il out same's they did in Scriptur'. His
father an' his gran'father was drinkin' men; but they was kind-hearted
an' good neighbors, an' never set out to wrong nobody. 'Twas the
custom to drink in their day; folks was colder an' lived poorer in
early times, an' that's how most of 'em kept a-goin'. But what stove
Eb all up was his disapp'intment with Marthy Peck--her forsakin' of
him an' marryin' old John Down whilst Eb was off to war. I've always
laid it up ag'inst her."

"So've I," said Asa Brown. "She didn't use the poor fellow right. I
guess she was full as well off, but it's one thing to show judgment,
an' another thing to have heart."

There was a long pause; the subject was too familiar to need further
comment.

"There ain't no public sperit here in Barlow," announced Asa Brown,
with decision. "I don't s'pose we could ever get up anything for
Decoration Day. I've felt kind of 'shamed, but it always comes in a
busy time; 'twan't no time to have it, anyway, right in late
plantin'."

"'Tain't no use to look for public sperit 'less you've got some
yourself," observed John Stover soberly; but something had pleased him
in the discouraged suggestion. "Perhaps we could mark the day this
year. It comes on a Saturday; that ain't nigh so bad as bein' in the
middle of the week."

Nobody made any answer, and presently he went on,--

"There was a time along back when folks was too nigh the war-time to
give much thought to the bigness of it. The best fellows was them that
had stayed to home an' worked their trades an' laid up money; but I
don't know's it's so now."

"Yes, the fellows that stayed at home got all the fat places, an' when
we come back we felt dreadful behind the times," grumbled Asa Brown.
"I remember how 'twas."

"They begun to call us heroes an' old stick-in-the-mud just about the
same time," resumed Stover, with a chuckle. "We wa'n't no hand for
strippin' woodland nor even tradin' hosses them first few years. I
don' know why 'twas we were so beat out. The best most on us could do
was to sag right on to the old folks. Father he never wanted me to go
to the war,--'twas partly his Quaker breed,--an' he used to be
dreadful mortified with the way I hung round down here to the store
an' loafed round a-talkin' about when I was out South, an' arguin'
with folks that didn't know nothin', about what the generals done.
There! I see me now just as he see me then; but after I had my
boy-strut out, I took holt o' t