"We've got to carve our own pedestals," said the Major. "We are gods of yesterday. The world won't stop to praise us. We did our duty, and we would do it again. But our laurel wreaths are doffed. Our swords are beaten into plowshares. Peace is upon us. If we want pedestals, we've got to carve them." Truxton argued that it wasn't quite fair. The Major agreed that it might not seem so, but the thing had been so vast, and there were so many men involved, so many heroes. "Every little family has a hero of its own," Truxton supplemented. "Mary thinks none of the others did _anything_--I won the _whole_ war. That's where I have it over you two," he grinned. "It is a thing," said the Major, cheerfully, "which can be remedied." "It can," Truxton told him; "which reminds me that our young John is going to marry Flippins' Daisy, and our household is in mourning. Mandy doesn't approve of Daisy, and neither does Calvin. Mandy took to her bed when she heard the news, and young John cooked breakfast to the tune of his Daddy's lamentations. But it was a good breakfast." "Marriage," said the Major, "seems rather epidemic in these days." Randy rose restlessly and sat on the porch rail. "Why in the world does John want to marry Daisy----" "Why not?" easily. "There's some style about Daisy----" "But there are lots of nice, comfortable, hard-working girls in this neighborhood." "Lead me to 'em," Truxton mimicked young John, "lead me to 'em. Mary says that Daisy is the best of the lot. She has plenty of good sense back of her foolishness, and she is one of the best cooks in the county. She and John are planning to go up to Washington and open an old-fashioned oyster house. She says that people are complaining that they can't get oysters as they did in the old days, and she is going to show them. I wouldn't be surprised if they made a success of it. And I tell you this--I envy John. He will have a paying business, and here I am without a thing ahead of me, and I have married a wife and the ravens won't feed us." Randy stuck his hands in his pockets with an air of sudden resolution. "Look here," he said, "why can't we go halves in this car business? It will pay our expenses, and we can finish our law course at the University." "Law? Oh, look here, Randy, I thought you had given that up." "I haven't, and why should you? We will finish, and some day we will open an office together." The Major, whistling softly, listened and said nothing. "I have been thinking a lot about it," Randy went on, "and I can't see much of a future ahead of me. Not the kind of future that our families are expecting of us. You and I have got to stand for something, Truxton, or some day the world will be saying that all the great men died with Thomas Jefferson." The Major went on with his lilting tune. What a pair they were, these lads! Randy, afire with his dreams, and rather tragic in his dreaming. Truxton, light as a feather--laughing.