THREE:As the train ran out into the country there were plentiful signs of war to rivet the attention of the youngsters��hospitals, with the emaciated patients strolling feebly about; corrals of mules and horses, the waste and wreckage where camps had been, and bridges which had been burned and rebuilt.The sleeping room for the Small Ones was, by comparison with the great Commons Room only the masters inhabited, a tiny place. It had only the smallest of windows, so placed as to allow daylight without any sight of the outside; the windows were plastic-sheeted slits high up on the metal walls, no more. The room was, at best, dim, during the day, but that hardly mattered: during the day the room was empty. Only at night, when the soft artificial lights went on, shedding the glow from their wall-shielded tubes, was the room fit for normal vision. There were no decorations, of course, and no chairs: the Alberts had no use for chairs, and decorations were a refinement no master had yet bothered to think of. The Alberts were hardly taught to appreciate such things in any case: that was not what they had come to learn: it was not useful.

THREE:He had not written her since the Tullahoma campaign. That seemed an age away, so many things had happened in the meanwhile.

THREE:"That's all you know about it, you little skeezics. She don't boss you around half as much as she ought to." Then gentler: "Now, Sammy, do jest as I say, and I'll send you home a real rebel gun jest as soon as I get your letter."

THREE:"You think not?" The face was still.