He's awful lively on them canes o' his. An' there's
Jo Wade with his crutch; he's amazin' spry for a short distance. But
we can't let 'em go far afoot; they're decripped men. We'll make 'em
all put on what they've got left o' their uniforms, an' we'll scratch
round an' have us a fife an' drum, an' make the best show we can."
"Why, Martin Tighe's boy, the next to the oldest, is an excellent hand
to play the fife!" said John Stover, suddenly growing enthusiastic.
"If you two are set on it, let's have a word with the minister
to-morrow, an' see what he says. Perhaps he'll give out some kind of a
notice. You have to have a good many bunches o' flowers. I guess we'd
better call a meetin', some few on us, an' talk it over first o' the
week. 'Twouldn't be no great of a range for us to take to march from
the old buryin'-ground at the meetin'-house here up to the poor-farm
an' round by Deacon Elwell's lane, so's to notice them two stones he
set up for his boys that was sunk on the man-o'-war. I expect they
notice stones same's if the folks laid there, don't they?"
He spoke wistfully. The others knew that Stover was thinking of the
stone he had set up to the memory of his only brother, whose nameless
grave had been made somewhere in the Wilderness.
"I don't know but what they'll be mad if we don't go by every house in
town," he added anxiously, as they rose to go home. "'Tis a terrible
scattered population in Barlow to favor with a procession.
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