"Perhaps we could mark the day this
year. It comes on a Saturday; that ain't nigh so bad as bein' in the
middle of the week."
Nobody made any answer, and presently he went on,--
"There was a time along back when folks was too nigh the war-time to
give much thought to the bigness of it. The best fellows was them that
had stayed to home an' worked their trades an' laid up money; but I
don't know's it's so now."
"Yes, the fellows that stayed at home got all the fat places, an' when
we come back we felt dreadful behind the times," grumbled Asa Brown.
"I remember how 'twas."
"They begun to call us heroes an' old stick-in-the-mud just about the
same time," resumed Stover, with a chuckle. "We wa'n't no hand for
strippin' woodland nor even tradin' hosses them first few years. I
don' know why 'twas we were so beat out. The best most on us could do
was to sag right on to the old folks. Father he never wanted me to go
to the war,--'twas partly his Quaker breed,--an' he used to be
dreadful mortified with the way I hung round down here to the store
an' loafed round a-talkin' about when I was out South, an' arguin'
with folks that didn't know nothin', about what the generals done.
There! I see me now just as he see me then; but after I had my
boy-strut out, I took holt o' the old farm 'long o' father, an' I've
made it bounce. Look at them old meadows an' see the herd's grass that
come off of 'em last year! I ain't ashamed o' my place now, if I did
go to the war.
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