ing home--Colour-Sergeant Crittenden, who had got
out of the hospital and back to the trenches just in time to receive
flag and chevrons on the very day of the surrender--only to fall ill of
the fever and go back to the hospital that same day. There was Tampa
once more--the great hotel, the streets, silent and deserted, except for
the occasional officer that rode or marched through the deep dust of the
town, and the other soldiers, regulars and volunteers, who had suffered
the disappointment, the heat, sickness, and hardship of war with little
credit from the nation at large, and no reward, such even as a like
fidelity in any path of peace would have brought them.

Half out of his head, weak and feverish, Crittenden climbed into the
dusty train and was whirled through the dusty town, out through dry
marshes and dusty woods and dusty, cheerless, dead-flowered fields, but
with an exhilaration that made his temple throb like a woman's.

Up through the blistered, sandy, piney lowlands; through Chickamauga
again, full of volunteers who, too, had suffered and risked all the ills
of the war without one thrill of compensation; and on again, until he
was once more on the edge of the Bluegrass, with birds singing the sun
down; and again the world for him was changed--from nervous exaltation
to an air of balm and peace; from grim hills to the rolling sweep of
low, brown slopes; from giant-poplar to broad oak and sugar-tree; from
log-cabin to homestead of brick and stone. And so, from mountain of Cuba
and mountain of his own land, Crittenden once more passed home. It had
been green spring for the earth when he left, but autumn in his heart.
Now autumn lay over the earth, but in his heart was spring.

As he glanced out of the window, he could see a great crowd about the
station. A brass band was standing in front of the station-door--some
holiday excursion was on foot, he thought. As he stepped on the
platform, a great cheer was raised and a dozen men swept toward him,
friends, personal and political, but when they saw him pale, thin,
lean-faced, feverish, dull-eyed, the cheers stopped and two powerful
fellows took him by the arms and half carried him to the station-door,
where were waiting his mother--and little Phyllis.

When they came out again to the carriage, the band started "Johnny Comes
Marching Home Again," and Crittenden asked feebly:

"What does all this mean?"

Phyllis laughed through her tears.

"That's for you."