differently, or ignored
him altogether. It seemed to him that he was like a stranger in an
alien land.

As he passed by the school-house a boy whom he did not know was
lingering about the steps. Otherwise there was no one in sight.

Then, suddenly, there burst upon his view a sight for which he was
not prepared. In the yard on the lower side of the school-house, the
yard through which he and his victorious troops had driven the
retreating enemy at the battle of Chestnut Hill, a flag-staff was
standing; tall, straight, symmetrical, and from its summit floated the
Star-Spangled Banner; the very banner that he had trodden under his
feet that February day. It was as though some one had struck him on
the breast with an ice-cold hand. He gasped and stood still, his eyes
fixed immovably on the flag. Then something stirred within him, a
strange impulse that ran the quick gamut of his nerves; and when he
came to himself he was standing in the street, with head bared and
bowed, and his eyes filled with tears. Like Saul of Tarsus he had been
stricken in the way, and ever afterward, whenever and wherever he saw
his country's flag, his soul responded to the sight, and thrilled with
memories of that April day when first he discovered that rare quality
of patriotism that had hitherto lain dormant in his breast.

So he walked on down to the railroad station in Chestnut Valley, and
went into the waiting-room and sat down.

It was very lonely there and it was very tiresome waiting for the
train.

At noon he went out to a bakery and bought for himself a light
luncheon. As he was returning to the depot he came suddenly upon Aleck
Sands, who had had his dinner and was starting back to school. There
was no time for either boy to consider what kind of greeting he should
give to the other. They were face to face before either of them
realized it. As for Pen, he bore no resentment now, toward any one.
His heart had been wrung dry from that feeling through two months of
labor and of contemplation. So, when the first shock of surprise was
over, he held out his hand.

"Let's be friends, Aleck," he said, "and forget what's gone by."

"I'm not willing," was the reply, "to be friends with any one who's
done what you've done." And he made a wide detour around the
astonished boy, and marched off up the hill.

From that moment until the train came and he boarded it, Pen could
never afterward remember what happened. His mind was in a tumult.
W