use we're going
to be fixed up for something, but I dassent tell because it's a
surprise the teachers got up."

This is the one day in the year when Jimmy Rand polishes his
grandfather's shoes with scrupulous care and without demanding the
usual nickel. He takes his payment in watching the blue army suit
swaying on the line under the tall poplars and in hearing the crowds on
Decoration Day shout themselves hoarse for old Major Rand.

It is the one time too when Old Skinflint Holden gets from his fellow
citizens and neighbors a certain grave respect, for they all know that
on the morrow among the men in blue will be this same Old Skinflint
Holden with a medal on his breast.

Though every preparation has seemingly been made days ago, still that
last night before the event is the very busiest time of all.

Joe Baldwin's little shop is crowded. Jake Tuttle is there with the
four children, buying them the fanciest of footgear for the morrow.
The two Miller boys, who work in the creamery until nine every night
but have special leave this day to purchase holiday necessities, are
standing awkwardly near Joe's side door and waiting patiently for
Frankie Stevens and Dora Langely, better known as "Central," to depart
with their black velvet slippers, before making any effort to have Joe
try his wares on their awkward feet. Little Johnny Peterson comes in
to inquire if Joe has sewed the buttons on his, Johnny's, shoes, and
Martha Gray has a hard time trying to decide which of two pairs of
moccasins are most becoming to her youngest baby. Any number of youths
are hanging about waiting for Joe to get around to selling them a box
of his best shoe polish and some, getting impatient, wait on
themselves. Joe, with his spectacles pushed up into his hair, is
rushing around from customer to customer and through it all is dimly
conscious of the fact that outside under the awning Dolly Beatty is
waiting anxiously for the men folks to get out before she ventures in
to buy her Joe's special brand of corn salve and bunion plaster.

And so it is all the way down Main Street. In the gents' furnishings'
corner of Peter Sweeney's dry-goods store Seth Curtis is buying a new
hat, a little jaunty hat that seems to fit his head well enough but
doesn't somehow become the rest of him. Seth looks best in a cap and
always wears one except, of course, on such state occasions as the
coming one. He asks the Longman boys how he looks in the brown f