did, myself yesterd'y afternoon, and you get back in line or I won't let
you b'long to it at all!"

The pretender succumbed; he instantly dismounted, being out-shouted and
overawed. On foot he took his place in the ranks, while Ramsey became
sternly vociferous. "In-tention, company! Farwud _march_! Col-lumn
_right_! Right-showdler _harms_! Halt! Far-wud _march_. Carry harms--"

The Army went trudging away under the continuous but unheed fire of
orders, and presently disappeared round a corner, leaving the veteran
chuckling feebly under his walnut tree and alone with the empty street.
All trace of what he had said seemed to have been wiped from the
grandson's mind; but memory has curious ways. Ramsey had understood
not a fifth nor a tenth of his grandfather's talk, and already he had
"forgotten" all of it--yet not only were there many, many times in the
boy's later life when, without ascertainable cause, he would remember
the sunlight falling upon the old man's white head, to make that
semblance of a glittering bird's-nest there, but with the picture came
recollections of words and sentences spoken by the grandfather, though
the listener, half-drowsily, had heard but the sound of an old,
earnest voice--and even the veteran's meaning finally took on a greater
definiteness till it became, in the grandson's thoughts, something clear
and bright and beautiful that he knew without being just sure where or
how he had learned it.





Chapter II