A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 534 pages of information about A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches.

A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 534 pages of information about A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches.
white meeting-house was covered with country wagons and groups of people, whole families together, who had come on foot.  The old soldiers were to meet in the church; at half past one the procession was to start, and on its return the minister was to make an address in the old burying-ground.  John Stover had been first lieutenant in the war, so he was made captain of the day.  A man from the next town had offered to drum for them, and Martin Tighe’s proud boy was present with his fife.  He had a great longing—­strange enough in that peaceful, sheep-raising neighborhood—­to go into the army; but he and his elder brother were the mainstay of their crippled father, and he could not be spared from the large household until a younger brother could take his place; so that all his fire and military zeal went for the present into martial tunes, and the fife was a safety-valve for his enthusiasm.

The army men were used to seeing each other; everybody knew everybody in the little country town of Barlow; but when one comrade after another appeared in what remained of his accoutrements, they felt the day to be greater than they had planned, and the simple ceremony proved more solemn than any one expected.  They could make no use of their every-day jokes and friendly greetings.  Their old blue coats and tarnished army caps looked faded and antiquated enough.  One of the men had nothing left but his rusty canteen and rifle; but these he carried like sacred emblems.  He had worn out all his army clothes long ago, because he was too poor when he was discharged to buy any others.

When the door of the church opened, the veterans were not abashed by the size and silence of the crowd.  They came walking two by two down the steps, and took their places in line as if there were nobody looking on.  Their brief evolutions were like a mystic rite.  The two lame men refused to do anything but march as best they could; but poor Martin Tighe, more disabled than they, was brought out and lifted into Henry Merrill’s best wagon, where he sat up, straight and soldierly, with his boy for driver.  There was a little flag in the whip-socket before him, which flapped gayly in the breeze.  It was such a long time since he had been seen out-of-doors that everybody found him a great object of interest, and paid him much attention.  Even those who were tired of being asked to contribute to his support, who resented the fact of his having a helpless wife and great family; who always insisted that with his little pension and hopeless lameness, his fingerless left hand and failing sight, he could support himself and his household if he chose,—­even those persons came forward now to greet him handsomely and with large approval.  To be sure, he enjoyed the conversation of idlers, and his wife had a complaining way that was the same as begging, especially since her boys began to grow up and be of some use; and there were one or two near neighbors who never let them really want; so other people, who had cares enough

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A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.