When the tenement-house was at last unloaded, it was discovered that it had contained twice as many people as had filled it two days before. They had gone to Boston by different lines, and being now tired out and penniless were returning home by the cheapest and most comfortable route. They wanted the salt zephyrs of the sea to fan them to sleep, and the fish and clams and other marine delicacies so lavishly served on the Fall River Line as a tonic for their depleted systems. Not the eager, expectant crowd that with band playing and flags flying had swept out of the depot the day of the advance on Boston! Not that kind of a crowd at all, but a bedraggled, forlorn, utterly exhausted and worn-out crowd; children crying, and pulled along by one arm or hugged to perspiring breasts; uniforms yellow with dust; men struggling to keep the surging mass from wives who had hardly strength left for another step; flags furled; bass drum with a hole in it; band silent. Sam looked on and again patted his key. The hayseeds had aired their collars and had "got it in the neck." No G. A. R. for Samuel; no excursions, no celebrations, no picnics for him. He had all his teeth, and an extra wisdom molar for Sundays. The contents of the tenement now began to press through the closed shed on their way to the gangplank, and Sam, realizing the size of the mob, and fearing that half of them, including himself, would be left on the dock, slipped into the current and was swept over the temporary bridge, across the deck and up the main staircase leading to the saloon--up to the top step. Here the current stopped. Ahead of him was a solid mass, and behind him a pressure that increased every moment and that threatened to push him off his feet. He could get neither forward nor back. A number of other people were in the same predicament. One was a young woman who, in sheer exhaustion, had seated herself upon the top step level with the floor of the saloon. Her hair was dishevelled, her bonnet awry, her pretty silk cape covered with dust. On her lap lay a boy of five years of age. Close to her--so close that Sam's shoulder pressed against his--stood a man in an army hat with the cord and acorn encircling the crown. On his breast was pinned a medal. Sam was so close he could read the inscription: "Fair Oaks," it said, and then followed the date and the name and number of the regiment. Sam knew what it meant: he had had an uncle who went to the war, and who wore a medal. His sword hung over the mantel in his mother's sitting-room at home. The man before him had, no doubt, been equally brave: he had saved the colors the day of the fight, perhaps, or had carried a wounded comrade out of range of a rifle pit, or had thrown an unexploded shell clear of a tent--some little thing like that.