As the boldest soldiers in the fray held oftenest the foremost ramparts and felt themselves fortunate in their position, so I think it must be with those veterans who rest nearest the brow of the hill, where it seems as if they could look forth over miles of beautiful forests to the blue hills which are other ramparts on the horizon. Here of an early morning of this misty May they might well think they saw gray troopers form and advance in battalions that sweep down from the hills to eastward and charge over the treetops of the vale below. Through the distance they can hear the bugle calls of thrushes, and with trained ears thus know in what formation the advance will be made and when. Well may they feel the old-time thrill of desperate conflict as the advance sweeps up their hill and the misty gray legions swarm over it until the fight must need be hand to hand. Yet rarely does a day pass without final victory for the blue. The misty legions fall back and vanish before the flashing cavalry of the sun and the blue battalions of the clear sky swarm forth and drive the enemy in full retreat before them. Thus to them again out of the shades may come Gettysburg, or Antietam, or Port Hudson. I like best, though, to think of them here as resting in camp with no thought of battles past or to come, the mists that rise meaning no more than the smoke of comrades’ campfires, the bird bugle calls only those of the day’s routine. From a hundred treetops they may hear the robins sound the reveille. From their hilltop these bugle notes should wake even the soundest sleepers. No other bird is so well fitted for this call. There is a sprightly persistence in the robin’s song of a morning, a recurrence of rollicking refrain which reminds one strongly of the awakening notes of the bugle as they ring through the camp when the last of the night watches is ended and the new day calls all to be up and stirring. The robins are peculiarly the buglers of the reveille. No bird sings earlier, and when the full chorus is in swing there is little chance for any other bird to be heard. No wonder the sun gets up betimes.