"Not until he left the store about half an hour ago." "Oh, you splendid, smart--" "Spare my blushes, dear girl. As to the things, Caleb, I had them addressed to Black Sam, whom I let into the secret, and I had them wagoned at night from the railway to the bath-house, where he unpacked them and hid them in one of his rooms." "I want to know! But what put you up to thinkin' o' doin' the greatest thing that--" "'Twas a story my wife told me, about the way you dispose of your pension. 'Twas all of your own doing, after all, you see." Caleb looked sheepish, said something about the "boys" becoming uneasy unless the march was resumed, and made haste to rejoin his command, but stopped halfway to the door, and said:-- "Mebbe 'tain't any o' my business, but as I'm Commander of the Post, an' yet you've been managin' it most o' the mornin', an' I hadn't time to ask the why an' wherefore o' things,--how did you get Ojam to carry our flag?" "Oh, I dared him." "An' he, bein' a Southerner, wouldn't take a dare?" "On the contrary, it needed no dare. He said he'd been longing for such a chance for many years; for you'd reminded him one day that he was an American, and that plain American was good enough for you. 'Twas a case exactly like that of the uniforms, Caleb; 'twas you that did it--not I." Again Caleb looked sheepish, and this time he succeeded in rejoining his command and marching it toward the cemetery, followed by the entire populace. "We may as well go, too," said Philip, closing the store. "But not empty-handed," Grace said, snatching a basket from a hook and hurrying into her garden, where she quickly cut everything that showed any color or bloom, saying as she did so:-- "Perhaps they don't use flowers here, but 'twill do no harm to offer them." "I'll get out the horse and buggy; that basket will be very heavy," said Philip. "Not as heavy as the veterans' guns--and some widow's memories," Grace replied; "so let us walk." Together they hurried along the dusty road and joined the irregular procession of civilians that followed the veterans. The Claybanks "God's acre" bore no resemblance to the park-like cemeteries which Grace had seen near New York, nor did it display any trace of the neatness which marked the little enclosure in which rested the dead of Grace's native village. A man with a scythe had been sent in on the previous day, to make the few soldiers' graves approachable; but weeds and brambles were still abundant near the fence, and Grace shuddered when she saw that most of the graves were marked only by lettered boards instead of stones, and that tiny graves were numerous. Evidently Claybanks was a dangerous place for infants. Soon she saw that the usefulness of flowers on Decoration Day was not unknown at Claybanks, and, as the "Ritual of the Dead" had already been read and as the veterans were informally passing from grave to grave, she made her way to Caleb, and said reproachfully:--