Abner was one of them men that makes you know what men were meant to be like. His face was ruddy and wrinkled--but oh, it was deep and bright, and his eyes looked out like his soul was saying to your soul: “See me. I’m you. Oh, come on, let’s find out about living. How does anybody ever talk about anything else?” That was Abner. You couldn’t be with him without looking closer at the nature of being alive. And you saw that life is a different thing--a different thing from what most of us think. And some day we’ll find out what. And me, seeing him, and the folks all gathered round the Square, waiting for the after-supper part of the entertainment, and knowing what I’d planned should happen right afterward, I had only one thought: “Abner,” I says, just the same as if he hadn’t been a great man, “the children--they’re going to march. They’re in back of the booth, all ready. You must lead ’em! He must lead ’em, Mis’ Sykes, mustn’t he--and sing with ’em? Every child here knows your songs. Oh, _would_ you come and march with ’em?” I love to remember how deep and bright his face got. “Would I march?” he says. “With _children_? When is it?--now?” I put out my hand to thank him, and he took hold of it. And all of a sudden, right down there close by our two hands I see somebody. And it was Lisbeth’s little boy, that had come running to us and was tugging at my skirt. “Look,” Chris says, clear. “I got on this white one. Couldn’t--couldn’t I march too?” He was looking up, same as a rose, his big eyes shining hopeful. My, my, but he was dear. And Abner Dawes looked down at him. He’d never seen him before--nor knew about his being Lisbeth’s. “March!” Abner cries. “Of course you can march! Come along with me.” And he swung little Christopher up on to his back. And he run out into the midst of the other children, where Mis’ Sykes was marshaling ’em before the booth. “God bless him,” says Eppleby, behind me. But then Mis’ Sykes looked up, and saw him. And she never hesitated a minute, not even a minute to wonder why. She just set her lips together in that thin line I knew, and she run right up to Abner. “Oh, Mr. Dawes,” she says, “you mustn’t. The mothers won’t like it. He’s Lisbeth Note’s child. He’s----” Abner Dawes looked down at her, round Chris’s white legs. All the brightness was gone out of Abner’s face now--but not the deepness nor the kindness. That stayed. “Do you mean,” he said grave, “that this child is evil?” “No--no,” says Mis’ Sykes, stumbling some. “But I thought you’d ought to know--folks feeling as they do here----” Abner turned and looked down the green, where the folks was gathered and the last sun was slanting. It was gold, and it was still, all except the folks chatting in groups. And up the street the half-past seven bell was ringing, like somebody saying something nice. “Oh, God,” says Abner Dawes, kind of reverent and kind of like a sigh. “Here too. Here too.”