for the time his honourable wounds the father went day after day to his
work as a housepainter. He dreamed of a new blue uniform for the great day
and in the end achieved the realisation of his dreams, not however without
material assistance from what was known in the house as "Mother's Wash
Money." And the boy, convinced by the story of the midnight attack in the
woods of Virginia, began against his judgment to build once more an old
dream of his father's reformation. Boylike, the scepticism was thrown to
the winds and he entered with zeal into the plans for the great day. As he
went through the quiet residence streets delivering the late evening
papers, he threw back his head and revelled in the thought of a tall blue-
clad figure on a great white horse passing like a knight before the gaping
people. In a fervent moment he even drew money from his carefully built-up
bank account and sent it to a firm in Chicago to pay for a shining new
bugle that would complete the picture he had in his mind. And when the
evening papers were distributed he hurried home to sit on the porch before
the house discussing with his sister Kate the honours that had alighted
upon their family.

* * * * *

With the coming of dawn on the great day the three McPhersons hurried hand
in hand toward Main Street. In the street, on all sides of them, they saw
people coming out of houses rubbing their eyes and buttoning their coats
as they went along the sidewalk. All of Caxton seemed abroad.

In Main Street the people were packed on the sidewalk, and massed on the
curb and in the doorways of the stores. Heads appeared at windows, flags
waved from roofs or hung from ropes stretched across the street, and a
great murmur of voices broke the silence of the dawn.