Both the windows commanding the parade-ground were filled on Muster Day. My mother and our grown-up cousins enjoyed the humors of the situation almost as much as we girls, who let nothing escape our eager eyes. Especially do I recall the shout of laughter we drew away from our outlook to stifle, when the suave commanding officer, mindful of the dull comprehension and crass ignorance of a large proportion of his corps, directed them in a clear voice—whose courteous intonations never varied under provocations that would have thrown some men into paroxysms of mirth, and moved many to profanity—to “look straight forward, hold the chin level, and let the hands hang down, keeping thumbs upon the seam of the pantaloons.” More technical terms would have been thrown away. Twenty warriors (prospective) brought both hands forward and laid their thumbs, side by side, upon the central seams of their pantaloons! Merriment, that threatened to be like the “inextinguishable laughter” of Olympian deities, followed the grave anxieties of the officials in rear and front of the mixed multitude to hinder those at the extreme ends of the line from bending forward to watch the manœuvres of comrades who occupied the centre of the field. In spite of hurryings to and fro and up and down the ranks, it chanced, half a dozen times an hour, that what should have been a straight line became a curve. Then the gallant, indomitable Colonel would walk majestically from end to end, and with the flat of his naked sword repair the damage done to discipline— “Just like a boy rattling a stick along the palings!” gasped Cousin Mary, choking with mirth. The simile was apt. Some staid citizens, tenacious of dignity and susceptible to ridicule, seldom appeared upon the parade-ground, preferring to pay the fine exacted for the omission. Others—and not a few—contended that some familiarity with military manœuvres was essential to the mental outfit of every man who would be willing to serve his country in the field if necessary. This sentiment moved sundry of the younger men to the formation, that same year (if I mistake not), of the “Powhatan Troop.” One incident connected with the birth of an organization that still exists, in name, fixed it in my mind. Cousin Joe—the hero of my childish days—was mainly instrumental in getting up the company, and brought the written form of constitution and by-laws to my father’s house, where he dined on the Court Day which marked the first parade. Our kinsman, Moses Drury Hoge, came with him. He prided himself, among a great many other things, upon being phenomenally far-sighted. To test this he asked Cousin Joe to hold the paper against the wall on the opposite side of the room, and read it aloud slowly and correctly from his seat, twenty feet away.