patriotic love-feast with their old enemies in blue--these men in
gray--to hold it on the hill around the four bronze statues that
Crittenden's State was putting up to her sons who fought on one or the
other side on that one battlefield, and Crittenden felt a clutch at his
heart and his eyes filled when the tattered old flag of the stars and
bars trembled toward him. Under its folds rode the spirit of gallant
fraternity--a little, old man with a grizzled beard and with stars on
his shoulders, his hands folded on the pommel of his saddle, his eyes
lifted dreamily upward--they called him the "bee-hunter," from that
habit of his in the old war--his father's old comrade, little Jerry
Carter. That was the man Crittenden had come South to see. Behind came a
carriage, in which sat a woman in widow's weeds and a tall girl in gray.
He did not need to look again to see that it was Judith, and,
motionless, he stood where he was throughout the ceremony, until he saw
the girl lift her hand and the veil fall away from the bronze symbols of
the soldier that was in her fathers and in his--stood resolutely still
until the gray figure disappeared and the veterans, blue and gray
intermingled, marched away. The little General was the last to leave,
and he rode slowly, as if overcome with memories. Crittenden took off
his hat and, while he hesitated, hardly knowing whether to make himself
known or not, the little man caught sight of him and stopped short.

"Why--why, bless my soul, aren't you Tom Crittenden's son?"

"Yes, sir," said Crittenden.

"I knew it. Bless me, I was thinking of him just that moment--naturally
enough--and you startled me. I thought it was Tom himself." He grasped
the Kentuckian's hand warmly.