More and more refugees from the Piney Woods and parts east were arriving at the ranch daily, pushed as they were from behind by the threatening advance of the army of the Duke of Louisiana. Everything seemed to be a continuous swirl of motion with some refugees arriving even as others were loaded up and headed further westward towards Harmony. A few days earlier the wheels of constant movement had slowed down just long enough to allow for the burial of David Wall over in the peach orchard next to his mother Elizabeth. Most everyone took the day off—it being the Sabbath—to attend an impromptu wake, and so many people came by to visit Betsy Miller and her husband Paul that the line of those hoping to extend condolences stretched well over a mile down the Bethany road. Eventually, Ana, Wally, and Mr. Byler the cobbler had been forced to ride down the line of well-wishers to bid them all go home. They explained that Betsy and all of the Walls understood and accepted their love and appreciated their condolences, but that the day long wake was much too tiring, and the pain of loss was still too fresh for it all to go on much longer.
