d-capped boy as the passing lad brushed close against
him, "Good-by, my son!" and as the son gave him only a sidelong glance
he seized and shook the sabre arm, and all that long, bristling lane of
bayonets went out of plumb, out of shape and order, and a thousand
brass-buttoned throats shouted good-by and hurrah. Shakos waved,
shoulders were snatched and hugged, blue kepis and red were knocked
awry, beards were kissed and mad tears let flow. And still, with a rigor
the superbest yet because the new tune was so perfect to march by, fell
the unshaken tread of the cannoneers, and every onlooker laughed and
wept and cheered as the brass rent out to the deafening drums, and the
drums roared back to the piercing brass,--

De black-snake love' de blackbird' nes',
De baby love' his mamy's bres',
An' raggy-tag, aw spick-an'-span,
De ladies loves de ladies' man.
I loves to roll my eyes to de ladies!
I loves to sympathize wid de ladies!
As long as eveh I knows sugah f'om san'
I's bound to be a ladies' man.

So the black-hatted giant with the silver staff strode into the wide
shed, the puffy-cheeked band reading their music and feeling for
foothold as they followed, and just yonder behind them, in the middle of
the white way, untouched by all those fathers, unhailed by any brother
of his own, came Hilary Kincaid with all the battery at his neat heels,
its files tightly serried but its platoons in open order, each flashing
its sabres to a "present" on nearing the General and back to a "carry"
when he was passed, and then lengthening into column of files to enter
the blessed shade of the station.

In beside them surged a privileged throng of near kin, every one calling
over every one's head, "Good-by!" "Good-by!" "Here's your mother,
Johnnie!" and, "Here's your wife, Achille!" Midmost went the Callenders,
the Valcours, and Victorine, willy-nilly, topsy-turvy, swept away,
smothering, twisting, laughing, stumbling, staggering, yet saved alive
by that man of the moment Mandeville, until half-way down the shed and
the long box-car train they brought up on a pile of ordnance stores and
clung like drift in a flood. And at every twist and stagger Anna said in
her heart a speech she had been saying over and over ever since the
start from Callender House; a poor commonplace speech that must be
spoken though she perished for shame of it; that must be darted out just
at the right last instant if such an inst