n under
a laburnum, where people could not see it from the church. But you could
from the road, though I think she thought you couldn't. She came every
day to look at the new wreaths. When the white flowers gave out we put
coloured, and she liked it just as well.

About a fortnight after the erecting of the tombstone the girls were
putting fresh wreaths on it when a soldier in a red coat came down the
road, and he stopped and looked at us. He walked with a stick, and he
had a bundle in a blue cotton handkerchief, and one arm in a sling.

And he looked again, and he came nearer, and he leaned on the wall, so
that he could read the black printing on the white paint.

And he grinned all over his face, and he said--

'Well, I AM blessed!'

And he read it all out in a sort of half whisper, and when he came to
the end, where it says, 'and all such brave soldiers', he said--

'Well, I really AM!' I suppose he meant he really was blessed. Oswald
thought it was like the soldier's cheek, so he said--

'I daresay you aren't so very blessed as you think. What's it to do with
you, anyway, eh, Tommy?'

Of course Oswald knew from Kipling that an infantry soldier is called
that. The soldier said--

'Tommy yourself, young man. That's ME!' and he pointed to the tombstone.

We stood rooted to the spot. Alice spoke first.

'Then you're Bill, and you're not dead,' she said. 'Oh, Bill, I am so
glad! Do let ME tell your mother.'

She started running, and so did we all. Bill had to go slowly because of
his leg, but I tell you he went as fast as ever he could.

We all hammered at the soldier's mother's door, and shouted--

'Come out! come out!' and when she opened the door we were going to
speak, but she pushed us away, and went tearing down the garden path
like winking. I never saw a grown-up woman run like it, because she saw
Bill coming.

She met him at the gate, running right into him, and caught hold of him,
and she cried much more than when she thought he was dead.

And we all shook his hand and said how glad we were.

The soldier's mother kept hold of him with both hands, and I couldn't
help looking at her face. It was like wax that had been painted on both
pink cheeks, and the eyes shining like candles. And when we had all said
how glad we were, she said--

'Thank the dear Lord for His mercies,' and she took her boy Bill into
the cottage and shut the door.

We went home and chopped up the tombstone with the wood-a