all back, the drummer drumming his loudest all the while. It is mere
boy's play to march in single and double files or in platoons. We are to
meet the companies from the other towns at the muster, and they must be
forced to admit our superiority in spite of themselves, or else our town
will not come out ahead. Now, if there is any one manoeuvre on which
the Walton infantry prides itself, the "lock-step and sit-down" is that
one. The company is marched about in single file until a circle is
formed, care being taken that the captain shall be in the inside and the
musicians on the outside. Gradually drawing toward the centre, the
circle contracts to slow music, until the whole company is in lock-step,
like a gang of convicts. At the word of command, each man seats himself
in the lap of the man behind him, and the whole company is in the
attitude of frogs as they are ready to leap. The captain, raised aloft
in the middle by some convenient mackerel-keg, draws his sword, and the
tableau lasts while the music sounds the "three cheers."

Another "evolution," such as Darwin never dreamed of, is begun by facing
the company to the front in a single rank. The left hand of each man
resting on his next neighbor's right shoulder, space is taken until all
the men are an arm's length apart. At a given signal they all face to
the right. The captain, "with drawn sword," followed by the music, the
drum beating vigorously, runs at double-quick time in and out of the
spaces, like a very undignified performance of the Virginia Reel. As
each man is passed, he joins the rapidly-increasing file, until the
whole line expends its snake-like activity and marches off in "common
time" on a straight course, like this:

[Illustration]

Both of these "evolutions" are calculated to inspire the enemy with
terror, but the latter especially so. On beholding it, the enemy cannot
help giving applause, and in applauding he must necessarily drop his
arms. The Walton Light Infantry, equal to any emergency, may now show
their superior discipline by capturing the enemy before he can recover
from his surprise and admiration. Even the very boys on a training-day
seek to terrorize the enemy with broom-sticks and tin pans, until they
become a nuisance to the older folk and are sent off to some field to
play base-ball after the old method, the "Massachusetts game," which
allows the "plunking" of a batter when he is not on his base. But the
boys will claim their shar