The evening was colder, and the still deep snow was made deeper by another heavy fall swept upon the wings of a fierce and shrill-voiced northern gale. The sergeant, with sodden boots and reddened countenance, entered the hall at nightfall, and removed his threadbare overcoat. Soon afterward the rest of the faithful squad drifted in, the women heavily shawled, the men stamping their snow-crusted feet loudly upon the steep stairs. After the slender supper of cold meat, beans, bread, and coffee had been finished all joined in a short service of song and prayer, according to their daily habit. Far back in the shadow sat Bulger. For weeks his ears had been deprived of that aid to thought, the booming of the big bass drum. His wrinkled face wore an expression of gloomy perplexity. The Army had been too busy for the regular services and parades. The silent drum, the banners, and the cornets were stored in a little room at the top of the stairway. Bulger came to the hall every night and ate supper with the others. In such weather work of the kind that the old man usually did was not to be had, and he was bidden to share the benefits conferred upon the other unfortunates. He always left early, and it was surmised that he passed the nights in his patchwork hut, that structure being waterproof and weathertight beyond the promise of its outward appearance. Of late the sergeant had had no time to bestow upon the old man. At seven o'clock the sergeant stood up and rapped upon the table with a lump of coal. When the room became still he began his talk, that rambled off into a halting discourse quite unlike his usual positive and direct speeches. The children had gathered about their friend in a ragged, wriggling, and wide-a-wake circle. Most of them had seen that fresh, ruddy countenance of his emerge, at the twelve-stroke of a night of splendour, from the whiskered mask of a magnificent Santa Claus. They knew now that he was going to speak of the Christmas tree. They tiptoed and listened, flushed with a hopeful and eager awe. The sergeant saw it, frowned, and swallowed hard. Continuing, he planted the sting of disappointment in each expectant little bosom, and watched the light fade from their eyes. There was to be no tree. Renunciation was no new thing to them; they had been born to it. Still a few little ones in whom hope died hard sobbed aloud, and wan, wretched mothers tried to hush and console them. A kind of voiceless wail went among them, scarcely a protest, rather the ghost of a lament for the childhood's pleasures they had never known. The sergeant sat down and figured cheerlessly with the stump of a pencil upon the blank border of a newspaper.