ould drive or
walk away with their flags held up so that others could see that they,
too, were of the elect.

III.

It is well that the days are long in the last of May, but John Stover
had to hurry more than usual with his evening work, and then, having
the longest distance to walk, he was much the latest comer to the
Plains store, where his two triumphant friends were waiting for him
impatiently on the bench. They also had made excuse of going to the
post-office and doing an unnecessary errand for their wives, and were
talking together so busily that they had gathered a group about them
before the store. When they saw Stover coming, they rose hastily and
crossed the road to meet him, as if they were a committee in special
session. They leaned against the post-and-board fence, after they had
shaken hands with each other solemnly.

"Well, we've had a great day, ain't we, John?" asked Henry Merrill.
"You did lead off splendid. We've done a grand thing, now, I tell you.
All the folks say we've got to keep it up every year. Everybody had to
have a talk about it as I went home. They say they had no idea we
should make such a show. Lord! I wish we'd begun while there was more
of us!"

"That han'some flag was the great feature," said Asa Brown generously.
"I want to pay my part for hirin' it. An' then folks was glad to see
poor old Martin made o' some consequence."

"There was half a dozen said to me that another year they was goin' to
have flags out, and trim up their places somehow or 'nother. Folks has
feelin' enough, but you've got to rouse it," said Merrill.

"I have thought o' joinin' the Grand Army over to Alton time an'
again, but it's a good ways to go, an' then the expense has been o'
some consideration," Asa continued. "I don't know but two or three
over there. You know, most o' the Alton men nat'rally went out in the
rigiments t' other side o' the State line, an' they was in other
battles, an' never camped nowheres nigh us. Seems to me we ought to
have home feelin' enough to do what we can right here."

"The minister says to me this afternoon that he was goin' to arrange
an' have some talks in the meetin'-house next winter, an' have some of
us tell where we was in the South; an' one night 'twill be about camp
life, an' one about the long marches, an' then about the
battles,--that would take some time,--an' tell all we could about the
boys that was killed, an' their record, so they wouldn't be forgot. He