of pitying them as much as a soldier can afford to pity anything. They seemed to him very old men. "Give 'em chairs, Peter," he commanded. "Give 'em easy chairs. Where's the cushions?" "I favor a hard cheer myself,” replied the blind soldier, sitting solid and straight upon the stiff bamboo chair into which he had been set down by Jabez Trent. "I'm sorry to find you so low, Reuben Oak." soldier. "Low!" exploded the old "Why, nothing partikler ails me. hain't got a thing the matter with me but a spell of rheumatics. I'll be spry as a kitten catchin' grasshoppers in a week. I can't march to-morrow-that's all. It's darned hard luck. How's your eyesight, Mr. Succor?" "Some consider'ble better, sir," retorted the blind man. "I calc'late to get it back. My son's goin' to take me to a city eye-doctor. I ain't only seventyeight. I'm too young to be blind. 'Tain't as if I was onto crutches, or I was down sick abed. How old are you, Reuben?" 'Only eighty-one!" snapped Reuben. "He's eighty-one last March," interpolated his wife. "He's come to a time of life when folks do take to their beds," returned David Swing. "Mebbe you could manage with crutches, Reuben, in a few weeks. I've been on 'em three years, since I was seventy-five. I've got to feel as if they was relations. Folks want me to ride tomorrow," he added, contemptuously, "but I'll march on them crutches to decorate them graves, or I won't march at all." "Nor it ain't Bull Run," rejoined Reuben. He lifted his red nightcap from his head. "Let it ache!" he said. "It ain't Gettysburg." "It seems to me," suggested Jabez Trent, "that Reuben he's under fire just about now. He ain't used to bein' disabled. It appears to me he's fightin' this matter the way a soldier 'doughter. Comrades, I move he's entitled to promotion for military conduct. He'd rather than sympathy-wouldn't you, Reuben?" "I don't feel to deserve it," muttered Reuben. "I swore to-day. Ask my wife." "No, he didn't!" blazed Patience Oak. "Ile never said a thing but 'damn.' He's getting tired, though," she added, under breath. "He ain't very well." She delicately brushed the foot of Jabez Trent with the toe of her slipper. "I guess we'd better not set any longer," observed Jabez Trent. The three veterans rose like one soldier. Reuben felt that their visit had not been what he expected. But he could not deny that he was tired out; he wondered why. He beckoned to Jabez Trent, who, shaking and coughing, bent over him. "You'll see the boys don't forget to decorate Tommy, won't you?" he asked, eagerly. Jabez could not hear much of this, but he got the word Tommy, and nodded. The three old men saluted silently, and when Reuben had put on his nightcap he found that they had all gone. Only Patience was in the room, standing by the jonquils, in her blue gingham dress and white apron. "Tired?" she asked, comfortably. "I've mixed you up an egg-nog. Think you could take it?" Now Jabez Trent was the youngest of the veterans; he was indeed but sixtyeight. He refrained from mentioning this fact. He felt that it was indelicate to boast of it. His jerking hand moved over toward the bed, and he laid it on Reuben's with a fine gesture. "You'll be round-you'll be round be- "Let me fix 'em a little." fore you know it," he shouted. "They didn't stay long," complained the old man. "It don't seem to amount to much, does it?" "I ain't deef," interrupted Reuben, "like the rest of you." But the palsied man, hearing not at all, shouted on: "You've punched your pillows all to pudding-stones," observed Patience Oak. "I won't be fussed over!" cried Reuben, angrily. He gave one of his pillows a pettish push, and it went half across the room. Patience picked it up without remark. Reuben Oak held out a contrite hand. "You always had grit, Reuben, more'n most of us. You stood more, you was under fire more, you never was afraid "Peter, come here!" he commanded. of anything- What's rheumatics? Patience, with her maternal smile, Tain't Antietam." obeyed. "You stay, Peter, anyhow. Folks don't amount to anything. It's you, Peter." Patience's eyes filled. But she hid them on the pillow beside him-he did not know why. She put up one hand and stroked his cheek. "Just as if I was a johnnyquil," said the old man. He laughed, and grew quiet, and slept. But Patience did not move. She was afraid of waking him. She sat crouched and crooked on the edge of the bed, uncomfortable and happy. Out on the street, between the house and the carpenter's shop, the figures of the veterans bent against the perspective of young tobacco. They walked feebly. Old Mr. Succor shook his head: 66 "Looks like he'd never see another Decoration Day. He's some considerable sick-an' he ain't young." them. These recognized the veterans with marked respect, and with some perplexity. What! Only old blind Mr. Succor? Just David Swing on his crutches, and Jabez Trent with the shaking palsy? Only those poor, familiar persons whom one saw every day, and did not think much about on any other day? Heroes? These plain, obscure old men? Heroes? So it befell that Patience Oak "decorated Tommy" for his father that Memorial Day. The year was 1909. The incident of which we have to tell occurred twelve months thereafter, in 1910. These, as I have gathered them, are the facts: Time, to the old, takes an unnatural pace, and Reuben Oak felt that the year had sprinted him down the race-track of life; he was inclined to resent his "He's got grit, though," urged Jabez eighty-second March birthday as a perTrent. "He's pretty old," sighed David Swing. "He's consider'ble older 'n we be. He'd ought to be prepared for his summons any time at his age." "We'll be decorating him, I guess, come next year," insisted old Mr. Succor. Jabez Trent opened his mouth to say something, but he coughed too hard to speak. "I'd like to look at Reuben's crop as we go by," remarked the blind man. "He's lucky to have the shop 'n' the crop too." The three turned aside to the field, where old Mr. Succor appraised the immature tobacco leaves with seeing fingers. "Connecticut's a great State!" he cried. "And this here's a great town," echoed David Swing. "Look at the quota we sent-nigh a full company. And we had a great colonel," he added, proudly. "I calc'late he'd been major-general if it hadn't 'a' been for that infernal shell." "Boys," said Jabez Trent, slowly, "Memorial Day's a great day. It's up to us to keep it that way— Boys, we're all that's left of the Charles Darlington Post." sonal insult; but April cried over him, and May laughed at him, and he had acquired a certain grim reconciliation with the laws of fate by the time that the nation was summoned to remember its dead defenders upon their latest anniversary. This resignation was the easier because he found himself unexpectedly called upon to fill an extraordinary part in the drama and the pathos of the day. He slept brokenly the night before, and waked early; it was scarcely five o'clock. But Patience, his wife, was already awake, lying quietly upon her pillow, with straight, still arms stretched down beside him. She was careful not to disturb him. Patience had the genius of love. She was endowed with love as a great poet is by song, or a musician by harmony, or an artist by color or form. She loved supremely, but her husband had never found it out. They were two plain people-a carpenter and his wife, plodding along the Connecticut valley industriously, with the ideals of their kind: to be true to their marriage vows, to be faithful to their children, to pay their debts. There were times when "That's a fact," observed the blind it occurred to Patience that she took soldier, soberly. "That's so," said the lame one, softly. The three did not talk any more; they walked past the tobacco-field thoughtfully. Many persons passed or met more care of Reuben than Reuben did of her; but she dismissed the matter with a phrase common in her class, and covering for women most of the perplexity of married life: "You know what men are." On the morning of which we speak, Reuben Oak had a blunt perception of the fact that it was kind in his wife to take such pains not to wake him till he got ready to begin the tremendous day before him; she always was considerate if he did not sleep well. He put down his hand and took hers with a sudden grasp, where it lay gentle and still beside him. "Well, Peter," he said, kindly. "Yes, dear," said Patience, instantly. "Feeling all right for to-day?" "Fine," returned Reuben. "I don't know when I've felt so spry. I'll get right up 'n' dress." "Would you mind staying where you are till I get your coffee heated?" asked Patience, eagerly. "You know how much stronger you always are if you wait for it. I'll have it on the heater in no time." "I can't wait for coffee to-day," flashed Reuben. "I'm the best judge of what I need." "Very well," said Patience, in a disappointed tone. For she had learned the final lesson of married life-not to oppose an obstinate man for his own good. But she slipped into her wrapper and made the coffee, nevertheless. When she came back with it, Reuben was lying on the bed in his flannels, with a comforter over him; he looked pale, and held out his hand impatiently for the coffee. His feverish eyes healed as he watched her moving about the room. He thought how young and pretty her neck was when she splashed the water on it. "Goin' to wear your black dress?" he asked. "That's right. I'm glad you are. I'll get up pretty soon." "I'll bring you all your clothes," she said. "Don't you get a mite tired. I'll move up everything for you. Your uniform's all cleaned and pressed. Don't you do a thing!" She brushed her thick hair with upraised, girlish arms, and got out her black serge dress and a white tie. He lay and watched her thoughtfully. "Peter," he said, unexpectedly, "how long is it since we was married?" "Forty-nine years," answered Patience, promptly. "Fifty, come next September." "What a little creatur' you were, Peter -just a slip of a girl! And how you did take hold-Tommy and everything." "I was 'most twenty," observed Patience, with dignity. "You made a powerful good stepmother all the same," mused Reuben. "You did love Tommy, to beat all." "I was fond of Tommy," answered Patience, quietly. "He was a nice little fellow." "And then there was the baby, Patience. Pity we lost the baby! I guess you took that harder 'n I did, Peter.” Patience made no reply. "She was so dreadful young, Peter. I can't seem to remember how she looked. Can you? Pity she didn't live! You'd 'a' liked a daughter round the house, wouldn't you, Peter? Say, Peter, we've gone through a good deal, haven't we you 'n' me? The war 'n' all that— and the two children. But there's one thing, Peter-" She Peter came over to him quietly, and sat down on the side of the bed. was half dressed, and her still beautiful arms went around him. "You'll tire yourself all out thinking, Reuben. You won't be able to decorate anybody if you ain't careful." "What I was goin' to say was this," persisted Reuben. "I've always had you, Peter. And you've had me. I don't count so much, but I'm powerful fond of you, Peter. You're all I've got. Seems as if I couldn't set enough by you, somehow or nuther." The old man hid his face upon her soft neck. "There, there, dear!" said Patience. "Don't you think you'd better be getting dressed, Reuben? The procession's going to start pretty early. Folks are moving up and down the street. Everybody's got flowers- See?" Reuben looked out of the window and over the pansy-bed with brilliant, dry eyes. His wife could see that he was keeping back the thing that he thought most about. She hurried his breakfast and brought the tray to him. He ate because she asked him to, but his hands shook. It seemed as if he clung wilfully to the old topic, escaping the new as long as he could, to ramble on. "You've been a dreadfully amiable wife, Peter. I don't believe I could have got along with any other kind of woman." "I didn't used to be amiable, Reuben. |