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We formed in line of battle at a distance of perhaps a half-mile from the bridge-head, but that unending column of gray and steel gave us no more attention than if we had been a crowd of farmer-folk. Why should it? It had only to face to the left to be itself a line of battle.

On Saturdays the village presented a somewhat livelier appearance, and the shade trees around the court house square and along Front Street served as hitching-posts for a goodly number of horses and mules and stunted oxen, belonging to the farmer-folk who had come in to trade at the two or three local stores. A murder was a rare event in Branson County.

The Shaws were good farmer-folk, they sympathized most fully; and Jack was glad of a few words of pity from Phoebe. She said she had watched the pretty pets "many a score of times," which comforted more than one of Jack's heartstrings. Phoebe's mother paid respect to his sense and promptitude. He had acted exactly as she would have done. "Daddy was right enough about yon lad," she admitted.

It was lots of fun, too, watching the country-jakes, as the boys called the farmer-folk, and seeing how green they looked, and now some of them tried to act smart with the circus men that came round with oranges to sell. But the great thing was to see whether fellows that said they were going to hook in really got in.

The ten of us forgot the remaining forty men of Company L, and by the time we had missed one meal we promptly forgot the commissary. We were independent. We went down the river "on our own," hustling our "chewin's," beating every boat in the fleet, and, alas that I must say it, sometimes taking possession of the stores the farmer-folk had collected for the Army.

'When you have studied liberal doctrines somewhat deeper, said the Prince, 'you will perhaps change your note. You are a man of false weights and measures, my young friend. You have one scale for women, another for men; one for princes, and one for farmer-folk. On the prince who neglects his wife you can be most severe. But what of the lover who insults his mistress? You use the name of love.