noon
`` So it does , '' the infantry captain assented . He glanced casually at the sky . When his eyes had lowered to the green-shadowed landscape before him , he said fretfully : `` I wish those fellows out yonder would quit pelting at us . They 've been at it since noon . '' At the edge of a grove of maples , across wide fields , there occasionally appeared little puffs of smoke of a dull hue in this gloom of sky which expressed an impending rain . The long wave of blue and steel in the field moved uneasily at the eternal barking of the far-away sharpshooters , and the men , leaning upon their rifles , stared at the grove of maples . Once a private turned to borrow some tobacco from a comrade in the rear rank , but , with his hand still stretched out , he continued to twist his head and glance at the distant trees .