During the next twenty years deaths were fewer. Fosterville prospered as never before; it built factories and an electric car line. Of all its enterprises Henry Foust was at the head. He enlarged his house and bought farms and grew handsomer as he grew older. Everybody loved him; all Fosterville, except Adam, sought his company. It seemed sometimes as though Adam would almost die from loneliness and jealousy. “Henry Foust sittin’ with Ed Green!” said Adam to himself, as though he could never accustom his eyes to this phenomenon. “Henry consortin’ with Newt Towne!” The Grand Army Post also grew in importance. It paraded each year with more ceremony; it imported fine music and great speakers for Memorial Day. Presently the sad procession to the cemetery began once more. There was a long, cold winter, with many cases of pneumonia, and three veterans succumbed; there was an intensely hot summer, and twice in one month the post read its committal service and fired its salute. A few years more, and the post numbered but three. Past them still on post evenings walked Adam, head in air, hands clasped behind his back. There was Edward Green, round, fat, who puffed and panted; there was Newton Towne, who walked, in spite of palsy, as though he had won the battle of Gettysburg; there was, last of all, Henry Foust, who at seventy-five was hale and strong. Usually a tall son walked beside him, or a grandchild clung to his hand. He was almost never alone; it was as though every one who knew him tried to have as much as possible of his company. Past him with a grave nod walked Adam. Adam was two years older than Henry; it required more and more stretching of arms behind his back to keep his shoulders straight. In April Newton Towne was taken ill and died. Edward Green was terrified, though he considered himself, in spite of his shortness of breath, a strong man. “Don’t let anything happen to you, Henry,” he would say. “Don’t let anything get you, Henry. I can’t march alone.” “I’ll be there,” Henry would reassure him. Only one look at Henry, and the most alarmed would have been comforted. “It would kill me to march alone,” said Edward Green. As if Fosterville realized that it could not continue long to show its devotion to its veterans, it made this year special preparations for Memorial Day. The Fosterville Band practiced elaborate music, the children were drilled in marching. The children were to precede the veterans to the cemetery and were to scatter flowers over the graves. Houses were gayly decorated, flags and banners floating in the pleasant spring breeze. Early in the morning carriages and wagons began to bring in the country folk. Adam Foust realized as well as Fosterville that the parades of veterans were drawing to their close. “This may be the last time I can show my principles,” said he, with grim setting of his lips. “I will put on my gray coat early in the morning.”