brass and buttons, and their
instruments shone like anything. It rained, still they didn't even
wink, except the head of them. He was brillianter dressed than any
of them and he didn't like the rain. You could see that plain as
plain. They all had little stands before them with their music on
and the music got wet and splattery, but they didn't stop. They
just tossed one piece of music down and began another, after they'd
waited a little bit of while, to get their breath, I reckon. By and
by all the people, nearly, had gone away from the sidewalk yet the
band played right along.

"Then I heard somebody laugh. It was the Judge. He was laughing at
Auntie Lu; he always is and she at him. When she asked him 'why,'
he said: 'I was thinking this was a match game between British and
Yankee pluck. It's the Britisher's 'duty' to play to the end of his
program and he'll do it if he's melted into a little heap when he's
finished. It seems to be Yankee pluck, or duty, to stand out here
in this melancholy drizzle and hold on as long as he does.'

"'Of course,' said Mrs. Hungerford, 'it would be mean of us to
desert the poor chaps and leave them without a listener at all.'

"Then he said: 'Let's go indoors and sit in the 'seats of the
mighty.''

"She didn't know what he meant but he soon showed her. The Province
Building where their sort of Congress meets was all open wide and
they weren't having any session, it not being session time. So we
went in and sat around in leather covered chairs, only Molly and I
and the boys climbed up on the window seats and sat there. We could
hear beautiful and we got quite dry. Only it isn't any use getting
dry, daytimes, 'cause you're always going right out and getting wet
again.

"Sunday was the wettest yet. It didn't look so and Auntie Lu let us
girls put on white dresses, but she made us take our raincoats and
umbrellas and rubbers just the same. We went to the soldiers'
church out of doors, 'cause they'd thought it was clearing off.
There were benches fixed in rows like seats in church, and there
was a kind of pulpit all covered by a great English flag. Other
benches were up at one side. They were for the band. By and by a
bugle blew and they came marching, marching over the grass from the
big barracks beyond. The field sloped right down the side of a
great hill and at the foot, seemed so close one could almost touch
it but you couldn't for there were streets between, was the harbor
of wa