raves. There was a solemn silence
while Asa Brown went to the back of Tighe's wagon, where such light
freight was carried, and brought two flags, and he and John Stover
planted them straight in the green sod. They knew well enough where
the right graves were, for these had been made in a corner by
themselves, with unwonted sentiment. And so Eben Munson and John Tighe
were honored like the rest, both by their flags and by great and
unexpected nosegays of spring flowers, daffies and flowering currant
and red tulips, which lay on the graves already. John Stover and his
comrade glanced at each other curiously while they stood singing, and
then laid their own bunches of lilacs down and came away.

Then something happened that almost none of the people in the wagons
understood. Martin Tighe's boy, who played the fife, had studied well
his part, and on his poor short-winded instrument now sounded taps as
well as he could. He had heard it done once in Alton at a soldier's
funeral. The plaintive notes called sadly over the fields, and echoed
back from the hills. The few veterans could not look at each other;
their eyes brimmed up with tears; they could not have spoken. Nothing
called back old army days like that. They had a sudden vision of the
Virginian camp, the hillside dotted white with tents, the twinkling
lights in other camps, and far away the glow of smouldering fires.
They heard the bugle call from post to post; they remembered the
chilly winter night, the wind in the pines, the laughter of the men.
Lights out! Martin Tighe's boy sounded it again sharply. It seemed as
if poor Eb Munson and John Tighe must hear it too in their narrow
graves.

The procession went on, and stopped here and there at the little
graveyards on the farms, leaving their bright flags to flutter through
summer and winter rains and snows, and to bleach in the wind and
sunshine. When they returned to the church, the minister made an
address about the war, and every one listened with new ears. Most of
what he said was familiar enough to his listeners; they were used to
reading those phrases about the results of the war, the glorious
future of the South, in their weekly newspapers; but there never had
been such a spirit of patriotism and loyalty waked in Barlow as was
waked that day by the poor parade of the remnant of the Barlow
soldiers. They sent flags to all the distant graves, and proud were
those households who claimed kinship with valor, and c