"The more you become interested in it--and I believe it will be
progressive--the less you will mind saying so."
"It is a strange interest--utterly unlike me--"
"How do you know it isn't more like you than anything you ever did in
your life?"
That struck him to silence; he gave her a quick inquiring glance, and
looked away at once; and Sharlee, for the moment entirely oblivious of
the noise and the throng all about her, went on.
"I called that a magnificent boast once--about your being editor of the
_Post_. Do you remember? Isn't it time I was confessing that you have
got the better of me?"
"I think it is too soon," he answered, in his quietest voice, "to say
whether I have got the better of you, or you have got the better of
me."
Sharlee looked off down the street. "But you certainly will be editor of
the _Post_ some day."
"As I recall it, we did not speak only of editorial writing that night."
"Oh, listen ...!"
From far away floated the strains of "Dixie," crashed out by forty
bands. The crowd on the sidewalks stirred; prolonged shouts went up; and
now all those who were seated on the porch arose at one motion and came
forward.
Sharlee had to spring up to greet still another relative. She came back
in a moment, sincerely hoping that Mr. Queed would resume the
conversation which her exclamation had interrupted. But he spoke of
quite a different matter, a faint cloud on his intelligent brow.
"You should hear Professor Nicolovius on these veterans of yours."
"What does he say about them? Something hateful, I'm sure."
"Among other things, that they are a lot of professional beggars who
have lived for forty years on their gray uniforms, and can best serve
their country by dying with all possible speed. Do you know," he mused,
"if you could hear him, I believe you would be tempted to guess that he
is a former Union officer--who got into trouble, perhaps, and was
cashiered."
"But of course you know all about him?"
"No," said he, honest, but looking rather annoyed at having given her
such an opening, "I know only what he told me."
"Sharlee," came her mother's voice from the rear, "are you sitting on
the cold stone?"
"No, mother. Two mats and a cushion."
"Well, he is not a Union officer," said Sharlee to Queed, "for if he
were, he would not be bitter. All the bitterness nowadays comes from the
non-combatants, the camp-followers, the sutlers, and the cowards. Look,
Mr. Queed! _Look!_"
The street had become a tumult, the shouting grew into a roar. Two
squares away the head of the parade swept into view, and drew steadily
nearer. Mr. Queed looked, and felt a thrill in despite of himself.
At the head of the column came the escort, with the three regimental
bands, mounted and bicycle police, city officials, visiting military,
sons of veterans, and the militia, including the resplendent Light
Infantry Blues of Richmond, a crack drill regiment with an honorable
history dating from 1789, and the handsomest uniforms ever seen. Behind
the escort rode the honored commander-in-chief of the veterans, and
staff, the grand marshal and staff, and a detachment of mounted
veterans. The general commanding rode a dashing white horse, which he
sat superbly despite his years, and received an ovation all along the
line. An even greater ovation went to two festooned carriages which
rolled behind the general staff: they contained four black-clad women,
no longer young, who bore names that had been dear to the hearts of the
Confederacy. After these came the veterans afoot, stepping like
youngsters, for that was their pride, in faded equipments which
contrasted sharply with the shining trappings of the militia. They
marched by state divisions, each division marshaled into brigades, each
brigade subdivided again into camps. At the head of each division rode
the major-general and staff, and behind each staff came a carriage
containing the state's sponsor and maids of honor. And everywhere there
were bands, bands playing "Dixie," and the effect would have been even
more glorious, if only any two of them had played the same part of it at
the same time.
Everybody was standing. It is doubtful if in all the city there was
anybody sitting now, save those restrained by physical disabilities.
Conversation on the Weyland piazza became exceedingly disjointed.
Everybody was excitedly calling everybody else's attention to things
that seemed particularly important in the passing spectacle. To Queed
the amount these people appeared to know about it all was amazing. All
during the afternoon he heard Sharlee identifying fragments of
regiments with a sureness of knowledge that he, an authority on
knowledge, marveled at.
The escort passed, and the officers and staffs drew on. The fine-figured
old commander-in-chief, when he came abreast, turned and looked full at
the Weyland piazza, seemed to search it for a face, and swept his plumed
hat to his stirrup in a profound bow. The salute was greeted on the
porch with a burst of hand-clapping and a great waving of flags.
"That was for my grandmother. He was in love with her in 1850," said
Sharlee to Queed, and immediately whisked away to tell something else to
somebody else.
One of the first groups of veterans in the line, heading the Virginia
Division, was the popular R.E. Lee Camp of Richmond. All afternoon they
trod to the continual accompaniment of cheers. No exclusive "show"
company ever marched in better time than these septuagenarians, and this
was everywhere the subject of comment. A Grand Army man stood in the
press on the sidewalk, and, struck by the gallant step of the old
fellows, yelled out good-naturedly:--
"You boys been drillin' to learn to march like that, haven't you?"
Instantly a white-beard in the ranks called back: "No, sir! _We never
have forgot!_"
Other camps were not so rhythmic in their tread. Some of the lines were
very dragging and straggly; the old feet shuffled and faltered in a way
which showed that their march was nearly over. Not fifty yards away from
Queed, one veteran pitched out of the ranks; he was lifted up and
received into the house opposite which he fell. Sadder than the men were
the old battle-flags, soiled wisps that the aged hands held aloft with
the most solicitous care. The flag-poles were heavy and the men's arms
weaker than once they were; sometimes two or even three men acted
jointly as standard-bearer.
These old flags, mere unrecognizable fragments as many of them were,
were popular with the onlookers. Each as it marched by, was hailed with
a new roar. Of course there were many tears. There was hardly anybody in
all that crowd, over fifty years old, in whom the sight of these fast
dwindling ranks did not stir memories of some personal bereavement. The
old ladies on the porch no longer used their handkerchiefs chiefly for
waving. Queed saw one of them wave hers frantically toward a drooping
little knot of passing gray-coats, and then fall back into a chair, the
same handkerchief at her eyes. Sharlee, who was explaining everything
that anybody wanted to know, happened to be standing near him; she
followed his glance and whispered gently:--
"Her husband and two of her brothers were killed at Gettysburg. Her
husband was in Pickett's Division. Those were Pickett's men that just
passed--about all there are left now."
A little while afterwards, she added: "It is not so gay as one of your
Grand Army Days, is it? You see ... it all comes home very close to us.
Those old men that can't be with us much longer are our mothers'
brothers, and sweethearts, and uncles, and fathers. They went out so
young--so brave and full of hope--they poured out by hundreds of
thousands. Down this very street they marched, no more than boys, and
our mothers stood here where we are standing, to bid them godspeed. And
now look at what is left of them, straggling by. There is nobody on this
porch--but you--who did not lose somebody that was dear to them. And
then there was our pride ... for we were proud. So that is why our old
ladies cry to-day."
"And why your young ladies cry, too?"
"Oh, ... I am not crying."
"Don't you suppose I know when people are crying and when they
aren't?--Why do you do it?"
Sharlee lowered her eyes. "Well ... it's all pretty sad, you know ...
pretty sad."
She turned away, leaving him to his own devices. From his place on the
top step, Queed turned and let his frank glance run over the ladies on
the porch. The sadness of face that he had noticed earlier had dissolved
and precipitated now: there was hardly a dry eye on that porch but his
own. What were they all crying for? Miss Weyland's explanation did not
seem very convincing. The war had ended a generation ago. The whole
thing had been over and done with many years before she was born.
He turned again, and looked out with unseeing eyes over the thick
street, with the thin strip of parade moving down the middle of it. He
guessed that these ladies on the porch were not crying for definite
brothers, or fathers, or sweethearts they had lost. People didn't do
that after forty years; here was Fifi only dead a year, and he never saw
anybody crying for her. No, they were weeping over an idea; it was
sentiment, and a vague, misty, unreasonable sentiment at that. And yet
he could not say that Miss Weyland appeared simply foolish with those
tears in her eyes. No, the girl somehow managed to give the effect of
seeing farther into things than he himself.... Her tears evidently were
in the nature of a tribute: she was paying them to an idea. Doubtless
there was a certain largeness about that. But obviously the paying of
such a tribute could do no possible good--unless--to the payer. Was
there anything in that?--in the theory....
Unusual bursts of cheering broke their way into his consciousness, and
he recalled himself to see a squad of negro soldiers, all very old men,
hobbling by. These were of the faithful, whom no number of proclamations
could shake from allegiance to Old Marster. One of them declared himself
to be Stonewall Jackson's cook. Very likely Stonewall Jackson's cooks
are as numerous as once were ladies who had been kissed by LaFayette,
but at any rate this old negro was the object of lively interest all
along the line. He was covered with reunion badges, and carried two live
chickens under his arm.
Queed went down to the bottom step, the better to hear the comments of
the onlookers, for this was what interested him most. He found himself
standing next to an exceptionally clean-cut young fellow of about his
own age. This youth appeared a fine specimen of the sane, wholesome,
successful young American business man. Yet he was behaving like a
madman, yelling like Bedlam, wildly flaunting his hat--a
splendid-looking Panama--now and then savagely brandishing his fists at
an unseen foe. Queed heard him saying fiercely, apparently to the world
at large: "They couldn't lick us now. By the Lord, they couldn't lick us
now!"