y more. Too short of breath and too shaky in
the legs and too blind."

"I wouldn't care," said the boy. "I'd be in the parade anyway, if I was
you. They had some sittin' in carriages, 'way at the tail end; but I
wouldn't like that. If I'd been in your place, Grandpa, and they'd let
me be in that parade, I'd been right up by the band. Look, Grandpa!
Watch me, Grandpa! This is the way I'd be, Grandpa."

He rose from the garden bench where they sat, and gave a complex
imitation of what had most appealed to him as the grandeurs of the
procession, his prancing legs simulating those of the horse of the grand
marshal, while his upper parts rendered the drums and bugles of the
band, as well as the officers and privates of the militia company which
had been a feature of the parade. The only thing he left out was the
detachment of veterans.

"Putty-boom! Putty-boom! Putty-boom-boom-boom!" he vociferated, as the
drums--and then as the bugles: "Ta, ta, ra, tara!" He addressed his
restive legs: "_Whoa_, there, you Whitey! Gee! Haw! Git up!" Then,
waving an imaginary sword: "Col-lumn right! Farwud _March!_ Halt! Carry
_harms!_" He "carried arms." "Show-dler _harms!_" He "shouldered arms,"
and returned to his seat.

"That'd be me, Grandpa. That's the way I'd do." And as the grandfather
nodded, seeming to agree, a thought recently dismissed returned to the
mind of the composite procession and he asked:

"Well, _why_ weren't you ever afraid the Rebels would whip the Unions,
Grandpa?"

"Oh, we knew they couldn't."

"I guess so." The little boy laughed disdainfully, thinking his question
satisfactorily answered. "I guess those ole Rebels couldn't whipped a
flea! They didn't know how to fight any at all, did they, Grandpa?"

"Oh, yes, they did!"

"What?" The boy was astounded. "Weren't they all just reg'lar ole
cowards, Grandpa?"

"No," said the grandfather. "They were pretty fine soldiers."

"They were? Well, they ran away whenever you began shootin' at 'em,
didn't they?"

"Sometimes they did, but most times they didn't. Sometimes they fought
like wildcats--and sometimes we were the ones that ran away."

"What for?"

"To keep from getting killed, or maybe to keep from getting captured."

"But the Rebels were bad men, weren't they, Grandpa?"

"No."

The boy's forehead, customarily vacant, showed some little vertical
shadows, produced by a struggle to think. "Well, but--" he began,
slowly. "Listen, Grandpa, listen her