She had been an old woman when the war began; she had sent sons and
grandsons to the field; they were all gone now. As the men came by,
she straightened her bent figure with all the vigor of youth. The fife
and drum stopped suddenly; the colors lowered. She did not heed that,
but her old eyes flashed and then filled with tears to see the flag
going to salute the soldiers' graves. "Thank ye, boys; thank ye!" she
cried, in her quavering voice, and they all cheered her. The cheer
went back along the straggling line for old Grandmother Dexter,
standing there in her front door between the lilacs. It was one of the
great moments of the day.
The few old people at the poor-house, too, were waiting to see the
show. The keeper's young son, knowing that it was a day of festivity,
and not understanding exactly why, had put his toy flag out of the
gable window, and there it showed against the gray clapboards like a
gay flower. It was the only bit of decoration along the veterans' way,
and they stopped and saluted it before they broke ranks and went out
to the field corner beyond the poor-farm barn to the bit of ground
that held the paupers' unmarked graves. There was a solemn silence
while Asa Brown went to the back of Tighe's wagon, where such light
freight was carried, and brought two flags, and he and John Stover
planted them straight in the green sod. They knew well enough where
the right graves were, for these had been made in a corner by
themselves, with unwonted sentiment.
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