my boy never knew. They thought more of
the marker than of the drummer; for the marker carried a little flag,
and when the officers holloed out, "By the left flank--left! Wheel!" he
set his flag against his shoulder, and stood marking time with his feet
till the soldiers all got by him, and then he ran up to the front rank,
with the flag fluttering behind him. The fellows used to wonder how he
got to be marker, and to plan how they could get to be markers in other
companies, if not in the Butler Guards. There were other companies that
used to come to town on the Fourth of July and Muster Day, from smaller
places round about; and some of them had richer uniforms: one company
had blue coats with gold epaulets, and gold braid going down in loops on
the sides of their legs; all the soldiers, of course, had braid straight
down the outer seams of their pantaloons. One Muster Day, a captain of
one of the country companies came home with my boy's father to dinner;
he was in full uniform, and he put his plumed helmet down on the entry
table just like any other hat.

There was a company of Germans, or Dutchmen, as the boys always called
them; and the boys believed that they each had hay in his right shoe,
and straw in his left, because a Dutchman was too dumb, as the boys said
for stupid, to know his feet apart any other way; and that the Dutch
officers had to call out to the men when they were marching, "Up mit de
hay-foot, down mit de straw-foot--_links_, _links_, _links_!" (Left,
left, left!) But the boys honored even these imperfect intelligences so
much in their quality of soldiers that they would any of them have
been proud to be marker in the Dutch company; and they followed the
Dutchmen round in their march as fondly as any other body of troops. Of
course, school let out when there was a regular muster, and the boys
gave the whole day to it; but I do not know just when the Muster Day
came. They fired the cannon a good deal on the river-bank, and they must
have camped somewhere near the town, though no recollection of tents
remained in my boy's mind. He believed with the rest of the boys that
the right way to fire the cannon was to get it so hot you need not touch
it off, but just keep your thumb on the touch-hole, and take it away
when you wanted the cannon to go off. Once he saw the soldiers ram the
piece full of dog-fennel on top of the usual charge, and then he
expected the cannon to burst. But it only roared away as us