Early next morning the country roads leading into Waterville were
covered with carts and wagons and carriages loaded with people coming
into town to see the regiment off. The streets were hung with flags
and spanned with decorated arches bearing patriotic inscriptions. Bed,
white, and blue streamers hung in festoons from building to building
and floated from cornices. The stores and places of business were all
closed, the sidewalks were packed with people in their Sunday clothes,
and the windows and balconies were lined with gazers long before it was
time for the regiment to appear. Everybody--men, women, and children
--wore the national colors in cockades or rosettes, while many young
girls were dressed throughout in red, white, and blue. The city seemed
tricked out for some rare gala-day, but the grave faces of the expectant
throng, and the subdued and earnest manner which extended even to the
older children, stamped this as no ordinary holiday.
After hours of patient waiting, at last the word passes from mouth to
mouth, “They are coming!” Vehicles are quickly driven out of the way,
and in a general hush all eyes are turned towards the head of the
street. Presently there is a burst of martial music, and the regiment
comes wheeling round the corner into view and fills the wide street from
curb to curb with its broad front. As the blue river sweeps along, the
rows of polished bayonets, rising and falling with the swinging tread
of the men, are like interminable ranks of foam-crested waves rolling in
upon the shore. The imposing mass, with its rhythmic movement, gives the
impression of a single organism. One forgets to look for the individuals
in it, forgets that there are individuals. Even those who have brothers,
sons, lovers there, for a moment almost forget them in the impression of
a mighty whole. The mind is slow to realize that this great dragon,
so terrible in its beauty, emitting light as it moves from a thousand
burnished scales, with flaming crest proudly waving in the van, is but
an aggregation of men singly so feeble.
The hearts of the lookers-on as they gaze are swelling fast. An afflatus
of heroism given forth by this host of self-devoted men communicates
itself to the most stolid spectators. The booming of the drum fills the
brain, and the blood in the veins leaps to its rhythm. The unearthly
gayety of the fife, like the sweet, shrill song of a bird soaring above
the battle, infects the nerves till the idea of death brings a scornful
smile to the lips. Eyes glaze with rapturous tears as they rest upon the
flag. There is a thrill of voluptuous sweetness in the thought of dying
for it. Life seems of value only as it gives the poorest something to
sacrifice. It is dying that makes the glory of the world, and all other
employments seem but idle while the regiment passes.
The time for farewells is gone by. The lucky men at the ends of the
ranks have indeed an opportunity without breaking step to exchange an
occasional hand-shake with a friend on the sidewalk, or to snatch a kiss
from wife or sweetheart, but those in the middle of the line can only
look their farewells. Now and then a mother intrusts her baby to a
file-leader to be passed along from hand to hand till it reaches the
father, to be sent back with a kiss, or, maybe, perched aloft on his
shoulder, to ride to the depot, crowing at the music and clutching at
the gleaming bayonets. At every such touch of nature the people cheer
wildly. From every window and balcony the ladies shower garlands upon
the troops.
Where is Grace? for this is the Upton company which is passing now.
Yonder she stands on a balcony, between Mr. Morton and his sister. She
is very pale and the tears are streaming down her cheeks, but her face
is radiant. She is smiling through her tears, as if there was no such
thing on earth as fear or sorrow. She has looked forward to this ordeal
with harrowing expectations, only to find herself at the trying moment
seized upon and lifted above all sense of personal affliction by the
passion of self-devotion with which the air is electric. Her face as
she looks down upon her lover is that of a priestess in the ecstasy
of sacrifice. He is saluting with his sword. Now he has passed. With a
great sob she turns away. She does not care for the rest of the pageant.
Her patriotism has suddenly gone. The ecstasy of sacrifice is over. She
is no longer a priestess, but a brokenhearted girl, who only asks to be
led away to some place where she can weep till her lover returns.