To wait a whole day when he was but a few miles from the end of his journey was quite out of the question for Billy. He knew that a jingling, rattling, two-horse stage plied between Piscataqua and Rockford; perhaps he could catch that. He found on inquiry that he could, that it would start in half an hour. In summer one could go by motor, but “it ain’t the season” was the only answer he could get to all his questions, so that he was forced to content himself with Silas Oakley and his slow and talkative mode of travel.
He walked about the streets a little in Piscataqua and stopped at a bulletin board before the newspaper office. It was the Friday morning that war was actually declared. Billy saw the notice go up as he stood watching, but observed very little change in the crowd that gathered to read that the last step had been taken. People looked a little more anxious, perhaps; more than one said, “Well, I’m glad the waiting’s over.” That was all.
At the end of the street he saw two blue-jackets standing before the door of a little building above which a big flag was flying.
“That’s the recruiting station,” a passerby told him; “they are enlisting men for the
