"I dunno," quoth the other. "If fighting's like farming it's all-fired slow work. Anyhow, that's what he said. 'This time two years we'll march lighter,' he says, says he, and then I came away. He's down by the old warehouse by the bridge, Mr. Gold--and I just met Matthew Coffin and he says thar's going to be a parade presently." An hour later, in the sunset glow, in a meadow by the river, the three companies paraded. The new uniforms, the bright muskets, the silken colours, the bands playing "Dixie," the quick orders, the more or less practised evolutions, the universal martial mood, the sense of danger over all, as yet thrilling only, not leaden, the known faces, the loved faces, the imminent farewell, the flush of glory, the beckoning of great events--no wonder every woman, girl, and child, every old man and young boy who could reach the meadow were there, watching in the golden light, half wild with enthusiasm! Wish I was in de land ob cotton, Old times dar am not forgotten Look away! look away! Dixie Land. At one side, beneath a great sugar maple, were clustered a number of women, mothers, wives, sisters, sweethearts, of those who were going forth to war. They swayed forward, absorbed in watching, not the companies as a whole, but one or two, sometimes three or four figures therein. They had not held them back; never in the times of history were there more devotedly patriotic women than they of the Southern States. They lent their plaudits; they were high in the thoughts of the men moving with precision beneath the great flag of Virginia, to the sound of music, in the green meadow by the James. The colours of the several companies had been sewed by women, sitting together in dim old parlours, behind windows framed in roses. One banner had been made from a wedding gown. Look away! look away! Look away down South to Dixie!