arris, let us have juleps all
round--"

"Thank you very kindly, sir," said Allan, "but I must go find my
captain."

"I saw him," remarked a gray-haired gentleman, "just now down the
street. He's seeing to the loading of his wagons, showing Jim Ball and
the drivers just how to do it--and he says he isn't going to show them
but this once. They seemed right prompt to learn."

"I was thar too," put in an old farmer. "'They're mighty heavy wagons,'
I says, says I. 'Three times too heavy,' he says, says he. 'This
company's got the largest part of its provisions for the whole war right
here and now,' says he. 'Thar's a heap of trunks,' says I. 'More than
would be needed for the White Sulphur,' he says, says he. 'This time two
years we'll march lighter,' says he--"

There were exclamations. "Two years! Thunderation!--This war'll be over
before persimmons are ripe! Why, the boys haven't volunteered but for
one year--and even that seemed kind of senseless! Two years! He's daft!"

"I dunno," quoth the other. "If fighting's like farming it's all-fired
slow work. Anyhow, that's what he said. 'This time two years we'll march
lighter,' he says, says he, and then I came away. He's down by the old
warehouse by the bridge, Mr. Gold--and I just met Matthew Coffin and he
says thar's going to be a parade presently."

An hour later, in the sunset glow, in a meadow by the river, the three
companies paraded. The new uniforms, the bright muskets, the silken
colours, the bands playing "Dixie," the quick orders, the more or less
practised evolutions, the universal martial mood, the sense of danger
over all, as yet thrilling only, not leaden, the known faces, the loved
faces, the imminent farewell, the flush of glory, the beckoning of great
events--no wonder every woman, girl, and child, every old man and young
boy who could reach the meadow were there, watching in the golden light,
half wild with enthusiasm!

Wish I was in de land ob cotton,
Old times dar am not forgotten
Look away! look away! Dixie Land.

At one side, beneath a great sugar maple, were clustered a number of
women, mothers, wives, sisters, sweethearts, of those who were going
forth to war. They swayed forward, absorbed in watching, not the
companies as a whole, but one or two, sometimes three or four figures
therein. They had not held them back; never in the times of history were
there more devotedly patriotic women than