taken command like a veteran. George Catherwood and Maurice had told the
story.

And now at last the city is to shake off the dust of the North. "On to
Camp Jackson!" was the cry. The bands are started, the general and staff
begin to move, and the column swings into the Olive Street road, followed
by a concourse of citizens awheel and afoot, the horse cars crowded.
Virginia and Maude and the Colonel in the Carvel carriage, and behind
Ned, on the box, is their luncheon in a hamper Standing up, the girls can
just see the nodding plumes of the dragoons far to the front.

Olive Street, now paved with hot granite and disfigured by trolley wires,
was a country road then. Green trees took the place of crowded rows of
houses and stores, and little "bob-tail" yellow cars were drawn by
plodding mules to an inclosure in a timbered valley, surrounded by a
board fence, known as Lindell Grove. It was then a resort, a picnic
ground, what is now covered by close residences which have long shown the
wear of time.

Into Lindell Grove flocked the crowd, the rich and the poor, the
proprietor and the salesmen, to watch the soldiers pitch their tents
under the spreading trees. The gallant dragoons were off to the west,
across a little stream which trickled through the grounds. By the side of
it Virginia and Maude, enchanted, beheld Captain Colfax shouting his
orders while his troopers dragged the canvas from the wagons, and
staggered under it to the line. Alas! that the girls were there! The
Captain lost his temper, his troopers, perspiring over Gordian knots in
the ropes, uttered strange soldier oaths, while the mad wind which blew
that day played a hundred pranks.

To the discomfiture of the young ladies, Colonel Carvel pulled his goatee
and guffawed. Virginia was for moving away.

"How mean, Pa," she said indignantly. "How car, you expect them to do it
right the first day, and in this wind?"

"Oh! Jinny, look at Maurice!" exclaimed Maude, giggling. "He is pulled
over on his head."

The Colonel roared. And the gentlemen and ladies who were standing by
laughed, too. Virginia did not laugh. It was all too serious for her.

"You will see that they can fight," she said. "They can beat the Yankees
and Dutch."

This speech made the Colonel glance around him: Then he smiled,--in
response to other smiles.

"My dear," he said, "you must remember that this is a peaceable camp of
instruction of the state militia. There fly the Stars and S