swer.

"Le's see what we can do this year. I don't care if we be a poor
han'ful," urged Henry Merrill. "The young folks ought to have the
good of it; I'd like to have my boys see somethin' different. Le's get
together what men there is. How many's left, anyhow? I know there was
thirty-seven went from old Barlow, three-months' men an' all."

"There can't be over eight now, countin' out Martin Tighe; he can't
march," said Stover. "No, 'tain't worth while." But the others did not
notice his disapproval.

"There's nine in all," announced Asa Brown, after pondering and
counting two or three times on his fingers. "I can't make us no more.
I never could carry figur's in my head."

"I make nine," said Merrill. "We'll have Martin ride, an' Jesse Dean
too, if he will. He's awful lively on them canes o' his. An' there's
Jo Wade with his crutch; he's amazin' spry for a short distance. But
we can't let 'em go far afoot; they're decripped men. We'll make 'em
all put on what they've got left o' their uniforms, an' we'll scratch
round an' have us a fife an' drum, an' make the best show we can."

"Why, Martin Tighe's boy, the next to the oldest, is an excellent hand
to play the fife!" said John Stover, suddenly growing enthusiastic.
"If you two are set on it, let's have a word with the minister
to-morrow, an' see what he says. Perhaps he'll give out some kind of a
notice. You have to have a good many bunches o' flowers. I guess we'd
better call a meetin', some few on us, an' talk it over first o' the
week. 'Twouldn't be no great of a range for us to take to march from
the old buryin'-ground at the meetin'-house here up to the poor-farm
an' round by Deacon Elwell's lane, so's to notice them two stones he
set up for his boys that was sunk on the man-o'-war. I expect they
notice stones same's if the folks laid there, don't they?"

He spoke wistfully. The others knew that Stover was thinking of the
stone he had set up to the memory of his only brother, whose nameless
grave had been made somewhere in the Wilderness.

"I don't know but what they'll be mad if we don't go by every house in
town," he added anxiously, as they rose to go home. "'Tis a terrible
scattered population in Barlow to favor with a procession."

It was a mild starlit night. The three friends took their separate
ways presently, leaving the Plains road and crossing the fields by
foot-paths toward their farms.

II.

The week went by, and the next Saturday mornin