Jeff had all a boy's admiration for a hero. He took the faded cap reverently from its peg to examine the bullet-hole in the crown. He turned the battered canteen over and over, wishing he knew how it came by all its dents and bruises. The face that looked out from the old ambrotype with such steadfast eyes showed honesty in every line. "Doesn't look much like old Henry," thought Jeff. "Won't you tell me about him, Aunt 'Liza?" he asked, as he seated himself on the door-step again. "I always did love to hear about the war." It was not often she had such an attentive listener. He questioned her eagerly, and she took a childish delight in recalling every detail connected with her "soldier-boy." It had been so many, many years since she had spoken of him to any one. "Yes, he was wounded twice," she told him, "and lay for weeks in a hospital. Then he was six months in a Southern prison, and escaped and joined the army again. He had risked his own life, too, to save his colonel. Nobody had shown more courage and daring than he. Everybody told me that, but other men were promoted and sent home with titles. My boy came home to die, with only scars and a wasting fever." Thrilled by her story, Jeff entered so fully into the spirit of the recital that he, too, forgot that McIntyre Barnes was only one among many thousands of heroes who were never raised above the rank of private. Mother-love transfigured simple patriotism into more than heroism. As age came on she brooded over the thought more and more. Even the loss of one son and the neglect by the other did not cause her now such sorrow as that her country failed to recognize in her Mac the hero whom she all but worshipped. Jeff found himself repeating the old woman's words as he went toward home late in the afternoon: "No, Mac never had justice done him--he never had his dues." Several days after that Jeff and Joe stopped at the house again to borrow a pail. "We forgot to water the calves this morning," Jeff explained, "and they've had a pretty tough time hauling brush. They pull together splendidly now. We've been clearing out Mr. Spalding's orchard." "Look around and help yourselves," Aunt 'Liza answered, briskly. "When once I get down on my knees to weed I'm too stiff to get up again in a hurry. You'll find how it is, maybe, when you get into your seventies." "Have you heard the news?" asked Joe, as he held the pail for Daisy to drink. "No. What, boys?" "You know Decoration Day comes next week, and for once Stone Bluff is going to celebrate. A brass band is coming over from Riggsville, and they've sent to Indianapolis for some big speaker. There's going to be a procession, and a lot of girls will march around, all dressed in white, to decorate the graves." Aunt 'Liza raised herself up painfully from the roll of carpet on which she had been kneeling. A bunch of weeds was still clasped in her stiff old fingers.