Prologue

June 1854

'Peggy, come!' I turned toward my sister.

'What?'

'Come.' I followed her out from underneath the table. 'I heard the door open.' She ran to the window, and looked out. 'It's Johnny!' I looked out, after Sally stood back away from the window, and the chest that she was kneeling on top of. I saw Johnny walking toward the hills just behind out home. 'I want to see him,' Sally told me, again grabbing my hand and opening up the heavy window pane. I followed her outside of the pane. We jumped down onto the front porch, and ran off to see Johnny going through the trees.

Johnny was past the tree's by the time we got down, and we started running for the hills, following him. When we went into the woods, we ducked down behind a branch, so Johnny would not see. 'Ably!' Johnny called down into the hills.

'Johnny boy, what's taken you so long?' one of the other's yelled.

'I had to work, how could any of you say anything like that?' They all laughed. The words were inaudible now, and neither Sally's nor I tried to hear them anymore. We giggled, as children often do, laughing at their drilling. Sally and I often ran away from our chores, in order to see Johnny's drilling. Sally looked down to see Billy Josephs, she rolled her eyes and sighed. 'Oh, he's so handsome, isn't he Peggy?'

I sighed, and grabbed my sister's hand. We both ran down the hillside, toward where the soldiers were. I heard their callings even coming down the side of the hill. They stopped their drilling for us. 'Johnny!' I yelled going down.

'Peggy? Sally?' I ran into Johnny's arms, and he picked me up.

'See boys, I've already got two girls at home to wait for me.' He looked at me. 'What are you two doing down here?'

'We wanted to see you drill,' Sally said, then turned toward Billy, and smiled politely. Although Billy wasn't sure how to react, he smiled and nodded his head, then looked away.

'You'd better be getting back to the house, I'm sure that Bella is looking for you,' Johnny told us.

'She's in town with Mama.'

'Get back up there all the same, both of you.' Johnny set me back down on the ground.

I nodded and grabbed Sally's hand as we started to go back up the hillside to the house. 'Ouch!' Sally cried, I looked toward her, as she grabbed her neck and looked behind her. Soon several of the militiamen were looking to where Sally was. Two of them, who had guns, pointed them toward the trees, and Billy fired a shot just above the trees on the other side of the valley.

Two figures, not a minute later fell out of the tree, both Sally and I ran as fast as we could to see who they were, Johnny and Billy followed a few steps behind us.

Fifty feet away I could recognize them. 'Mark! Billy!' I ran to their side and fell down next to Billy. He lifted his heads up, propping himself up by his elbows.

'Hello, Sara,' he said carelessly.

I looked at him and pushed him back. 'You know very well who I am William Galloway.'

'Oh yeah?' he challenged. 'I know you Sara hocking.'

'I'm Peggy, Billy.'

'Nice to meet you Peggy Billy,' he said holding out his hand.

I pushed him back down again, and stood up and brushed off my skirt. 'Alright, Mark.' He looked up quickly and then stood. He hated being called by his brother's name. And I knew that would get him back.

'Mark, Billy, you'd better be getting home, your Mama will be looking for you too,' Johnny told them.

'You just started, we ain't goin' until you come with us,' Mark said to my brother. Johnny sighed and looked toward the other's.

'Keep drilling, I'll be back before nightfall.' And so we all left. Sally and I followed with Mark and Billy. Johnny was always ahead of us, as we walked to the Galloway's farm.

'Johnny!' Mary yelled, rushing down from the stairs toward my brother. She rushed right up and hung about Johnny's neck.

'Mary, get down.' He hugged her once, then made her let go of his neck. 'Stop, your Papa might see.'

'Then let him,' she said, then jumped up and kissed him. Sally obviously becoming board with the situation, pushed Mark, and he in turn pushed her back.

'Mary!' her father called standing on the step of their porch.

'I think you'd better go inside,' Johnny told her. She looked up weakly to him, but then relented and turned around and went to see her father.

'Come inside John, you as well, girls, boys.' I looked over to Billy, then we raced to get inside the home.

We all knew that it was wrong, what Mary and Johnny did. They knew it most of all, but they were probably the last ones to care. Mary and Johnny planed to marry, someday, though they never would tell us when. 'Someday', was good enough for them.

Someday, seemed so far away, though, to all of us, but was farther then any of us thought. Things were stirring up, we all knew that it was going to come. When, though was just as far away as Someday to any of us. But the time was coming closer at every moment.