Green Valley

s Decoration Day. And nowhere is it obs

ld ones are retrimmed. Buggies are repainted and baby carriages oiled. Dick does a thriving business in lemons, picnic baskets, flags, peanuts and palm-leaf fans, these being

ke a sweet old bakery shop with its doors and windows wide open. There is then every evening a careful survey o

om one end of the town to the other clotheslines, dining-room chairs, porch rockers and upstairs bedrooms are overflowing wi

st catches the eye are the old suits of army blue flapping gently in the spring breeze with here and there a brass button glinting. There are a surprising number of these suits of army blue

of anybody and everybody who might be interested enough to look. F

d's portrait which stands on an easel in the darkest corner of her parlor. This little service is not the tender attention of a loving and grieving wife for

her he's going to march with the rest of the school children and will there be anything special on the programme this year. And he tells her sure he's going to march. Ain't he got a new pair of pants, a blouse, a

thout demanding the usual nickel. He takes his payment in watching the blue army suit swaying on the line un

d neighbors a certain grave respect, for they all know that on the morrow among t

made days ago, still that last night befor

rt with their black velvet slippers, before making any effort to have Joe try his wares on their awkward feet. Little Johnny Peterson comes in to inquire if Joe has sewed the buttons on his, Johnny's, shoes, and Martha Gray has a hard time trying to decide which of two pairs of moccasins are most becoming to her youngest baby. Any number of youths are hanging about waiting for Joe to get around to selling

become the rest of him. Seth looks best in a cap and always wears one except, of course, on such state occasions as the coming one. He asks the Longman boys how he looks in the brown fedora Pete has just put on his head and

ppers as Mrs. Pete gets the stepladder, mounts it and brings down with a good deal of visible pride a pasteboard box containing six pairs of white si

us of the stir she has made. It is only when David Allan comes up and asks her if she i

ied to buy gloves for the occasion not knowing, in her city innocence, that gl

ldn't hurt to buy a new buggy whip, one of the smart ones with the bit of

e first time that Jocelyn has been out in the village stree

confides to David. And David laughs and takes her over to Martin's for a soda and then, because it is still early,

l estate and lawyer man. He sells lots, now and then a house, writes insurance and draws up wills, collects bills or rather coaxes careless neighbors to settle their accounts, and he absolutely does not believe in divorce or woman suffrage.

e fine old trunks. And then you see the myrtle and violets growing beneath them and near the house clumps of daisies and forget-me-nots. And then you spy the beehives and the quaint old well and you walk through the cool grape arbor right into the little kitchen, where Mrs. Dunn, as likely as not, is making a cherry pie or currant jell or maybe a strawberry shortcake. S

But that was all. Then one day, in the midst of all manner of ambitious enterprises, he grew tired of living and died. And then it was that Mary Langely rose from obscurity and made Green Valley rub its eyes. For within a week after Tom's death she had gathered together all t

in any three houses in Green Valley. That was why it was alwa

nd the wide double glass doors the women trying on the gay creations and hoveri

of purple lilacs for her last year's hat was the Widow Green. The short, waddly woman trying on the wide hat with the pink roses was Bessie Williams. The tall girl with the pretty braids woun

Foster. And the little bow-legged one, with the hard hat two siz

lked home through the laughing streets, lights were being winked out in the lower living rooms only to flash out somewhere up-stairs where the family was wis

And it must be said right here that that first signal volley was about all the fireworks ever indulged in in Green Valley. This little town, nestling in the peaceful shelter of gentle hills and softly singing woods, n

d when the morning broke like a great pink rose and shed its rosy light over the dimpling hills and lacy, misty woodlands the old town was a-flutter with banner

later the church bell summoned the veterans. And by nine the procession was

ttle baskets of flowers, with little Eleanor Williams carrying in her tiny hands a silken banner on

d by a regiment of merry sailor boys. There were cowboys and Boy Scouts, boys in o

e men in blue who followed. Nanny Ainslee's father led the veterans, sitting his h

at with conscious pride and turning her head continually to look at the children, as the head of the procession turned corners. The young ma

a few incidents in various parts of the processio

s he thought he had shut safely into the barn came yelping an

winds stained with the odors of liquor swept temptingly over him he half started to step out of line. But Frank Burton

h a soft collar and in the excitement of getting under way and trying to remember which way her new hat was supposed to set Mrs. H

nually leaving his place in The Business Men's Association

ey had forgotten what his mother had told him about being sure to put his ears inside his cap and those two appendages, burned and already blistered by the hot May sun, stood out in sole

sible so as not to miss anything that might happen at either end as well as the middle of the procession. She had been utterly unable to pin on her fir

hat she could see everything. This was her first country festival and no child in that

le Tony's brother William. William was driving his span of grays so slowly that the pretty creature

he looked as wistfully as they at the fluttering flags and listened as keenl

day he was a lonely and tragic figure. Loved and respected every other day in the year, on this he was shunned. For he wa

oud of the way he died. Only on this one day did Green Valley remember the man whose death was the one and only w

s grave and watch the exercises from a distance. When it was over

ss. Green Valley had asked him once why he had done it and he said that he would have been worthless as

an honest, quiet, just and lovable man. So gradually William was allowed to come home into Green Valley's life. And it was only on this one holiday that he was an outcast. Neither did any one ever remind William's

ovely Maple and very slowly down Orchard Avenue so that Jeremy Collins, who was bedridden because o

en Valley folks came in sight of the white headstones the Spring Road procession came tramping over the old bridge, and Elmwood, with its flags and band, was coming up the new South Road. The three

t and soft through the waiting, hushed air, came the notes of Major Rand's cornet. He was playing for his comrades as he had played at Shiloh, at Chickamauga and many another place in the Sou

feathery echo had died away the men in blue passed two by two through the cemetery gate. Reverend Campbell, who had been their chaplain, said a short prayer. At its end the children, w

lan's smart rig sat a little city girl, her face crumpled and stained like a rain-beaten rose. She was saying t

ace radiant with joy and absolute self-confidence, mounted the bunting and flag-draped stage and in a booming voice wholly out of proportion to his midget dimensions and in ten dashi

ars which were her greatest source of grief, drew the funny little body close and explained to admi

moment that Doc Philipps must make this, because the specially ordered and greatly renowned speaker, one Da

hat Doc could talk about most anything if he was so minded. He was, moreover, as well known and loved in Spring Road an

r a silent minute towered above his neighbors like one of the great tree

over. But war is every kind of hell imaginable for everybody and everything while it's going on! And they lie who say that

to invent and use any other. But here and there, in odd corners of the world, an ever-increasing number of men are recogn

men than I on the other side felt just as right as I did. In those days war was the only tool and we thought it right, and some of us went hating it and some of us went shouting like fools. I went for the lark

en conscription came and he was called, refused to go to war. He hired a substitute and stayed at h

mad boys did not want for bread. He stayed at home here and minded his business and ours as well. He wrote letters and got news for our women when they got to fre

l, to burn, to waste, to maim. He knew that and he knew that being what he wa

s and lovely strips of woodland ripped to splintered ugliness I vowed that if I ever came through that madness I would make amends. I swore I would go through the world mending things. So terribly did

who does not believe in war came to me at night and offered to help me through the medical school. It w

s no coward. When Petersen's fool hired man let that bull out of its stall to rage through Green Valley's streets it was Green Va

dition, you let that man ride alone, keep him out of a Gre

s a poor and clumsy thing of the past. Ours was a brave enough, gr

old soldier here but is glad to feel that the days of bloodshed are over, that somew

his new style of address. No old soldier had ever talked to them in that fashion. But when they saw him striding over that stage and headed straight

ttle family groups that strolled off up the roads in every direction. Here in shady spots ta

oiled. Boys of all sizes were beginning to be smeared from ear to ear and two of Hen Tomlin's wife's doughnuts were found to be quite raw inside, a discovery that so stunned that c

old enough to wonder about the contrariness of things mortal looked sadly at the still inviting tables and marveled

further reenforced. But when even ice-cream and marshmallows refused to go down they gave up and dr

et and restful spot. The unmarried ones went sneaking off where their

our corns clamoring loudly for room. And though nobody saw her do it, everybody knew t

eyes on the strolling couples, hoping to see a lovers' quarrel or discover a new and as yet unannounced affair. Little by lit

t of it. They had selected a fine old tree a little removed f

le for lunch. About all I knew how to make when we came to Green Valley was fudge, fruit salad and toasted marshmallows. And before Annie Dolan came to teach me how

t jell. And my burns are nearly all healed except this one. It was pretty bad, but I was ashamed to go to the doctor's so it's not quite healed yet. That's why I just had to have

cked it away. He insisted on seeing the burn but Jocelyn wav

yet knew not what they had said. For as naturally as all the simple unspoiled things of God's world find each other, so this sweet, unspoiled little city girl and the big, unspoiled country boy

gun and were rather glad that in the excitement over the aftern

y raw scar. He gathered the leaves of some weed strange to her and when he had pounded them to a cool pulp he laid them o

yet nothing seemed old or sad or caused them the least surprise. They saw Nanny Ainslee standi

ss Th

orld was far away and they were seren

began packing up the baskets and fathers were harnessing the horses. Soon everybody was ready and Green Val

Valley mothers were everywhere hurrying their broods on to bread and milk and bed. In the sunset streets only the li