Back in the Bluegrass, the earth was flashing with dew, and the air was
brilliant with a steady light that on its way from the sun was broken by
hardly a cloud. The woodland was alive with bird-wing and bird-song and,
under them, with the flash of metal and the joy of breaking camp. The
town was a mighty pedestal for flag-staffs. Everywhere flags were shaken
out. Main Street, at a distance, looked like a long lane of flowers in a
great garden--all blowing in a wind. Under them, crowds were
gathered--country people, negroes, and townfolk--while the town band
stood waiting at the gate of the park. The Legion was making ready to
leave for Chickamauga, and the town had made ready to speed its going.

Out of the shady woodland, and into the bright sunlight, the young
soldiers came--to the music of stirring horn and drum--legs swinging
rhythmically, chins well set in, eyes to the front--wheeling into the
main street in perfect form--their guns a moving forest of glinting
steel--colonel and staff superbly mounted--every heart beating proudly
against every blue blouse, and sworn to give up its blood for the flag
waving over them--the flag the fathers of many had so bitterly fought
five and thirty years before. Down the street went the flash and glitter
and steady tramp of the solid columns, through waving flags and
handkerchiefs and mad cheers--cheers that arose before them, swelled
away on either side and sank out of hearing behind them as they
marched--through faces bravely smiling, when the eyes were full of
tears; faces tense with love, anxiety, fear; faces sad with bitter
memories of the old war. On the end of the first rank was the boy Basil,
file-leader of his squad, swinging proudly, his handsome face serious
and fixed, his eyes turning to right nor left--seeing not his mother,
proud, white, tearless; nor Crittenden, with a lump of love in his
throat; nor even little Phyllis--her pride in her boy-soldier swept
suddenly out of her aching heart, her eyes brimming, and her
handkerchief at her mouth to keep bravely back the sob that surged at
her lips. The station at last, and then cheers and kisses and sobs, and
tears and cheers again, and a waving of hands and flags and
handkerchiefs--a column of smoke puffing on and on toward the
horizon--the vanishing perspective of a rear platform filled with jolly,
reckless, waving, yelling soldiers, and the tragedy of the parting was
over.