explaining could cover the stain on his soul if he failed in the answer
to the call of honor. That was it, it was in a nut-shell, the call. Yet
he could not hear it as his call. He wandered unhappily away and left
the church and its dissolving congregation, and the boys, the pride of
the church, the boys who were now, they also, separating and going back
each to his home for the last evening perhaps, to be loved and made much
of. Barlow vaguely pictured the scenes in those little homes--eyes
bright with unshed tears, love and laughter and courage, patriotism as
fine as in any great house in America, determination that in giving to
America what was dearest it should be given with high spirit--that the
boys should have smiling faces to remember, over there. And then
again--love and tender words. He was missing all that. He, too, might go
back to his father's house an enlisted man, and meet his father's eyes
of pride and see his sisters gaze at him with a new respect, feel their
new honor of him in the touch of arms about his neck. All these things
were for him too, if he would but take them. With that there was the
sound of singing, shrill, fresh voices singing down the street. He
wheeled about. A company of little girls were marching towards him and
he smiled, looking at them, thinking the sight as pretty as a garden of
flowers. They were from eight to ten or eleven years old and in the
bravery of fresh white dresses; each had a big butterfly of pink or blue
or yellow or white ribbon perched on each little fair or dark head, and
each carried over her shoulder a flag. Quite evidently they were coming
from the celebration at the church, where in some capacity they had
figured. Not millionaires children these; the little sisters likely of
the boys who were going to be soldiers; just dear things that bloom all
over America, the flowering of the land, common to rich and poor. As
they sprang along two by two, in unmartial ranks, they sang with all
their might "The Long, Long Trail."