under his mushroom hat; Martin Culpepper in his long-tailed
coat; Philemon Ward, tall, fair-skinned, blue-eyed, slim, and sturdy;
skinny, nervous Lycurgus Mason and husky Gabriel Carnine from
Minneola; Jake Dolan in his shirt sleeves, without adornment of any
kind, except the gold horseshoe pinned on his shirt bosom; Daniel
Frye, the pride of an admiring family, in his best home-made clothes;
Henry Schnitzler, Oscar Fernald, and nearly a hundred other men, to
the boy's eyes so familiar then, now forgotten, and all their faces
blurred in the crowd that stood about the recruiting officer by the
town pump in Sycamore Ridge that summer day of '61. A score or so of
men had passed muster. The line on the post at the wooden awning in
front of Schnitzler's saloon was marked at five feet six. All had
stood by it with their heads above the line. It was Watts McHurdie's
turn. He wore high-heeled boots for the occasion, but strut as he
would, his roached hair would not touch the stick that came over the
line. "Stretch your neck--ye bantam," laughed Jake Dolan. "Walk
turkey fashion, Watts," cried Henry Schnitzler, rushing up behind
Watts and grabbing his waistband. The crowd roared. Watts looked
imploringly at the recruiting officer and blubbered in wrath: "Yes,
damn you--yea; that's right. Of course; you won't let me die for my
bleedin' country because I ain't nine feet tall." And the little man
turned away trying to choke his tears and raging at his failure. And
because the recruiting officer was considerable of a man, Watts
McHurdie's name was written in the muster roll, and he went out.

Many days must have passed between the time when the men were mustered
in and the day they went away to the war. But to the man who saw those
times through the memory of the boy in blue jeans forever playing
bugle-calls upon his fife, it was all one day. For that crowd
dissolved, and another picture appeared upon the sensitized plate of
his memory. There is a crowd in the post-office--mostly men who are
going away to war. The stage has come in, and a stranger, better
dressed than the men of Sycamore Ridge, is behind the letter-boxes of
the post-office. The boy is watching his box; for it is the day when
the _Springfield Republican_ is due. Gradually the hum in front of the
boxes quiets, and two loud voices have risen behind the screen. Then
out walks great Martin Culpepper, white of face, with pent-up fury.
His left hand is clutched like a talon