ng down from the platform, while his own
red-headed little girl stood up on her bench, waving her hat with one
hand, her handkerchief with the other, and stamping with both feet.

Now a man sitting beside the mayor rose from his chair and Abner heard
him call:

"Three cheers for the women who made the flag!"

"HIP, HIP, HURRAH!"

"Three cheers for the State of Maine!"

"HIP, HIP, HURRAH!"

"Three cheers for the girl that saved the flag from the hands of the
enemy!"

"HIP, HIP, HURRAH! HIP, HIP, HURRAH!"

It was the Edgewood minister, whose full, vibrant voice was of the sort
to move a crowd. His words rang out into the clear air and were carried
from lip to lip. Hands clapped, feet stamped, hats swung, while the loud
huzzahs might almost have wakened the echoes on old Mount Ossipee.

The tall, loose-jointed man sat down in the wagon suddenly and took up
the reins.

"They're gettin' a little mite personal, and I guess it's bout time for
you to be goin', Simpson!"

The tone was jocular, but the red mustaches drooped, and the
half-hearted cut he gave to start the white mare on her homeward journey
showed that he was not in his usual devil-may-care mood.

"Durn his skin!" he burst out in a vindictive undertone, as the mare
swung into her long gait. "It's a lie! I thought twas somebody's wash! I
hain't an enemy!"

While the crowd at the raising dispersed in happy family groups to their
picnics in the woods; while the Goddess of Liberty, Uncle Sam,
Columbia, and the proud States lunched grandly in the Grange hall with
distinguished guests and scarred veterans of two wars, the lonely
man drove, and drove, and drove through silent woods and dull, sleepy
villages, never alighting to replenish his wardrobe or his stock of
swapping material.

At dusk he reached a miserable tumble-down house on the edge of a pond.

The faithful wife with the sad mouth and the habitual look of anxiety in
her faded eyes came to the door at the sound of wheels and went doggedly
to the horse-shed to help him unharness.

"You didn't expect to see me back tonight, did ye?" he asked
satirically; "leastwise not with this same horse? Well, I'm here! You
needn't be scairt to look under the wagon seat, there hain't nothin'
there, not even my supper, so I hope you're suited for once! No, I guess
I hain't goin' to be an angel right away, neither. There wa'n't nothin'
but flags layin' roun' loose down Riverboro way, n' whatever they say, I