“Makin’ me the butt of the whole county!” he cried. “There was that funeral to-day--with a parade an’ a choir of music an’ so on: an’ now it’ll come out in the papers that it wasn’t Alvy at all I brought back with me, but only some perfect stranger--by what you can make out from his clothes, not even an officer at all. I tell you the war’s a jedgment on this country for its wickedness, for its cheatin’ an’ robbin’ of honest men! They wa’n’t no sense in that battle at Cold Harbor anyway--everybody admits that! It was murder an’ massacre in cold blood--fifty thousand men mowed down, an’ nothin’ gained by it! An’ then not even to git my boy’s dead body back! I say hangin’s too good for ’em!” “Yes, father,” said Myron, soothingly; “but do you stick to what you said about the--the box? Wouldn’t it look better--” “_No!_” shouted Arphaxed, with emphasis. “Let Dana do what I told him--take it down this very night to the poor-master, an’ let him bury it where he likes. It’s no affair of mine. I wash my hands of it. There won’t be no funeral held here!” It was then that Serena spoke. Strangely enough, old Arphaxed had not seemed to notice her presence in our group, and his jaw visibly dropped as he beheld her now standing before him. He made a gesture signifying his disturbance at finding her among his hearers, and would have spoken, but she held up her hand. “Yes, I heard it all,” she said, in answer to his deprecatory movement. “I am glad I did. It has given me time to get over the shock of learning--our mistake--and it gives me the chance now to say something which I--I feel keenly. The poor man you have brought home was, you say, a private soldier. Well, isn’t this a good time to remember that there was a private soldier who went out from this farm--belonging right to this family--and who, as a private, laid down his life as nobly as General Sedgwick or General Wadsworth, or even our dear Alva, or any one else? I never met Emmeline’s husband, but Alva liked him, and spoke to me often of him. Men who fall in the ranks don’t get identified, or brought home, but they deserve funerals as much as the others--just as much. Now, this is my idea: let us feel that the mistake which has brought this poor stranger to us is God’s way of giving us a chance to remember and do honor to Abel Jones. Let him be buried in the family lot up yonder, where we had thought to lay Alva, and let us do it reverently, in the name of Emmeline’s husband, and of all others who have fought and died for our country, and with sympathy in our hearts for the women who, somewhere in the North, are mourning, just as we mourn here, for the stranger there in the red barn.” Arphaxed had watched her intently. He nodded now, and blinked at the moisture gathering in his old eyes. “I could e’en a’most ’a’ thought it was Alvy talkin’,” was what he said. Then he turned abruptly, but we all knew, without further words, that what Serena had suggested was to be done.