he
graveyard again, and not long after resigned all his other official
duties--passing the plate, et cetera--although he still attended
services there.

Decoration Day rolled around, the G.A.R. Post of which he was an ardent
member prepared for the annual memorial services over the graves of its
dead comrades. Early on the morning of the thirtieth of May they
gathered before their lodge hall, Burridge among them, and after
arranging the details marched conspicuously to the cemetery where the
placing of the wreaths and the firing of the salute were to take place.
No one thought of Burridge until the gate was reached, when, gun over
shoulder and uniform in perfect trim, he fell conspicuously out of line
and marched away home alone. It was the cemetery he had vowed not to
enter, his old pet and protege.

Men now looked askance at him. He was becoming queer, no doubt of it,
not really sensible--or was he? Up in Northfield, a nearby town, dwelt a
colonel of the Civil War who had led the very regiment of which Burridge
was a member but who during the war had come into serious difficulty
through a tangle of orders, and had been dishonorably discharged.
Although wounded in one of the engagements in which the regiment had
distinguished itself, he had been allowed to languish almost forgotten
for years and finally, failing to get a pension, had died in poverty.
On his deathbed he had sent for Burridge, and reminding him of the
battle in which he had led him asked that after he was gone, for the
sake of his family, he would take up the matter of a pension and if
possible have his record purged of the stigma and the pension awarded.

Burridge agreed most enthusiastically. Going to the local congressman,
he at once began a campaign, but because of the feeling against him two
years passed without anything being done. Later he took up the matter in
his own G.A.R. Post, but there also failing to find the measure of his
own enthusiasm, he went finally direct to one of the senators of the
State and laying the matter before him had the records examined by
Congress and the dead colonel honorably discharged.

One day thereafter in the local G.A.R. he commented unfavorably upon the
indifference which he deemed had been shown.

"There wouldn't have been half so much delay if the man hadn't been a
deserter," said one of his enemies--one who was a foreman in Palmer's
shipyard.

Instantly Burridge was upon his feet, his eyes aflame with f