the boy of all the boys who gave the Hendricks boys most homage was
little Johnnie Barclay. There was no dread in his hero-worship. He had
no father to go to the war. But the other children and all the women
were under a great cloud of foreboding, and for them the time was one
of tension and hoping against hope that the war would soon pass.

How the years gild our retrospect. It was in 1903 that Martin
Culpepper, a man in his seventies, collected and published "The
Complete Poetical and Philosophical Works of Watts McHurdie, together
with Notes and a Biographical Appreciation by Martin F. Culpepper."
One of the earlier chapters, which tells of the enlistment of the
volunteer soldiers for the Civil War in '61, devotes some space to the
recruiting and enlistment in Sycamore Ridge. The chapter bears the
heading "The Large White Plumes," and in his "introductory remarks"
the biographer says, "To him who looks back to those golden days of
heroic deeds only the lines of Keats will paint the picture in his
soul:--

"'Lo, I must tell a tale of chivalry,
For large white plumes are dancing in mine eyes.'"

And so the "large white plumes" blinded his eyes to the fear and the
dread that were in the hearts of the people, and he tells his readers
nothing of the sadness that men felt who put in crops knowing that
their wives must cultivate and harvest them. He sees only the glory of
it; for we read: "Hail to the spirit of mighty Mars. When he strode
through our peaceful village, he awoke many a war song in our breasts.
As for our hero, Mars, the war god forged iron reeds for his lute, and
he breathed into it the spirit of the age, and all the valour, all the
chivalry of a golden day came pouring out of his impassioned reeds."