street--delicious airs from Arcady--and a great flag was flung out from
the post-office, and Master Jack was installed recruiting sergeant for
Colonel Ulrich Oswald's regiment, that was to be raised in Warchester
County. For Colonel Oswald, having failed in a third nomination for
Congress, had gallantly proffered his services to the Governor of the
State, and, in consideration of his influence with his German
compatriots, had been granted a commission, though with reluctance, as
he had supported the Democratic party and was not yet trusted in the
Republican councils.




CHAPTER II.

FLAG AND FAITH.


If Acredale had not been for a century the ancestral seat of the
Spragues, and in its widest sense typical of the suburban Northern town,
there would be merely an objective and extrinsic interest in portraying
its sequestered life, its monotonous activities. But Acredale was not
only a very complete reflex of Northern local sentiment; its war epoch
represented the normal conduct of every hamlet in the land during the
conflict with the South. Now that the war is becoming a memory, even to
those who were actors in it, the facts distorted and the incidents
warped to serve partisan ends or personal pique, the photograph of the
time may have its value.

Made up of thriving farmers and semi-retired city men, Acredale mingled