When the marching hosts saw the Harkness house all ablaze from top to bottom they recognized their candidate's relation to the first quality of the town by venting a sentimental cheer, waving their torches above their heads, and throwing the flames into the air. Then the grand marshal, holding on to pommel and cantle, twisted his huge haunches in the saddle, and shouted some mighty order, which, though wholly unintelligible to everybody, and to the marchers more than anybody, at once created a vast commotion down the fiery line. His hoarse words, or some hoarse words, were repeated, tossed as it were from one throat to another, the marshal's aides galloped wildly up and down until at last the torches began to dance in varying directions as the column executed some complex manoeuver that wrought a change in its formation. And then the marshal, in a way that no doubt reminded himself of a Napoleon, or a Grant, turned about in his saddle, squeezed his plodding horse's ribs with his spurless heels, and, under his slouch hat, glanced from left to right like Stonewall Jackson. At the same moment a drum-major shrilled his whistle, and twirled his baton, a cornet trilled and the band began to play: "When Johnny comes marching home again, Hurrah, hurrah!" The two girls emotionally trod a dancing measure, and then, because of the smell of saltpeter, the snorts of horses, the shouts of men, the red and white ripple of the flags that went careering by in smoke and flame, some strange suggestion of the war our political contests typify, in spirit and symbol at least, was borne to them, until they felt what they conceived to be patriotic thrills coursing up and down their spines. "Don't you love the dear old flag, after all, Dade?" cried Emily, above the noise. The girl pressed her companion's waist in response. "Yes, but it's a rebel tune they're playing," said old Mrs. Garwood, dubiously wagging her head in its bonnet. "Oh, we're all one now!" said Mr. Harkness, and then blew his nose in chagrin at this show of feeling. They stood and shivered in the cold night air and watched the parade go by, read the transparencies with their boasting inscriptions, praised the various regalia of the marchers, kept time to the singing of the bugles and the going of the drums, and cheered when fifty men from Cotton Wood township, wearing coon-skin caps and followed by dogs, trotted by on their heavy plow horses. Finally a rabble of boys and negroes brought up the rear, snatching extinguished torches, half-burned roman candles or sticks of red fire to make a little celebration, and the parade had passed.