therin' ijit now an' again."

"Well, you heard what Marjie said, and how careless she was."

"Yes, an' I seen her shiver an' turn white the instant too. Phil, she's
doin' that to kape us from bein' unaisy, an' it's costin' her some to
do it. Bless her pretty face! Phil, don't be no bigger fool than ye can
kape from."

In less than a week after the incident on the prairie my father's
Company was called to the firing line of the Civil War and the
responsibilities of life fell suddenly upon me. There was a great
gathering in town on the day the men marched away. Where the opera house
stands now was the corner of a big vacant patch of ground reaching out
toward the creek. To-day it was filled with the crowd come to see the
soldiers and bid them good-bye. A speaker's stand was set up in the yard
of the Cambridge House and the boys in blue were in the broad street
before it. It was the last civilian ceremony for many of them, for that
Kansas Company went up Missionary Ridge at Chattanooga, led the line as
Kansans will ever do, and in the face of a murderous fire they drove the
foeman back. But many of them never came home to wear their laurels of
victory. They lie in distant cemeteries under the shadow of tall
monuments. They lie in old neglected fields, in sunken trenches, by
lonely waysides, and in deep Southern marshes, waiting all the last
great Reunion. If I should live a thousand years, the memory of that
bright summer morning would not fade from my mind.

Dr. Hemingway, pastor of the Presbyterian Church, presided over the
meeting, and the crowd about the soldiers was reinforced by all the
countryside beyond the Neosho and the whole Red Range neighborhood.

Skulking about the edge of the company, or gathered in little groups
around the corners just out of sight, were the pro-slavery sympathizers,
augmented by the Fingal's Creek crowd, who were of the Secession element
clear through. In the doorway of the "Last Chance" sat the Rev. Dodd,
pastor of the Springvale Methodist Church South, taking no part in this
patriotic occasion. Father Le Claire was beside Dr. Hemingway. He said
not a word, but Springvale knew he was a power for peace. He did not
sanction bloodshed even in a righteous cause. Neither would he allow
those who followed his faith to lift a hand against those who did go out
to battle. We trusted him and he never betrayed that trust. This morning
I recalled what O'mie had said about his looking like Jean Pa