a very
delicious thing.  They had strutted.

A certain light-haired girl had made vivacious fun at his martial
spirit, but there was another and darker girl whom he had gazed at
steadfastly, and he thought she grew demure and sad at sight of his
blue and brass.  As he had walked down the path between the rows of
oaks, he had turned his head and detected her at a window watching his
departure.  As he perceived her, she had immediately begun to stare up
through the high tree branches at the sky.  He had seen a good deal of
flurry and haste in her movement as she changed her attitude.  He often
thought of it.

On the way to Washington his spirit had soared.  The regiment was fed
and caressed at station after station until the youth had believed that
he must be a hero.  There was a lavish expenditure of bread and cold
meats, coffee, and pickles and cheese.  As he basked in the smiles of
the girls and was patted and complimented by the old men, he had felt
growing within him the strength to do mighty deeds of arms.

After complicated journeyings with many pauses, there had come months
of monotonous life in a camp.  He had had the belief that real war was
a series of death struggles with small time in between for sleep and
meals; but since his regiment had come to the field the army had done
little but sit still and try to keep warm.

He was brought then gradually back to his old ideas.  Greeklike
struggles would be no more. Men were better, or more timid.  Secular
and religious education had effaced the throat-grappling instinct, or
else firm finance held in check the passions.

He had grown to regard himself merely as a part of a vast blue
demonstration.  His province was to look out, as far as he could, for
his personal comfort.  For recreation he could twiddle his thumbs and
speculate on the thoughts which must agitate the minds of the generals.
Also, he was drilled and drilled and reviewed, and drilled and drilled
and reviewed.

The only foes he had seen were some pickets along the river bank.  They
were a sun-tanned, philosophical lot, who sometimes shot reflectively
at the blue pickets.  When reproached for this afterward, they usually
expressed sorrow, and swore by their gods that the guns had exploded
without their permission.  The youth, on guard duty one night,
conversed across the stream with one of them.  He was a slightly ragged
man, who spat skillfully between his shoes and possessed a great fund
of bland and infantile assurance.  The youth liked him personally.

"Yank," the other had informed him, "yer a right dum good feller." This
sentiment, floating to him upon the still air, had made him temporarily
regret war.

Various veterans had told him tales.  Some talked of gray, bewhiskered
hordes who were advancing with relentless curses and chewing tobacco
with unspeakable valor; tremendous bodies of fierce soldiery who were
sweeping along like the Huns.  Others spoke of tattered and eternally
hungry men who fired despondent powders.  "They'll charge through
hell's fire an' brimstone t' git a holt on a haversack, an' sech
stomachs ain't a-lastin' long," he was told.  From the stories, the
youth imagined the red, live bones sticking out through slits in the
faded uniforms.

Still, he could not put a whole faith in veterans' tales, for recruits
were their prey.  They talked much of smoke, fire, and blood, but he
could not tell how much might be lies.  They persistently yelled "Fresh
fish!" at him, and were in no wise to be trusted.

However, he perceived now that it did not greatly matter what kind of
soldiers he was going to fight, so long as they fought, which fact no
one disputed.  There was a more serious problem.  He lay in his bunk
pondering upon it.  He tried to mathematically prove to himself that he
would not run from a battle.

Previously he had never felt obliged to wrestle too seriously with this
question.  In his life he had taken certain things for granted, never
challenging his belief in ultimate success, and bothering little about
means and roads.  But here he was confronted with a thing of moment. It
had suddenly appeared to him that perhaps in a battle he might run. He
was forced to admit that as far as war was concerned he knew nothing of
himself.

A sufficient time before he would have allowed the problem to kick its
heels at the outer portals of his mind, but now he felt compelled to
give serious attention to it.

A little panic-fear grew in his mind.  As his imagination went forward
to a fight, he saw hideous possibilities.  He contemplated the lurking
menaces of the future, and failed in an effort to see himself standing
stoutly in the midst of them. He recalled his visions of broken-bladed
glory, but in the shadow of the impending tumult he suspected them to
be impossible pictures.

He sprang from the bunk and began to pace nervously to and fro.  "Good
Lord, what's th' matter with me?" he said aloud.

He felt that in this crisis his laws of life were useless.  Whatever he
had learned of himself was here of no avail.  He was an unknown
quantity. He saw that he would again be obliged to experiment as he had
in early youth.  He must accumulate information of himself, and
meanwhile he resolved to remain close upon his guard lest those
qualities of which he knew nothing should everlastingly disgrace him.
"Good Lord!" he repeated in dismay.

After a time the tall soldier slid dexterously through the hole.  The
loud private followed. They were wrangling.

"That's all right," said the tall soldier as he entered.  He waved his
hand expressively.  "You can believe me or not, jest as you like.  All
you got to do is to sit down and wait as quiet as you can.  Then pretty
soon you'll find out I was right."

His comrade grunted stubbornly.  For a moment he seemed to be searching
for a formidable reply.  Finally he said: "Well, you don't know
everything in the world, do you?"

"Didn't say I knew everything in the world," retorted the other
sharply.  He began to stow various articles snugly into his knapsack.

The youth, pausing in his nervous walk, looked down at the busy figure.
"Going to be a battle, sure, is there, Jim?" he asked.

"Of course there is," replied the tall soldier. "Of course there is.
You jest wait 'til to-morrow, and you'll see one of the biggest battles
ever was. You jest wait."

"Thunder!" said the youth.

"Oh, you'll see fighting this time, my boy, what'll be regular
out-and-out fighting," added the tall soldier, with the air of a man
who is about to exhibit a battle for the benefit of his friends.

"Huh!" said the loud one from a corner.

"Well," remarked the youth, "like as not this story'll turn out jest
like them others did."

"Not much it won't," replied the tall soldier, exasperated.  "Not much
it won't.  Didn't the cavalry all start this morning?"  He glared about
him.  No one denied his statement.  "The cavalry started this morning,"
he continued.  "They say there ain't hardly any cavalry left in camp.
They're going to Richmond, or some place, while we fight all the
Johnnies.  It's some dodge like that.  The regiment's got orders, too.
A feller what seen 'em go to headquarters told me a little while ago.
And they're raising blazes all over camp--anybody can see that."

"Shucks!" said the loud one.

The youth remained silent for a time.  At last he spoke to the tall
soldier.  "Jim!"

"What?"

"How do you think the reg'ment 'll do?"

"Oh, they'll fight all right, I guess, after they once get into it,"
said the other with cold judgment.  He made a fine use of the third
person. "There's been heaps of fun poked at 'em because they're new, of
course, and all that; but they'll fight all right, I guess."

"Think any of the boys 'll run?" persisted the youth.

"Oh, there may be a few of 'em run, but there's them kind in every
regiment, 'specially when they first goes under fire," said the other
in a tolerant way.  "Of course it might happen that the hull
kit-and-boodle might start and run, if some big fighting came
first-off, and then again they might stay and fight like fun.  But you
can't bet on nothing.  Of course they ain't never been under fire yet,
and it ain't likely they'll lick the hull rebel army all-to-oncet the
first time; but I think they'll fight better than some, if worse than
others.  That's the way I figger.  They call the reg'ment 'Fresh fish'
and everything; but the boys come of good stock, and most of 'em 'll
fight like sin after they oncet git shootin'," he added, with a mighty
emphasis on the last four words.

"Oh, you think you know--" began the loud soldier with scorn.

The other turned savagely upon him.  They had a rapid altercation, in
which they fastened upon each other various strange epithets.

The youth at last interrupted them.  "Did you ever think you might run
yourself, Jim?" he asked.  On concluding the sentence he laughed as if
he had meant to aim a joke.  The loud soldier also giggled.

The tall private waved his hand.  "Well," said he profoundly, "I've
thought it might get too hot for Jim Conklin in some of them
scrimmages, and if a whole lot of boys started and run, why, I s'pose
I'd start and run.  And if I once started to run, I'd run like the
devil, and no mistake.  But if everybody was a-standing and a-fighting,
why, I'd stand and fight.  Be jiminey, I would.  I'll bet on it."

"Huh!" said the loud one.

The youth of this tale felt gratitude for these words of his comrade.
He had feared that all of the untried men possessed a great and correct
confidence.  He now was in a measure reassured.

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

completion: Whatever he had learned of himself was here of no avail. He was an unknown quantity. On a cold, foggy morning, an army wakes on the banks of a river. A tall soldier named Jim Conklin begins his day by washing his shirt, and rushes back to camp to report a rumor he has overheard: the regiment will move into battle the next day. As the men in this particular squad have yet to face any military action, Jim's words provoke much excitement and debate. One private loudly declares Conklin a liar, and a corporal complains that he would not have made costly renovations to his house if he had known he would be called to leave it. Henry Fleming, a young private, listens attentively to the arguments, then retreats to his bunk to collect his thoughts. Having dreamed of the glory and valor of battle since childhood, Henry cannot believe that he may find himself in the heat of combat the very next day. He wonders if soldiers in his regiment can possibly achieve the same glory that the ancient Greek war heroes did. He believes that religion, education, and common household concerns have tamed men, sapping them of "the throat-grappling instinct," but that, in battle, they can still prove themselves worthy. In fact, the conviction that battle may be the only way for a man to distinguish himself prompted Henry to enlist in the first place. He remembers how his mother discouraged this course of action, how she refused to share in his romantic ideas of dying a celebrated war hero. He thinks of her parting advice to him: never to do anything he would feel ashamed to tell her. She encourages him to do the right thing and not to shirk his duties for the sake of returning home alive to care for her; she assures him that she will carry on whether or not he returns. Henry remembers his journey to Washington, where the regiment assembled and enjoyed an abundance of food, the friendly smiles of girls, and the assurances of men. There, Henry felt as if he had become a hero. The months that followed his enlistment, however, were monotonous and static. The daily grind of camp life has forced Henry to abandon thoughts of glory. He struggles, instead, to preserve his own personal well-being. Given his discomfort, Henry wonders if he will be capable of thriving in battle. With rumors of a march into a fierce skirmish the following day, Henry realizes that his character has gone untested up until this point in his life. He wonders if he has the fortitude to endure battle, or if cowardice will make him flee. When Jim returns to the tent, Henry asks him if he would ever consider running from battle. Jim answers that he would likely follow the cues of the men surrounding him, fighting when they fought, running when they ran. Henry feels relieved that he is not alone in questioning his own courage.


prompt:
Chapter: The next morning the youth discovered that his tall comrade had been
the fast-flying messenger of a mistake.  There was much scoffing at the
latter by those who had yesterday been firm adherents of his views, and
there was even a little sneering by men who had never believed the
rumor.  The tall one fought with a man from Chatfield Corners and beat
him severely.

The youth felt, however, that his problem was in no wise lifted from
him.  There was, on the contrary, an irritating prolongation.  The tale
had created in him a great concern for himself. Now, with the newborn
question in his mind, he was compelled to sink back into his old place
as part of a blue demonstration.

For days he made ceaseless calculations, but they were all wondrously
unsatisfactory.  He found that he could establish nothing.  He finally
concluded that the only way to prove himself was to go into the blaze,
and then figuratively to watch his legs to discover their merits and
faults. He reluctantly admitted that he could not sit still and with a
mental slate and pencil derive an answer.  To gain it, he must have
blaze, blood, and danger, even as a chemist requires this, that, and
the other.  So he fretted for an opportunity.

Meanwhile he continually tried to measure himself by his comrades.  The
tall soldier, for one, gave him some assurance.  This man's serene
unconcern dealt him a measure of confidence, for he had known him since
childhood, and from his intimate knowledge he did not see how he could
be capable of anything that was beyond him, the youth.  Still, he
thought that his comrade might be mistaken about himself. Or, on the
other hand, he might be a man heretofore doomed to peace and obscurity,
but, in reality, made to shine in war.

The youth would have liked to have discovered another who suspected
himself.  A sympathetic comparison of mental notes would have been a
joy to him.

He occasionally tried to fathom a comrade with seductive sentences.  He
looked about to find men in the proper mood.  All attempts failed to
bring forth any statement which looked in any way like a confession to
those doubts which he privately acknowledged in himself. He was afraid
to make an open declaration of his concern, because he dreaded to place
some unscrupulous confidant upon the high plane of the unconfessed from
which elevation he could be derided.

In regard to his companions his mind wavered between two opinions,
according to his mood.  Sometimes he inclined to believing them all
heroes.  In fact, he usually admitted in secret the superior
development of the higher qualities in others.  He could conceive of
men going very insignificantly about the world bearing a load of
courage unseen, and although he had known many of his comrades through
boyhood, he began to fear that his judgment of them had been blind.
Then, in other moments, he flouted these theories, and assured himself
that his fellows were all privately wondering and quaking.

His emotions made him feel strange in the presence of men who talked
excitedly of a prospective battle as of a drama they were about to
witness, with nothing but eagerness and curiosity apparent in their
faces.  It was often that he suspected them to be liars.

He did not pass such thoughts without severe condemnation of himself.
He dinned reproaches at times.  He was convicted by himself of many
shameful crimes against the gods of traditions.

In his great anxiety his heart was continually clamoring at what he
considered the intolerable slowness of the generals.  They seemed
content to perch tranquilly on the river bank, and leave him bowed down
by the weight of a great problem.  He wanted it settled forthwith.  He
could not long bear such a load, he said.  Sometimes his anger at the
commanders reached an acute stage, and he grumbled about the camp like
a veteran.

One morning, however, he found himself in the ranks of his prepared
regiment.  The men were whispering speculations and recounting the old
rumors.  In the gloom before the break of the day their uniforms glowed
a deep purple hue.  From across the river the red eyes were still
peering.  In the eastern sky there was a yellow patch like a rug laid
for the feet of the coming sun; and against it, black and patternlike,
loomed the gigantic figure of the colonel on a gigantic horse.

From off in the darkness came the trampling of feet.  The youth could
occasionally see dark shadows that moved like monsters.  The regiment
stood at rest for what seemed a long time. The youth grew impatient. It
was unendurable the way these affairs were managed.  He wondered how
long they were to be kept waiting.

As he looked all about him and pondered upon the mystic gloom, he began
to believe that at any moment the ominous distance might be aflare, and
the rolling crashes of an engagement come to his ears.  Staring once at
the red eyes across the river, he conceived them to be growing larger,
as the orbs of a row of dragons advancing.  He turned toward the
colonel and saw him lift his gigantic arm and calmly stroke his
mustache.

At last he heard from along the road at the foot of the hill the
clatter of a horse's galloping hoofs.  It must be the coming of orders.
He bent forward, scarce breathing.  The exciting clickety-click, as it
grew louder and louder, seemed to be beating upon his soul.  Presently
a horseman with jangling equipment drew rein before the colonel of the
regiment.  The two held a short, sharp-worded conversation.  The men in
the foremost ranks craned their necks.

As the horseman wheeled his animal and galloped away he turned to shout
over his shoulder, "Don't forget that box of cigars!"  The colonel
mumbled in reply.  The youth wondered what a box of cigars had to do
with war.

A moment later the regiment went swinging off into the darkness.  It
was now like one of those moving monsters wending with many feet. The
air was heavy, and cold with dew.  A mass of wet grass, marched upon,
rustled like silk.

There was an occasional flash and glimmer of steel from the backs of
all these huge crawling reptiles.  From the road came creakings and
grumblings as some surly guns were dragged away.

The men stumbled along still muttering speculations.  There was a
subdued debate.  Once a man fell down, and as he reached for his rifle
a comrade, unseeing, trod upon his hand.  He of the injured fingers
swore bitterly and aloud.  A low, tittering laugh went among his
fellows.

Presently they passed into a roadway and marched forward with easy
strides.  A dark regiment moved before them, and from behind also came
the tinkle of equipments on the bodies of marching men.

The rushing yellow of the developing day went on behind their backs.
When the sunrays at last struck full and mellowingly upon the earth,
the youth saw that the landscape was streaked with two long, thin,
black columns which disappeared on the brow of a hill in front and
rearward vanished in a wood.  They were like two serpents crawling from
the cavern of the night.

The river was not in view.  The tall soldier burst into praises of what
he thought to be his powers of perception.

Some of the tall one's companions cried with emphasis that they, too,
had evolved the same thing, and they congratulated themselves upon it.
But there were others who said that the tall one's plan was not the
true one at all.  They persisted with other theories.  There was a
vigorous discussion.

The youth took no part in them.  As he walked along in careless line he
was engaged with his own eternal debate.  He could not hinder himself
from dwelling upon it.  He was despondent and sullen, and threw
shifting glances about him.  He looked ahead, often expecting to hear
from the advance the rattle of firing.

But the long serpents crawled slowly from hill to hill without bluster
of smoke.  A dun-colored cloud of dust floated away to the right. The
sky overhead was of a fairy blue.

The youth studied the faces of his companions, ever on the watch to
detect kindred emotions.  He suffered disappointment.  Some ardor of
the air which was causing the veteran commands to move with
glee--almost with song--had infected the new regiment.  The men began
to speak of victory as of a thing they knew. Also, the tall soldier
received his vindication. They were certainly going to come around in
behind the enemy.  They expressed commiseration for that part of the
army which had been left upon the river bank, felicitating themselves
upon being a part of a blasting host.

The youth, considering himself as separated from the others, was
saddened by the blithe and merry speeches that went from rank to rank.
The company wags all made their best endeavors.  The regiment tramped
to the tune of laughter.

The blatant soldier often convulsed whole files by his biting sarcasms
aimed at the tall one.

And it was not long before all the men seemed to forget their mission.
Whole brigades grinned in unison, and regiments laughed.

A rather fat soldier attempted to pilfer a horse from a dooryard.  He
planned to load his knap-sack upon it.  He was escaping with his prize
when a young girl rushed from the house and grabbed the animal's mane.
There followed a wrangle.  The young girl, with pink cheeks and shining
eyes, stood like a dauntless statue.

The observant regiment, standing at rest in the roadway, whooped at
once, and entered whole-souled upon the side of the maiden.  The men
became so engrossed in this affair that they entirely ceased to
remember their own large war. They jeered the piratical private, and
called attention to various defects in his personal appearance; and
they were wildly enthusiastic in support of the young girl.

To her, from some distance, came bold advice. "Hit him with a stick."

There were crows and catcalls showered upon him when he retreated
without the horse. The regiment rejoiced at his downfall.  Loud and
vociferous congratulations were showered upon the maiden, who stood
panting and regarding the troops with defiance.

At nightfall the column broke into regimental pieces, and the fragments
went into the fields to camp.  Tents sprang up like strange plants.
Camp fires, like red, peculiar blossoms, dotted the night.

The youth kept from intercourse with his companions as much as
circumstances would allow him.  In the evening he wandered a few paces
into the gloom.  From this little distance the many fires, with the
black forms of men passing to and fro before the crimson rays, made
weird and satanic effects.

He lay down in the grass.  The blades pressed tenderly against his
cheek.  The moon had been lighted and was hung in a treetop. The liquid
stillness of the night enveloping him made him feel vast pity for
himself.  There was a caress in the soft winds; and the whole mood of
the darkness, he thought, was one of sympathy for himself in his
distress.

He wished, without reserve, that he was at home again making the
endless rounds from the house to the barn, from the barn to the fields,
from the fields to the barn, from the barn to the house.  He remembered
he had often cursed the brindle cow and her mates, and had sometimes
flung milking stools.  But, from his present point of view, there was a
halo of happiness about each of their heads, and he would have
sacrificed all the brass buttons on the continent to have been enabled
to return to them.  He told himself that he was not formed for a
soldier.  And he mused seriously upon the radical differences between
himself and those men who were dodging imp-like around the fires.

As he mused thus he heard the rustle of grass, and, upon turning his
head, discovered the loud soldier.  He called out, "Oh, Wilson!"

The latter approached and looked down. "Why, hello, Henry; is it you?
What you doing here?"

"Oh, thinking," said the youth.

The other sat down and carefully lighted his pipe.  "You're getting
blue, my boy.  You're looking thundering peeked.  What the dickens is
wrong with you?"

"Oh, nothing," said the youth.

The loud soldier launched then into the subject of the anticipated
fight.  "Oh, we've got 'em now!"  As he spoke his boyish face was
wreathed in a gleeful smile, and his voice had an exultant ring. "We've
got 'em now.  At last, by the eternal thunders, we'll lick 'em good!"

"If the truth was known," he added, more soberly, "THEY'VE licked US
about every clip up to now; but this time--this time--we'll lick 'em
good!"

"I thought you was objecting to this march a little while ago," said
the youth coldly.

"Oh, it wasn't that," explained the other.  "I don't mind marching, if
there's going to be fighting at the end of it.  What I hate is this
getting moved here and moved there, with no good coming of it, as far
as I can see, excepting sore feet and damned short rations."

"Well, Jim Conklin says we'll get a plenty of fighting this time."

"He's right for once, I guess, though I can't see how it come.  This
time we're in for a big battle, and we've got the best end of it,
certain sure.  Gee rod! how we will thump 'em!"

He arose and began to pace to and fro excitedly.  The thrill of his
enthusiasm made him walk with an elastic step.  He was sprightly,
vigorous, fiery in his belief in success.  He looked into the future
with clear, proud eye, and he swore with the air of an old soldier.

The youth watched him for a moment in silence.  When he finally spoke
his voice was as bitter as dregs.  "Oh, you're going to do great
things, I s'pose!"

The loud soldier blew a thoughtful cloud of smoke from his pipe.  "Oh,
I don't know," he remarked with dignity; "I don't know.  I s'pose I'll
do as well as the rest.  I'm going to try like thunder."  He evidently
complimented himself upon the modesty of this statement.

"How do you know you won't run when the time comes?" asked the youth.

"Run?" said the loud one; "run?--of course not!"  He laughed.

"Well," continued the youth, "lots of good-a-'nough men have thought
they was going to do great things before the fight, but when the time
come they skedaddled."

"Oh, that's all true, I s'pose," replied the other; "but I'm not going
to skedaddle.  The man that bets on my running will lose his money,
that's all."  He nodded confidently.

"Oh, shucks!" said the youth.  "You ain't the bravest man in the world,
are you?"

"No, I ain't," exclaimed the loud soldier indignantly; "and I didn't
say I was the bravest man in the world, neither.  I said I was going to
do my share of fighting--that's what I said.  And I am, too.  Who are
you, anyhow.  You talk as if you thought you was Napoleon Bonaparte."
He glared at the youth for a moment, and then strode away.

The youth called in a savage voice after his comrade: "Well, you
needn't git mad about it!" But the other continued on his way and made
no reply.

He felt alone in space when his injured comrade had disappeared.  His
failure to discover any mite of resemblance in their view points made
him more miserable than before.  No one seemed to be wrestling with
such a terrific personal problem.  He was a mental outcast.

He went slowly to his tent and stretched himself on a blanket by the
side of the snoring tall soldier.  In the darkness he saw visions of a
thousand-tongued fear that would babble at his back and cause him to
flee, while others were going coolly about their country's business. He
admitted that he would not be able to cope with this monster.  He felt
that every nerve in his body would be an ear to hear the voices, while
other men would remain stolid and deaf.

And as he sweated with the pain of these thoughts, he could hear low,
serene sentences. "I'll bid five."  "Make it six."  "Seven." "Seven
goes."

He stared at the red, shivering reflection of a fire on the white wall
of his tent until, exhausted and ill from the monotony of his
suffering, he fell asleep.

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

completion: The next morning, the soldiers learn that Jim was mistaken: the army does not move. Henry continues to worry about his courage, and watches his comrades for any sign that they share his self-doubt. One day, the army is given orders and begins to march. While marching, the soldiers debate when and if they will see battle. Henry keeps to himself, too preoccupied with his own speculations to join the other men. The regiment enjoys itself, and is wildly amused when a fat soldier attempts to steal a horse but the young girl who owns it stops him. At night, the men set up camp, and Henry, feeling "vast pity for himself," asks Wilson if he can imagine himself running from battle. Wilson indignantly claims that he would do his part in a battle and leaves Henry feeling even more alone


prompt:
Chapter: WHEN another night came the columns, changed to purple streaks, filed
across two pontoon bridges.  A glaring fire wine-tinted the waters of
the river.  Its rays, shining upon the moving masses of troops, brought
forth here and there sudden gleams of silver or gold.  Upon the other
shore a dark and mysterious range of hills was curved against the sky.
The insect voices of the night sang solemnly.

After this crossing the youth assured himself that at any moment they
might be suddenly and fearfully assaulted from the caves of the
lowering woods.  He kept his eyes watchfully upon the darkness.

But his regiment went unmolested to a camping place, and its soldiers
slept the brave sleep of wearied men.  In the morning they were routed
out with early energy, and hustled along a narrow road that led deep
into the forest.

It was during this rapid march that the regiment lost many of the marks
of a new command.

The men had begun to count the miles upon their fingers, and they grew
tired.  "Sore feet an' damned short rations, that's all," said the loud
soldier.  There was perspiration and grumblings.  After a time they
began to shed their knapsacks.  Some tossed them unconcernedly down;
others hid them carefully, asserting their plans to return for them at
some convenient time.  Men extricated themselves from thick shirts.
Presently few carried anything but their necessary clothing, blankets,
haversacks, canteens, and arms and ammunition.  "You can now eat and
shoot," said the tall soldier to the youth. "That's all you want to do."

There was sudden change from the ponderous infantry of theory to the
light and speedy infantry of practice.  The regiment, relieved of a
burden, received a new impetus.  But there was much loss of valuable
knapsacks, and, on the whole, very good shirts.

But the regiment was not yet veteranlike in appearance.  Veteran
regiments in the army were likely to be very small aggregations of men.
Once, when the command had first come to the field, some perambulating
veterans, noting the length of their column, had accosted them thus:
"Hey, fellers, what brigade is that?"  And when the men had replied
that they formed a regiment and not a brigade, the older soldiers had
laughed, and said, "O Gawd!"

Also, there was too great a similarity in the hats.  The hats of a
regiment should properly represent the history of headgear for a period
of years.  And, moreover, there were no letters of faded gold speaking
from the colors.  They were new and beautiful, and the color bearer
habitually oiled the pole.

Presently the army again sat down to think. The odor of the peaceful
pines was in the men's nostrils.  The sound of monotonous axe blows
rang through the forest, and the insects, nodding upon their perches,
crooned like old women. The youth returned to his theory of a blue
demonstration.

One gray dawn, however, he was kicked in the leg by the tall soldier,
and then, before he was entirely awake, he found himself running down a
wood road in the midst of men who were panting from the first effects
of speed.  His canteen banged rhythmically upon his thigh, and his
haversack bobbed softly.  His musket bounced a trifle from his shoulder
at each stride and made his cap feel uncertain upon his head.

He could hear the men whisper jerky sentences: "Say--what's all
this--about?"  "What th' thunder--we--skedaddlin' this way fer?"
"Billie--keep off m' feet.  Yeh run--like a cow." And the loud
soldier's shrill voice could be heard: "What th' devil they in sich a
hurry for?"

The youth thought the damp fog of early morning moved from the rush of
a great body of troops.  From the distance came a sudden spatter of
firing.

He was bewildered.  As he ran with his comrades he strenuously tried to
think, but all he knew was that if he fell down those coming behind
would tread upon him.  All his faculties seemed to be needed to guide
him over and past obstructions.  He felt carried along by a mob.

The sun spread disclosing rays, and, one by one, regiments burst into
view like armed men just born of the earth.  The youth perceived that
the time had come.  He was about to be measured.  For a moment he felt
in the face of his great trial like a babe, and the flesh over his
heart seemed very thin.  He seized time to look about him calculatingly.

But he instantly saw that it would be impossible for him to escape from
the regiment.  It inclosed him.  And there were iron laws of tradition
and law on four sides.  He was in a moving box.

As he perceived this fact it occurred to him that he had never wished
to come to the war. He had not enlisted of his free will.  He had been
dragged by the merciless government.  And now they were taking him out
to be slaughtered.

The regiment slid down a bank and wallowed across a little stream.  The
mournful current moved slowly on, and from the water, shaded black,
some white bubble eyes looked at the men.

As they climbed the hill on the farther side artillery began to boom.
Here the youth forgot many things as he felt a sudden impulse of
curiosity.  He scrambled up the bank with a speed that could not be
exceeded by a bloodthirsty man.

He expected a battle scene.

There were some little fields girted and squeezed by a forest.  Spread
over the grass and in among the tree trunks, he could see knots and
waving lines of skirmishers who were running hither and thither and
firing at the landscape. A dark battle line lay upon a sunstruck
clearing that gleamed orange color.  A flag fluttered.

Other regiments floundered up the bank.  The brigade was formed in line
of battle, and after a pause started slowly through the woods in the
rear of the receding skirmishers, who were continually melting into the
scene to appear again farther on.  They were always busy as bees,
deeply absorbed in their little combats.

The youth tried to observe everything.  He did not use care to avoid
trees and branches, and his forgotten feet were constantly knocking
against stones or getting entangled in briers. He was aware that these
battalions with their commotions were woven red and startling into the
gentle fabric of softened greens and browns. It looked to be a wrong
place for a battle field.

The skirmishers in advance fascinated him. Their shots into thickets
and at distant and prominent trees spoke to him of tragedies--hidden,
mysterious, solemn.

Once the line encountered the body of a dead soldier.  He lay upon his
back staring at the sky. He was dressed in an awkward suit of yellowish
brown.  The youth could see that the soles of his shoes had been worn
to the thinness of writing paper, and from a great rent in one the dead
foot projected piteously.  And it was as if fate had betrayed the
soldier.  In death it exposed to his enemies that poverty which in life
he had perhaps concealed from his friends.

The ranks opened covertly to avoid the corpse. The invulnerable dead
man forced a way for himself.  The youth looked keenly at the ashen
face. The wind raised the tawny beard.  It moved as if a hand were
stroking it.  He vaguely desired to walk around and around the body and
stare; the impulse of the living to try to read in dead eyes the answer
to the Question.

During the march the ardor which the youth had acquired when out of
view of the field rapidly faded to nothing.  His curiosity was quite
easily satisfied.  If an intense scene had caught him with its wild
swing as he came to the top of the bank, he might have gone roaring on.
This advance upon Nature was too calm.  He had opportunity to reflect.
He had time in which to wonder about himself and to attempt to probe
his sensations.

Absurd ideas took hold upon him.  He thought that he did not relish the
landscape. It threatened him.  A coldness swept over his back, and it
is true that his trousers felt to him that they were no fit for his
legs at all.

A house standing placidly in distant fields had to him an ominous look.
The shadows of the woods were formidable.  He was certain that in this
vista there lurked fierce-eyed hosts.  The swift thought came to him
that the generals did not know what they were about.  It was all a
trap.  Suddenly those close forests would bristle with rifle barrels.
Ironlike brigades would appear in the rear.  They were all going to be
sacrificed.  The generals were stupids.  The enemy would presently
swallow the whole command.  He glared about him, expecting to see the
stealthy approach of his death.

He thought that he must break from the ranks and harangue his comrades.
They must not all be killed like pigs; and he was sure it would come to
pass unless they were informed of these dangers.  The generals were
idiots to send them marching into a regular pen.  There was but one
pair of eyes in the corps.  He would step forth and make a speech.
Shrill and passionate words came to his lips.

The line, broken into moving fragments by the ground, went calmly on
through fields and woods. The youth looked at the men nearest him, and
saw, for the most part, expressions of deep interest, as if they were
investigating something that had fascinated them.  One or two stepped
with overvaliant airs as if they were already plunged into war.  Others
walked as upon thin ice.  The greater part of the untested men appeared
quiet and absorbed.  They were going to look at war, the red
animal--war, the blood-swollen god.  And they were deeply engrossed in
this march.

As he looked the youth gripped his outcry at his throat.  He saw that
even if the men were tottering with fear they would laugh at his
warning.  They would jeer him, and, if practicable, pelt him with
missiles.  Admitting that he might be wrong, a frenzied declamation of
the kind would turn him into a worm.

He assumed, then, the demeanor of one who knows that he is doomed alone
to unwritten responsibilities.  He lagged, with tragic glances at the
sky.

He was surprised presently by the young lieutenant of his company, who
began heartily to beat him with a sword, calling out in a loud and
insolent voice: "Come, young man, get up into ranks there.  No
skulking'll do here."  He mended his pace with suitable haste.  And he
hated the lieutenant, who had no appreciation of fine minds.  He was a
mere brute.

After a time the brigade was halted in the cathedral light of a forest.
The busy skirmishers were still popping.  Through the aisles of the
wood could be seen the floating smoke from their rifles.  Sometimes it
went up in little balls, white and compact.

During this halt many men in the regiment began erecting tiny hills in
front of them.  They used stones, sticks, earth, and anything they
thought might turn a bullet.  Some built comparatively large ones,
while others seemed content with little ones.

This procedure caused a discussion among the men.  Some wished to fight
like duelists, believing it to be correct to stand erect and be, from
their feet to their foreheads, a mark.  They said they scorned the
devices of the cautious.  But the others scoffed in reply, and pointed
to the veterans on the flanks who were digging at the ground like
terriers.  In a short time there was quite a barricade along the
regimental fronts. Directly, however, they were ordered to withdraw
from that place.

This astounded the youth.  He forgot his stewing over the advance
movement.  "Well, then, what did they march us out here for?" he
demanded of the tall soldier.  The latter with calm faith began a heavy
explanation, although he had been compelled to leave a little
protection of stones and dirt to which he had devoted much care and
skill.

When the regiment was aligned in another position each man's regard for
his safety caused another line of small intrenchments.  They ate their
noon meal behind a third one.  They were moved from this one also. They
were marched from place to place with apparent aimlessness.

The youth had been taught that a man became another thing in a battle.
He saw his salvation in such a change.  Hence this waiting was an
ordeal to him.  He was in a fever of impatience.  He considered that
there was denoted a lack of purpose on the part of the generals. He
began to complain to the tall soldier.  "I can't stand this much
longer," he cried.  "I don't see what good it does to make us wear out
our legs for nothin'."  He wished to return to camp, knowing that this
affair was a blue demonstration; or else to go into a battle and
discover that he had been a fool in his doubts, and was, in truth, a
man of traditional courage. The strain of present circumstances he felt
to be intolerable.

The philosophical tall soldier measured a sandwich of cracker and pork
and swallowed it in a nonchalant manner.  "Oh, I suppose we must go
reconnoitering around the country jest to keep 'em from getting too
close, or to develop 'em, or something."

"Huh!" said the loud soldier.

"Well," cried the youth, still fidgeting, "I'd rather do anything 'most
than go tramping 'round the country all day doing no good to nobody and
jest tiring ourselves out."

"So would I," said the loud soldier.  "It ain't right.  I tell you if
anybody with any sense was a-runnin' this army it--"

"Oh, shut up!" roared the tall private.  "You little fool.  You little
damn' cuss.  You ain't had that there coat and them pants on for six
months, and yet you talk as if--"

"Well, I wanta do some fighting anyway," interrupted the other.  "I
didn't come here to walk.  I could 'ave walked to home--'round an'
'round the barn, if I jest wanted to walk."

The tall one, red-faced, swallowed another sandwich as if taking poison
in despair.

But gradually, as he chewed, his face became again quiet and contented.
He could not rage in fierce argument in the presence of such
sandwiches.  During his meals he always wore an air of blissful
contemplation of the food he had swallowed.  His spirit seemed then to
be communing with the viands.

He accepted new environment and circumstance with great coolness,
eating from his haversack at every opportunity.  On the march he went
along with the stride of a hunter, objecting to neither gait nor
distance.  And he had not raised his voice when he had been ordered
away from three little protective piles of earth and stone, each of
which had been an engineering feat worthy of being made sacred to the
name of his grandmother.

In the afternoon the regiment went out over the same ground it had
taken in the morning.  The landscape then ceased to threaten the youth.
He had been close to it and become familiar with it.

When, however, they began to pass into a new region, his old fears of
stupidity and incompetence reassailed him, but this time he doggedly
let them babble.  He was occupied with his problem, and in his
desperation he concluded that the stupidity did not greatly matter.

Once he thought he had concluded that it would be better to get killed
directly and end his troubles.  Regarding death thus out of the corner
of his eye, he conceived it to be nothing but rest, and he was filled
with a momentary astonishment that he should have made an extraordinary
commotion over the mere matter of getting killed.  He would die; he
would go to some place where he would be understood. It was useless to
expect appreciation of his profound and fine senses from such men as
the lieutenant.  He must look to the grave for comprehension.

The skirmish fire increased to a long chattering sound.  With it was
mingled far-away cheering.  A battery spoke.

Directly the youth would see the skirmishers running.  They were
pursued by the sound of musketry fire.  After a time the hot, dangerous
flashes of the rifles were visible.  Smoke clouds went slowly and
insolently across the fields like observant phantoms.  The din became
crescendo, like the roar of an oncoming train.

A brigade ahead of them and on the right went into action with a
rending roar.  It was as if it had exploded.  And thereafter it lay
stretched in the distance behind a long gray wall, that one was obliged
to look twice at to make sure that it was smoke.

The youth, forgetting his neat plan of getting killed, gazed spell
bound.  His eyes grew wide and busy with the action of the scene.  His
mouth was a little ways open.

Of a sudden he felt a heavy and sad hand laid upon his shoulder.
Awakening from his trance of observation he turned and beheld the loud
soldier.

"It's my first and last battle, old boy," said the latter, with intense
gloom.  He was quite pale and his girlish lip was trembling.

"Eh?" murmured the youth in great astonishment.

"It's my first and last battle, old boy," continued the loud soldier.
"Something tells me--"

"What?"

"I'm a gone coon this first time and--and I w-want you to take these
here things--to--my--folks."  He ended in a quavering sob of pity for
himself.  He handed the youth a little packet done up in a yellow
envelope.

"Why, what the devil--" began the youth again.

But the other gave him a glance as from the depths of a tomb, and
raised his limp hand in a prophetic manner and turned away.

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

completion: The next night finds the increasingly exhausted soldiers marching through a dark forest. Henry worries that the enemy might appear at any moment. When the enemy fails to materialize, Henry returns to thinking that his regiment is nothing more than a "blue demonstration. One morning, however, Jim shakes Henry awake. They hear the crack of distant gunfire, and the regiment begins to run. Boxed in by his fellow soldiers as the officers goad them toward the battle, Henry realizes that even if he wanted to run, the throng of surrounding soldiers would trample him. Pressed forward, the regiment parts to move around the body of a dead soldier. As he passes the corpse, Henry grows increasingly vulnerable, and curses the commanding officers who, it seems, are leading them to certain death. The men stop several times, many using branches and stones to build protective trenches which they must abandon as the march drives them forward. The more the regiment moves, the faster the soldiers' morale wanes. They gradually begin to think that their leaders are incompetent and indecisive. As the fighting draws closer and the sound of gunfire grows louder, Wilson tells Henry that he believes he will die in the battle. He gives Henry a yellow envelope and asks him to deliver it to his family, should he not make it home


prompt:
Chapter: The brigade was halted in the fringe of a grove.  The men crouched
among the trees and pointed their restless guns out at the fields. They
tried to look beyond the smoke.

Out of this haze they could see running men. Some shouted information
and gestured as they hurried.

The men of the new regiment watched and listened eagerly, while their
tongues ran on in gossip of the battle.  They mouthed rumors that had
flown like birds out of the unknown.

"They say Perry has been driven in with big loss."

"Yes, Carrott went t' th' hospital.  He said he was sick.  That smart
lieutenant is commanding 'G' Company.  Th' boys say they won't be under
Carrott no more if they all have t' desert. They allus knew he was a--"

"Hannises' batt'ry is took."

"It ain't either.  I saw Hannises' batt'ry off on th' left not more'n
fifteen minutes ago."

"Well--"

"Th' general, he ses he is goin' t' take th' hull cammand of th' 304th
when we go inteh action, an' then he ses we'll do sech fightin' as
never another one reg'ment done."

"They say we're catchin' it over on th' left. They say th' enemy driv'
our line inteh a devil of a swamp an' took Hannises' batt'ry."

"No sech thing.  Hannises' batt'ry was 'long here 'bout a minute ago."

"That young Hasbrouck, he makes a good off'cer.  He ain't afraid 'a
nothin'."

"I met one of th' 148th Maine boys an' he ses his brigade fit th' hull
rebel army fer four hours over on th' turnpike road an' killed about
five thousand of 'em.  He ses one more sech fight as that an' th' war
'll be over."

"Bill wasn't scared either.  No, sir!  It wasn't that.  Bill ain't
a-gittin' scared easy.  He was jest mad, that's what he was.  When that
feller trod on his hand, he up an' sed that he was willin' t' give his
hand t' his country, but he be dumbed if he was goin' t' have every
dumb bushwhacker in th' kentry walkin' 'round on it.  Se he went t' th'
hospital disregardless of th' fight.  Three fingers was crunched.  Th'
dern doctor wanted t' amputate 'm, an' Bill, he raised a heluva row, I
hear.  He's a funny feller."

The din in front swelled to a tremendous chorus.  The youth and his
fellows were frozen to silence.  They could see a flag that tossed in
the smoke angrily.  Near it were the blurred and agitated forms of
troops.  There came a turbulent stream of men across the fields.  A
battery changing position at a frantic gallop scattered the stragglers
right and left.

A shell screaming like a storm banshee went over the huddled heads of
the reserves.  It landed in the grove, and exploding redly flung the
brown earth.  There was a little shower of pine needles.

Bullets began to whistle among the branches and nip at the trees. Twigs
and leaves came sailing down.  It was as if a thousand axes, wee and
invisible, were being wielded.  Many of the men were constantly dodging
and ducking their heads.

The lieutenant of the youth's company was shot in the hand.  He began
to swear so wondrously that a nervous laugh went along the regimental
line.  The officer's profanity sounded conventional.  It relieved the
tightened senses of the new men.  It was as if he had hit his fingers
with a tack hammer at home.

He held the wounded member carefully away from his side so that the
blood would not drip upon his trousers.

The captain of the company, tucking his sword under his arm, produced a
handkerchief and began to bind with it the lieutenant's wound. And they
disputed as to how the binding should be done.

The battle flag in the distance jerked about madly.  It seemed to be
struggling to free itself from an agony.  The billowing smoke was
filled with horizontal flashes.

Men running swiftly emerged from it.  They grew in numbers until it was
seen that the whole command was fleeing.  The flag suddenly sank down
as if dying.  Its motion as it fell was a gesture of despair.

Wild yells came from behind the walls of smoke.  A sketch in gray and
red dissolved into a moblike body of men who galloped like wild horses.

The veteran regiments on the right and left of the 304th immediately
began to jeer.  With the passionate song of the bullets and the banshee
shrieks of shells were mingled loud catcalls and bits of facetious
advice concerning places of safety.

But the new regiment was breathless with horror.  "Gawd!  Saunders's
got crushed!" whispered the man at the youth's elbow.  They shrank back
and crouched as if compelled to await a flood.

The youth shot a swift glance along the blue ranks of the regiment. The
profiles were motionless, carven; and afterward he remembered that the
color sergeant was standing with his legs apart, as if he expected to
be pushed to the ground.

The following throng went whirling around the flank.  Here and there
were officers carried along on the stream like exasperated chips.  They
were striking about them with their swords and with their left fists,
punching every head they could reach.  They cursed like highwaymen.

A mounted officer displayed the furious anger of a spoiled child.  He
raged with his head, his arms, and his legs.

Another, the commander of the brigade, was galloping about bawling. His
hat was gone and his clothes were awry.  He resembled a man who has
come from bed to go to a fire.  The hoofs of his horse often threatened
the heads of the running men, but they scampered with singular fortune.
In this rush they were apparently all deaf and blind.  They heeded not
the largest and longest of the oaths that were thrown at them from all
directions.

Frequently over this tumult could be heard the grim jokes of the
critical veterans; but the retreating men apparently were not even
conscious of the presence of an audience.

The battle reflection that shone for an instant in the faces on the mad
current made the youth feel that forceful hands from heaven would not
have been able to have held him in place if he could have got
intelligent control of his legs.

There was an appalling imprint upon these faces.  The struggle in the
smoke had pictured an exaggeration of itself on the bleached cheeks and
in the eyes wild with one desire.

The sight of this stampede exerted a floodlike force that seemed able
to drag sticks and stones and men from the ground.  They of the
reserves had to hold on.  They grew pale and firm, and red and quaking.

The youth achieved one little thought in the midst of this chaos.  The
composite monster which had caused the other troops to flee had not
then appeared.  He resolved to get a view of it, and then, he thought
he might very likely run better than the best of them.

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

completion: The regiment stops in a grove with the chaos of battle raging around them. The regiment's lieutenant is shot in the hand. The soldiers of the 304th take their place on the line, and veteran soldiers who mock their inexperience surround them. As a group of enemy soldiers thunders toward them, Henry and his regiment load their weapons and prepare to engage. Miserably, Henry remains convinced that when he has to confront the worst that war has to offer, he might distinguish himself not by how bravely he fights, but by how quickly he runs away


prompt:
Chapter: There were moments of waiting.  The youth thought of the village street
at home before the arrival of the circus parade on a day in the spring.
He remembered how he had stood, a small, thrillful boy, prepared to
follow the dingy lady upon the white horse, or the band in its faded
chariot.  He saw the yellow road, the lines of expectant people, and
the sober houses. He particularly remembered an old fellow who used to
sit upon a cracker box in front of the store and feign to despise such
exhibitions.  A thousand details of color and form surged in his mind.
The old fellow upon the cracker box appeared in middle prominence.

Some one cried, "Here they come!"

There was rustling and muttering among the men.  They displayed a
feverish desire to have every possible cartridge ready to their hands.
The boxes were pulled around into various positions, and adjusted with
great care.  It was as if seven hundred new bonnets were being tried on.

The tall soldier, having prepared his rifle, produced a red
handkerchief of some kind.  He was engaged in knitting it about his
throat with exquisite attention to its position, when the cry was
repeated up and down the line in a muffled roar of sound.

"Here they come!  Here they come!"  Gun locks clicked.

Across the smoke-infested fields came a brown swarm of running men who
were giving shrill yells.  They came on, stooping and swinging their
rifles at all angles.  A flag, tilted forward, sped near the front.

As he caught sight of them the youth was momentarily startled by a
thought that perhaps his gun was not loaded.  He stood trying to rally
his faltering intellect so that he might recollect the moment when he
had loaded, but he could not.

A hatless general pulled his dripping horse to a stand near the colonel
of the 304th.  He shook his fist in the other's face.  "You 've got to
hold 'em back!" he shouted, savagely; "you 've got to hold 'em back!"

In his agitation the colonel began to stammer. "A-all r-right, General,
all right, by Gawd!  We--we'll do our--we-we'll d-d-do--do our best,
General."  The general made a passionate gesture and galloped away. The
colonel, perchance to relieve his feelings, began to scold like a wet
parrot.  The youth, turning swiftly to make sure that the rear was
unmolested, saw the commander regarding his men in a highly regretful
manner, as if he regretted above everything his association with them.

The man at the youth's elbow was mumbling, as if to himself: "Oh, we
're in for it now! oh, we 're in for it now!"

The captain of the company had been pacing excitedly to and fro in the
rear.  He coaxed in schoolmistress fashion, as to a congregation of
boys with primers.  His talk was an endless repetition.  "Reserve your
fire, boys--don't shoot till I tell you--save your fire--wait till they
get close up--don't be damned fools--"

Perspiration streamed down the youth's face, which was soiled like that
of a weeping urchin. He frequently, with a nervous movement, wiped his
eyes with his coat sleeve.  His mouth was still a little ways open.

He got the one glance at the foe-swarming field in front of him, and
instantly ceased to debate the question of his piece being loaded.
Before he was ready to begin--before he had announced to himself that
he was about to fight--he threw the obedient, well-balanced rifle into
position and fired a first wild shot.  Directly he was working at his
weapon like an automatic affair.

He suddenly lost concern for himself, and forgot to look at a menacing
fate.  He became not a man but a member.  He felt that something of
which he was a part--a regiment, an army, a cause, or a country--was in
a crisis.  He was welded into a common personality which was dominated
by a single desire.  For some moments he could not flee no more than a
little finger can commit a revolution from a hand.

If he had thought the regiment was about to be annihilated perhaps he
could have amputated himself from it.  But its noise gave him
assurance.  The regiment was like a firework that, once ignited,
proceeds superior to circumstances until its blazing vitality fades. It
wheezed and banged with a mighty power.  He pictured the ground before
it as strewn with the discomfited.

There was a consciousness always of the presence of his comrades about
him.  He felt the subtle battle brotherhood more potent even than the
cause for which they were fighting.  It was a mysterious fraternity
born of the smoke and danger of death.

He was at a task.  He was like a carpenter who has made many boxes,
making still another box, only there was furious haste in his
movements.  He, in his thought, was careering off in other places, even
as the carpenter who as he works whistles and thinks of his friend or
his enemy, his home or a saloon.  And these jolted dreams were never
perfect to him afterward, but remained a mass of blurred shapes.

Presently he began to feel the effects of the war atmosphere--a
blistering sweat, a sensation that his eyeballs were about to crack
like hot stones.  A burning roar filled his ears.

Following this came a red rage.  He developed the acute exasperation of
a pestered animal, a well-meaning cow worried by dogs.  He had a mad
feeling against his rifle, which could only be used against one life at
a time.  He wished to rush forward and strangle with his fingers.  He
craved a power that would enable him to make a world-sweeping gesture
and brush all back.  His impotency appeared to him, and made his rage
into that of a driven beast.

Buried in the smoke of many rifles his anger was directed not so much
against the men whom he knew were rushing toward him as against the
swirling battle phantoms which were choking him, stuffing their smoke
robes down his parched throat.  He fought frantically for respite for
his senses, for air, as a babe being smothered attacks the deadly
blankets.

There was a blare of heated rage mingled with a certain expression of
intentness on all faces. Many of the men were making low-toned noises
with their mouths, and these subdued cheers, snarls, imprecations,
prayers, made a wild, barbaric song that went as an undercurrent of
sound, strange and chantlike with the resounding chords of the war
march.  The man at the youth's elbow was babbling.  In it there was
something soft and tender like the monologue of a babe.  The tall
soldier was swearing in a loud voice.  From his lips came a black
procession of curious oaths.  Of a sudden another broke out in a
querulous way like a man who has mislaid his hat.  "Well, why don't
they support us?  Why don't they send supports?  Do they think--"

The youth in his battle sleep heard this as one who dozes hears.

There was a singular absence of heroic poses. The men bending and
surging in their haste and rage were in every impossible attitude.  The
steel ramrods clanked and clanged with incessant din as the men pounded
them furiously into the hot rifle barrels.  The flaps of the cartridge
boxes were all unfastened, and bobbed idiotically with each movement.
The rifles, once loaded, were jerked to the shoulder and fired without
apparent aim into the smoke or at one of the blurred and shifting forms
which upon the field before the regiment had been growing larger and
larger like puppets under a magician's hand.

The officers, at their intervals, rearward, neglected to stand in
picturesque attitudes.  They were bobbing to and fro roaring directions
and encouragements.  The dimensions of their howls were extraordinary.
They expended their lungs with prodigal wills.  And often they nearly
stood upon their heads in their anxiety to observe the enemy on the
other side of the tumbling smoke.

The lieutenant of the youth's company had encountered a soldier who had
fled screaming at the first volley of his comrades.  Behind the lines
these two were acting a little isolated scene.  The man was blubbering
and staring with sheeplike eyes at the lieutenant, who had seized him
by the collar and was pommeling him.  He drove him back into the ranks
with many blows.  The soldier went mechanically, dully, with his
animal-like eyes upon the officer.  Perhaps there was to him a divinity
expressed in the voice of the other--stern, hard, with no reflection of
fear in it.  He tried to reload his gun, but his shaking hands
prevented.  The lieutenant was obliged to assist him.

The men dropped here and there like bundles. The captain of the youth's
company had been killed in an early part of the action.  His body lay
stretched out in the position of a tired man resting, but upon his face
there was an astonished and sorrowful look, as if he thought some
friend had done him an ill turn.  The babbling man was grazed by a shot
that made the blood stream widely down his face.  He clapped both hands
to his head.  "Oh!" he said, and ran.  Another grunted suddenly as if
he had been struck by a club in the stomach.  He sat down and gazed
ruefully.  In his eyes there was mute, indefinite reproach.  Farther up
the line a man, standing behind a tree, had had his knee joint
splintered by a ball.  Immediately he had dropped his rifle and gripped
the tree with both arms.  And there he remained, clinging desperately
and crying for assistance that he might withdraw his hold upon the tree.

At last an exultant yell went along the quivering line.  The firing
dwindled from an uproar to a last vindictive popping.  As the smoke
slowly eddied away, the youth saw that the charge had been repulsed.
The enemy were scattered into reluctant groups.  He saw a man climb to
the top of the fence, straddle the rail, and fire a parting shot.  The
waves had receded, leaving bits of dark debris upon the ground.

Some in the regiment began to whoop frenziedly.  Many were silent.
Apparently they were trying to contemplate themselves.

After the fever had left his veins, the youth thought that at last he
was going to suffocate. He became aware of the foul atmosphere in which
he had been struggling.  He was grimy and dripping like a laborer in a
foundry.  He grasped his canteen and took a long swallow of the warmed
water.

A sentence with variations went up and down the line.  "Well, we 've
helt 'em back.  We 've helt 'em back; derned if we haven't."  The men
said it blissfully, leering at each other with dirty smiles.

The youth turned to look behind him and off to the right and off to the
left.  He experienced the joy of a man who at last finds leisure in
which to look about him.

Under foot there were a few ghastly forms motionless.  They lay twisted
in fantastic contortions.  Arms were bent and heads were turned in
incredible ways.  It seemed that the dead men must have fallen from
some great height to get into such positions.  They looked to be dumped
out upon the ground from the sky.

From a position in the rear of the grove a battery was throwing shells
over it.  The flash of the guns startled the youth at first.  He
thought they were aimed directly at him.  Through the trees he watched
the black figures of the gunners as they worked swiftly and intently.
Their labor seemed a complicated thing.  He wondered how they could
remember its formula in the midst of confusion.

The guns squatted in a row like savage chiefs. They argued with abrupt
violence.  It was a grim pow-wow.  Their busy servants ran hither and
thither.

A small procession of wounded men were going drearily toward the rear.
It was a flow of blood from the torn body of the brigade.

To the right and to the left were the dark lines of other troops.  Far
in front he thought he could see lighter masses protruding in points
from the forest.  They were suggestive of unnumbered thousands.

Once he saw a tiny battery go dashing along the line of the horizon.
The tiny riders were beating the tiny horses.

From a sloping hill came the sound of cheerings and clashes.  Smoke
welled slowly through the leaves.

Batteries were speaking with thunderous oratorical effort.  Here and
there were flags, the red in the stripes dominating.  They splashed
bits of warm color upon the dark lines of troops.

The youth felt the old thrill at the sight of the emblem.  They were
like beautiful birds strangely undaunted in a storm.

As he listened to the din from the hillside, to a deep pulsating
thunder that came from afar to the left, and to the lesser clamors
which came from many directions, it occurred to him that they were
fighting, too, over there, and over there, and over there.  Heretofore
he had supposed that all the battle was directly under his nose.

As he gazed around him the youth felt a flash of astonishment at the
blue, pure sky and the sun gleamings on the trees and fields.  It was
surprising that Nature had gone tranquilly on with her golden process
in the midst of so much devilment.

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

completion: He suddenly lost concern for himself. He was welded into a common personality which was dominated by a single desire. After a tense wait, the enemy soldiers attack and Henry's regiment begins to fire upon them. The captain stands behind Henry's regiment shouting instructions. As he faces the threat of the advancing troops, Henry loses his sense of being a lone, miserable outcast and begins to conceive of himself as a single cog in a machine. The battle overshadows his individuality by making him one with his fellow soldiers, just as the instinct to fight overcomes his timid, intellectual musings. The battle rages and Henry fires and reloads, fires and reloads, in a continuing, automatic rhythm. A "red rage" overtakes the men, who chant a "wild, barbaric song" as they fight. The lieutenant beats a soldier who tries to retreat from the front line. The captain is shot and collapses. At last, the enemy soldiers begin to retreat. Henry's regiment lets out a cheer and the survivors heartily congratulate one another. Henry looks around; seeing the sun on the treetops and the bright blue sky, he is surprised that nature keeps on going, with no regard for the bloody events of the field. upon his face there was an astonished and sorrowful look, as if he thought some friend had done him an ill turn