**> 
 
 HARVEY- 
 
 
THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 DAVIS 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 JOHN HOMER WOOLSEY 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
Wes' Bigelow 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 HARVEY J. O'HIGGINS 
 
 FOUNDED ON THE PLAY BY DAVID BELASCO 
 PAULINE PHELPS, AND MARION SHORT 
 
 BY MARTIN JUSTICE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 E CENTURY CO 
 
 1908 
 
Copyright, 1908, by 
 THK CROWELL PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 Copyright, 1908, by 
 THE CENTURY Co. 
 
 Published September, 1908 
 
TO DAVID WARFIELD 
 
 " You c'd tell he 's a genius he 's so modest." 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 7 
 
 14. 
 18 
 
 Wes' Bigelow ........ Frontispiece 
 
 That mute kindliness of expression ... 
 
 It was a room that was as human as an old face 
 
 "Your father would n't 'a' done it" ... 
 
 "The world 's full o' people doin' things their 
 
 fathers would n't 'a' done " ...... 21 
 
 "TheytoPme, . . . they was twenty-four 
 
 strangers in town " ......... 25 
 
 "Our meetin's ust to sound like a sessions in a 
 
 kennels!" ............ 29 
 
 " If God A'mighty don't make a charitable man, 
 they 's no use nobody else undertakin' the 
 contrac'" ............. 36 
 
 "He did n't have time to eat that boy" .. 
 
 "'I had n't any bad habits,' he says" ... 
 She burst into tears and fled from the room 
 He flung out of the room himself ... 
 
 "There ain't nothin' like 'em at that age" . 
 
 "She 'dmitted she 'd been study in' the cook 
 book 
 
 "I kind o' held the letters behind me" 
 
 " said she 'd sooner die " ........ 69 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 75 
 
 She was more than girlishly pretty 
 
 The pathos of that sentence choked poor Bigelow 
 
 to tears 80 
 
 "And he said he did n't know whether a girl 
 
 could understand about stocks" .... 89 
 
 "He showed me the burglar alarm to ring the 
 
 doorbell" 93 
 
 " I told him I wished he would n't go away, be 
 cause this was my home" 96 
 
 '* I told him I wanted some money" 103 
 
 " I ain't out eatin' crow" 108 
 
 "An' ordered him to take off his uniform an' go 
 
 home" Ill 
 
 " If they had n't 'a' held me back, I 'd 'a' wrung 
 
 his neck" * 113 
 
 Comrade Cory Kilbert 118 
 
 He was most portentously sober 121 
 
 "The ol' Indianny Sixteenth volunteer ! " . . .124 
 
 "On this memorable and momentous occasion" . 126 
 
 " Soldiers marching to and fro !" 129 
 
 Post-Commander Bigelow 137 
 
 "Who 's got it? Answer me!" 144 
 
 "Take that, you-" 150 
 
 "I '11 stan' by you" 153 
 
 "He could n't tell me any thing" 160 
 
 "He tried to get out of it" 163 
 
 viii 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I stamp that assertion as a lie " 170 
 
 ** run away at the battle of Wilson's Creek " . 1 74 
 
 " A Habeas Corpus " 180 
 
 " Wanted him to know I had it" 182 
 
 " Incompetent, irrelevant, immaterial " . . .185 
 
 *' Your honor, I must apologize" 187 
 
 " His heart 's all right " 190 
 
 "An' Robb begun to cry" 193 
 
 "Jim Bishop had the worst to take him away 
 
 fromWes'" 197 
 
 " I thought Wes' would go mad " 201 
 
 "It 'slaw, but it 's not justice" 203 
 
 "One one mouse trap !" 213 
 
 "Lord, Letitia ! How it does become you ! " .219 
 " Women are like grasshoppers " 225 
 
 The old days were gone 230 
 
 "Robert!" 234 
 
 The boy sat up slowly 235 
 
 "Are you hungry ? Are you?" 238 
 
 The girl went to him 240 
 
 tiptoed silently out of the room 249 
 
 
 ix 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THIS volume is more than an attempt merely 
 to "novelize" a popular play ; it is the result 
 of a desire to translate into the form of 
 fiction the flavor of Warfield's acting and 
 the charm of Belasco's stage. It has been, 
 for both the artist and the writer, a labor 
 of love an effort to make some grateful 
 record of the work of a wonderful actor and 
 to catch in print and pictures the atmo 
 sphere of a beautiful play. 
 
 But it is the first condition of such a 
 pious undertaking that the fiction shall 
 stand on its own interest independent of the 
 theater that it shall not attempt to repro 
 duce the acting and the stage, but to trans 
 late them that it shall have its own 
 inherent emotions and the appeal of its own 
 xi 
 
PREFACE 
 
 art. To that end are all the differences 
 designed which exist between this story and 
 the play on which it has been founded. 
 They are not differences in degree but in 
 kind. They were necessary if the reader 
 was to have, instead of a pale reflection of 
 the drama, a moving recountal of that little 
 idyll of a girl's love and a father's devotion, 
 of tears not too bitter, and of self-sacrifice 
 relieved by the racy humor of life in a 
 Western town in the early '80's. 
 
 It is hoped that for those who have 
 seen the play the book will revivify the 
 memory of an inspiring bit of stagecraft. 
 To those others who have never had the 
 good fortune to meet Wes' Bigelow in the 
 flesh, may it at least be a faithful report 
 and reminiscence of him and serve to tell his 
 touching story where he cannot come to tell 
 
 it for himself. 
 
 H. J. O'H. 
 
 Xll 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 C 
 
 IOME IN. Come in." 
 
 That was obviously the voice of 
 a man who was used to driving a 
 team ; and it was followed by a heavy stamp 
 ing of snow-clogged boots on the porch 
 outside. 
 
 The empty room shook with it. You 
 might have said it thrilled, for it was a 
 room that was as human as an old face 
 not the set and formal room of social life, 
 ready with a smile to receive company, but 
 the sort of room that seems to wait like a 
 mother in her home, worn and faded, to wel- 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 come, with all the charm and memory of 
 love, those to whom she is still beautiful. 
 
 The light came cold and gray through 
 the frozen panes of the little windows, where 
 the snow showed high on the sills ; but the 
 cold gray mellowed on the faded colors of 
 the rag carpet and took a warmer tone from 
 the sere design of leaves and flowers on the 
 yellowing papers of the walls. An old box 
 stove radiated heat from the chimney-piece ; 
 the indescribable faint odors of home were 
 in the air; and a wall-clock a clock that 
 was stained with age, and even hung with a 
 broken horseshoe for a weight! ticked 
 comfortably to itself in the silence, as if it 
 had been not so much measuring the va 
 cancy of the moment as patiently expecting 
 the hour of the home coming and the sound 
 of this hearty voice on the porch. 
 
 It was a room of almost pious poverty 
 judging by the colored print of a flying an 
 gel near the window. And it was certainly 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 the home of an old soldier, for above the 
 mantel shelf a flag was draped beside a bu 
 gle, and a portrait of General Grant held 
 the place of honor between. Over an inner 
 door a colored photograph of a small boy 
 in red-topped boots explained the presence 
 of a baby's high chair, that had been with 
 drawn into a corner as if it were no longer 
 used. A rocking chair by the fire awaited 
 an elderly occupant; the rush-bottoms 
 ranged along the wall were emptily expect 
 ing a signal to draw up together and be 
 companionable at their ease. 
 
 "Come in. Come in." 
 
 There entered, whip in hand, a man past 
 middle age, in a shabby overcoat and a 
 greasy gray felt hat, somewhat heavy-kneed 
 and shuffling in his gait as was natural in 
 a stage driver who sat long hours on his 
 box and stoop-shouldered from nursing 
 his reins. He had the weather-beaten com 
 plexion of health, the clear eye of the open 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 highway, and that mute kindliness of ex 
 pression that comes of long companionship 
 with horses. 
 
 This was Bigelow Wesley Bigelow. 
 
 He went at once to a clothes closet 
 without further welcome to his guest and 
 stood his whip carefully in a corner, with 
 the respect of a good workman for his 
 tools. "Put yer bag down anywhere you 
 like," he said. " 'Tish ain't finicky. Cold?" 
 
 The stranger stamped his feet and swung 
 his arms. "Phew!" His city pallor had 
 turned blue, and his eyes were running. 
 "This 's something new for Indiana." 
 
 Bigelow had stripped to his waistcoat, 
 finding the room hot. "Well," he said, 
 "she 's beginnin' a new year. I s'pose she 
 thought she 'd start things dif'rent. Take 
 off yer coat an' set by the fire a bit. She '11 
 thaw y' out. . . . Letitia! OH, Letitia!" 
 
 "Corn-ing-/" a voice answered from the 
 kitchen a voice thin but cheerful. And on 
 6 
 
"That mute kindliness of expression 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 the echo came a mild little woman, full of 
 the bustling solicitude that is the motherli- 
 ness of an old maid. There was still a sort 
 of belated coquetry in her old-fashioned 
 curls. She paused at the sight of the 
 stranger and made an instinctive movement 
 to take off her apron, with a fluttered smile. 
 
 "This 's Letitia," Bigelow said. He ex 
 plained to her, with a sideways jerk of his 
 head toward his guest : "Been a tie-up down 
 the railroad some'ers. Could n't let him go 
 to Tates's fer New Year's dinner, eh? He 's 
 from Terry H'ute." 
 
 "Well, just now" the guest corrected, 
 smiling formally on Miss Letitia Grigsby, 
 "just now I 'm on my way from Jefferson- 
 ville. My name 's Smiffen." 
 
 "What? Eh? Jeffersonville! 'Tish? 
 Wonder if he ever seen " 
 
 She offered her hand with a quick mur 
 mur of welcome, silencing Bigelow with a 
 look. The stage driver turned away guilt- 
 9 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 ily and shuffled over to the window, his 
 hands thrust deep into the pockets on the 
 front of his trousers. He ignored the pas 
 sage of compliments and excuses between 
 the two others Letitia apologizing for a 
 dinner that had not been prepared for com 
 pany, and the stranger assuring her that 
 any dinner she might prepare would be fit 
 for the best company in the world. And 
 when Letitia had hurried away to her 
 kitchen, anxious about a turkey that had al 
 ready been kept waiting too long, Bigelow 
 still stood with his back to the room, star 
 ing out at the desolate stalks and poles of 
 his frozen garden. 
 
 10 
 
II 
 
 Y 
 
 'OU 'RE cozy here," Smiffen said. 
 There was nothing very notice 
 able about Smiffen but his nose 
 a keen nose, that was still pink with the 
 cold. He was city dressed and city man 
 nered but provincially so in a sort of 
 middle-aged pretension of youthful smart 
 ness. He seemed rather pert in his evident 
 sense of superiority to his homely sur 
 roundings. 
 
 "Cozy?" Bigelow's face, when he turned, 
 seemed to have absorbed some of the cold 
 gray light of outdoors. He passed his eyes 
 over the room, in a look of dumb misery, 
 glanced furtively at the picture of the boy 
 in red-topped boots and shook his head. 
 "It ain't what it ust to be." 
 11 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 Smiffen assumed an air of decent commis 
 eration. "A death in the family?" 
 
 "Worse than that," Bigelow answered 
 miserably. "Worse than that." 
 
 He went to an inner room to take off his 
 boots and wash his hands for dinner ; and 
 Smiffen remained alone by the stove. He 
 cocked one round eye at the boy's portrait, 
 blew his nose reflectively in a huge handker 
 chief, and blinked. 
 
 It was the blink of curiosity the shrewd 
 and watchful blink of a parrot with its head 
 on one side. 
 
 He was a commercial traveler a "drum 
 mer ;" and his necessary study of the weak 
 nesses of his customers, and their soft sides, 
 had made him a keen observer of human 
 character. He rather prided himself on his 
 ability to "pump" a secret. And yet he 
 was sympathetic, too, like a gossipy woman, 
 and as kindly as he was curious. His mouth 
 was kind ; and the blond baldness of his head 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 and the clean-shaven plumpness of his face 
 made him seem colorlessly inoffensive. 
 
 He understood that Wes' Bigelow was 
 an old bachelor, and Letitia Grigsby, his 
 housekeeper, an old maid ; so the high chair 
 in the corner must indicate an adopted 
 child. It must be the boy of the portrait. 
 He was not dead, but something had hap 
 pened to him something heart breaking, 
 to judge by Bigelow's expression, some 
 thing shameful, to judge by the look with 
 which Letitia had silenced the old driver. 
 What was it? 
 
 He stroked his nose reflectively, pinched 
 it between thumb and forefinger, and ex 
 panded it blew it up until at the sudden 
 withdrawal of his fingers, it fairly popped 
 with the outrush of air. This was a man 
 nerism acquired at the "checker" board, 
 where it indicated that he was puzzled to un 
 derstand his opponent's game ; and since he 
 was an almost invincible checker player, it 
 15 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 was a mannerism that had, to his mind, the 
 distinction of any idiosyncrasy of the great. 
 He was proud of it. 
 
 It might be accepted as characterizing 
 the process of his thought. As the judicial 
 stroke the chin, the sagacious pull the lobe 
 of the ear, the dense scratch the scalp, and 
 the studious play with a forelock, so Smiffen 
 alternately pinched and fondled the nose 
 perhaps because it is the organ of scent, the 
 tool of the prying. 
 
 He coughed behind his hand, as discreetly 
 as if he were at a funeral. Then he sat back 
 and looked sadly at the stove, prepared to 
 listen and be sympathetic. 
 
 Presently Letitia returned, rather flus 
 tered, to propose that she should lay the 
 dinner here, on the marble-topped center ta 
 ble, since the dining room was cold. (And 
 Smiffen said to himself, "They 're hard up ! 
 They don't light the fire in there to save 
 wood.") Bigelow opened the bundle he had 
 16 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 thrown on the window seat, and showed to 
 his housekeeper, apologetically, a pair of 
 new blankets for his horses, "Countersign" 
 and "Cartridge." (And Smiffen noted not 
 only the simple humanity of the New 
 Year's gift, but the fact that an apology 
 accompanied such a necessary extrava 
 gance.) Letitia, as she spread the table 
 cloth, complained that Bigelow was late for 
 dinner ; and when Bigelow explained that he 
 had been delivering trunks, she remon 
 strated: "Wes', I hate to think of you 
 haulin' trunks fer people that ain't pas 
 sengers. Your father would n't 'a' done 
 it." 
 
 "Well," he replied cheerfully, "the 
 world 's full o' people doin' things their 
 fathers would n't 'a' done." And Smiffen, 
 smiling appreciatively under his nose at the 
 retort, observed that there had evidently 
 been a day when Bigelow himself would not 
 have delivered trunks. (The secret that 
 17 
 
"Your father would n't 'a' done it " 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 concerned the boy involved also, then, a 
 change of fortune for the family.) 
 
 When they were all seated at the table, 
 another incident occurred to pique curios 
 ity. Bigelow, in his shirt sleeves, looked at 
 the turkey and the cranberry sauce, and 
 said, "D' you think they get them there, 
 'Tish the turkey an' the usuals?" And Le- 
 titia answered guardedly, "Oh, I 've heard 
 they do. Ain't you goin' to say grace, 
 Wes'?" 
 
 He bowed his head in a pious mutter of 
 thanksgiving, and then they began to eat in 
 silence. 
 
 No one spoke until Smiffen, looking up at 
 the portrait of the boy that faced him over 
 the doorway, said winningly, "A fine-look 
 ing youngster. That 's a great forehead 
 he 's got." 
 
 It was the bulging round forehead of 
 precocity. 
 
 "It ought to be," Bigelow rose to the 
 bait. "It ought to be with a million 
 19 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 dollars' worth of inventions floatin' 'round 
 in his brains!" 
 
 "You don't say so! Fine-looking boy. 
 Is he yours?" 
 
 Bigelow lifted his eyes to the portrait 
 and dwelt upon it as if it were a holy icon. 
 "He was a dead comrade's son, an' 'Tish 
 an' me raised him." He pushed back his 
 plate, with his food almost untouched, and 
 watched Smiffen's artful admiration of 
 the picture. 
 
 "They 's no denyin' Robb has pers'nal 
 magnetism," Bigelow said to Letitia. 
 
 "Just what do you mean by personal 
 magnetism?" Smiffen drew him on. 
 
 He made vague gestures with his clumsy 
 hands. "Pers'nal magnetism it 's some 
 thing that sort o' sort o' comes out o' 
 you. It 's a thing Well, if you 've got 
 it every one thinks as you do, right or 
 wrong. That 's the way it is with Robb." 
 
 This was not eminently satisfactory. 
 Smiffen busied himself with his food. 
 20 
 
" The world 's full o' people doin' things 
 their fathers would n't 'a' done '' 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 "Looks like a clever boy," he said 
 thickly. 
 
 "Clever ! There 's a boy that before he 
 'was eighteen was inventin' paint an' 
 printin' presses an' spring bolts an' 
 Why he could make anything. He rigged 
 up a scheme fer 'Tish there to do away 
 with her washboards. Did n't he, 'Tish?" 
 
 "Did it work?" Smiffen asked her. 
 
 "Oh, yes, it worked," she said. "It took 
 longer, but " 
 
 "But it was newer" Bigelow put in. 
 
 "You 're not eatin' your turkey," she 
 remonstrated. 
 
 "I ain't hungry," he said rather pathet 
 ically, his eyes full of tender thoughts of 
 the boy. "Look here," he turned to 
 Smiffen. "I want to tell you. I want you 
 should know about our boy so as if you 
 ever hear anything ag'in' him 
 
 And Smiffen said to himself, "Here it 
 comes !" 
 
Ill 
 
 BIGELOW shoved back his chair 
 and sank his hands in his pockets 
 and drooped his head; and the 
 pockets being high in front, the action 
 raised his shoulders, so that his chin came 
 on his chest, and he sat in an attitude of 
 meditation, with profound eyes. He said 
 at last, "I was tryin' to think what day it 
 was. ... It must 'a' been the day that 
 we opened the new G. A. R. hall that 
 night." 
 
 "Wes' was the post commander," Leti- 
 tia explained under her voice, passing 
 Smiffen the "boat" of cranberry sauce. 
 
 Smiffen nodded sagely. 
 
 "Yes, sir," Bigelow recollected, "that 's 
 what it was . . . They was people settin' 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 along the road t' ask 'bout the openin' 
 when the stage went by. . . . They tol' 
 me, down to Tates', they was twenty-four 
 strangers in town." 
 
 Smiffen concealed a somewhat superior 
 smile. 
 
 Bigelow reflected, "That 's a funny 
 thing, now. I thought it must 'a' been a 
 sort o' dark day er something. An' it 
 warn't. I mind, when I come in here, how 
 the sunlight was blowin' in the window." 
 There was in his tone a vague implication 
 that he had not seen sunlight in that win 
 dow since. "Jim was here with you, 
 was n't he, 'Tish?" he asked and then ex 
 plained, with a crooked smile, to Smiffen, 
 "Jim 's an ol' comrade that 's been pro- 
 posin' to Letitia ev'ry now an' then fer the 
 las' twenty years!" 
 
 "Why, Wes'," she cried in a confusion 
 of withered blushes, "he was waitin' fer 
 the meetin' !" 
 
 "What meetin'?" 
 
"They tol' me, . . . they was twenty-four 
 strangers in town " 
 
 =? 
 
 IH 
 
 .' 
 
 II 
 
 : 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 "The Post meetin'." 
 
 "Sure enough! It was our last meetin' 
 before movin' into the new hall. That 's 
 right! That 's right! We sat at this 
 very table here me an' Cory Kilbert an' 
 Jim Bishop with the minutes an' Potter 
 an' Tucker an' ol' Tate an' an' Let' Pet- 
 tingill. Yes, sir. Let' Pettingill was 
 here. Well, well! Who 'd V thought it!" 
 He puckered his lips, looking back upon 
 that gathering with a memoried eye, and 
 seeing all its trivial incidents in a new 
 light. "Let' Pettingill, eh? Let' Pettin 
 gill!" He seemed to find in the name a 
 new meaning, a sinister sound. "He was 
 squabblin' with ev'ry one, same as usual, 
 too, an' snarlin' 'roun' showin' his teeth. 
 We might 'a' knowed what he 'd do some 
 day. . . . Well, a man 's what God makes 
 him." He forgave Pettingill with a ges 
 ture. "We might 'a' done better by him, 
 mebbe. We nagged him, I guess. P'raps 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 it was n't him that was to blame, but the 
 drink. . . . He 'd been drunk the meetin' 
 before, an' he was the treasurer, an' our 
 safe was an ol' Rev'lution'ry relic, an' 
 that 's how it come about that we sent 
 Robb over to Wapahoe City bank with the 
 money, on his bicycle the first bicycle in 
 the county seat. Yes, sir. Robb's was 
 the first." He set his mouth in a proud 
 compression of the lips. "That showed 
 what they all thought o' Robb an eigh- 
 teen-year-ol' boy, trustin' him with over a 
 thousan' dollars ten hunderd dollars an' 
 forty-seven cents !" 
 
 He caught Letitia's eye and dropped 
 that incident of his story suddenly, in an 
 evasive silence. 
 
 "It was the money we 'd been savin' up 
 fer the new G. A. R. hall. We 'd been ten 
 years freezin' the town up with ice-cream 
 socials an' thawin' it out with oyster stews, 
 so as to get it." 
 
 27 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 Smiffen laughed encouragingly. 
 
 Bigelow smiled a queer three-cornered 
 sort of reluctant smile that lifted at one 
 side to show a wisdom tooth. "We made 
 Jim Bishop chairman o' the dancin' com 
 mittee fer the night wooden leg an' all 
 so as people with two sound legs 'd be 
 ashamed to sit round an' see him." 
 
 "Ha-ha! Good enough," Smiffen ap 
 plauded. 
 
 "An' we purty near raised a riot by ap- 
 pointin' Let' Pettingill chairman o' the 
 drinkin' committee. He got up on his hind 
 legs an' went after Jim an' Cory fer 
 laughin' at it. ... Them boys! Our 
 meetin's ust to sound like a sessions in a 
 kennels! with Jim an' Cory scrappin' 
 about politics ev'ry other minute, an' then 
 goin' after Pettingill together when their 
 hair was up. It ust to keep me poundin' 
 the hammer on this ol' marble-top like 
 a stone breaker." He lay back in his chair 
 and chuckled genially, his rugged smile 
 28 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 beaming with humanity, and all his miser 
 ies forgotten for the moment. 
 
 "They 're a great lot o' boys. They 
 ought to be in here t'day pay in' New 
 Year's calls. You '11 see 'em, mebbe. . . . 
 Well, sir, I 've knowed 'em since I was 
 'bout so high. An' my! how they 've 
 changed !" He added : "An' my ! how they 
 hain't changed!" He shook his head over 
 it. "We ust to think a lot o' Let' Pettingill 
 in them days 'cause he 'd never do what 
 his ma tol' him little red-headed ras 
 cal. She 'd call an' call to him, from the 
 back door, to come an' bring her in some 
 wood, er a pail o' water, an' he 'd go on 
 playin' with us as if he never heerd her. 
 Never turn his head. Cory 'd go an' get it 
 fer her, like 's not. He was fat then, too 
 Cory was. He 's round 's a tub now. 
 Great boy, Cory! . . . Jim Bishop was al- 
 'ays kind o' pious. A good boy, though 
 an' a fighter when he got mad. He made a 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 record in the war . . . Pettingill enlisted 
 at the first shot. It was a case o' run away 
 from home fer him anything fer devil 
 ment . . . Jim Bishop said his prayers 
 over it an' volunteered with his mouth shut. 
 He knowed his duty ... I guess Cory 
 went 'cause all the rest of us did. I did n't 
 know much about Cap. Bestor them days. 
 He lived in the big house up the hill. They 
 all said it was the unyform got him. Han'- 
 some boy. Well " 
 
 He came back to his subject with a sigh. 
 "We had our last meetin' right here be 
 fore we moved into the new Hall. An* 
 when we 'd distributed the badges fer the 
 night, an' the boys 'd took out the locker 
 Hoi' on, though! Hoi' on! Judge An 
 drews come in before that." 
 
 "Judge Andrews?" Smiffen queried, as if 
 he dimly remembered the name. 
 
 "Tall lean man, with a bunch o' gray 
 horsehair on his chin. 'D be a good-lookin' 
 31 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 man if he did n't look as hard outside as he 
 is inside. Sort o' man that 's got a face 
 like a stone in a wall with a crack o' 
 mortar in it fer a mouth. Eh? Know 
 him?" 
 
 Smiffen shook his head and returned his 
 plate to Letitia for another helping. He 
 was enjoying himself cramming himself 
 with food and gossip and chuckling appre 
 ciatively over both. 
 
 Bigelow blinked with a knowing grim- 
 ness and drew down the corners of his 
 mouth. "He was an ol' vet, too an' our 
 Senior Vice but he did n't come roun' to 
 Post meetin's any. He 'd levied on a cow 
 an' some chickens that was all that was left 
 to the widow of one of our Post members 
 an' the boys 'd soured cm him fer it. We all 
 got out ag'in him on election day an' made 
 our evens but he did n't like us none the 
 better fer bein' licked." He jerked his head 
 in the direction of the door. "When he 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 come in there, just as meetin' was breakin' 
 up, we made him welcome best we could. 
 He took it like you was offerin' a pippin to 
 a horse that 'd bite yer hand if you did n't 
 watch him. 
 
 " 'I ast to be excused,' he says, 'from 
 servin' on any committees t'-night,' he says. 
 He 's got a voice like a hound bayin' in a 
 rain bar'l. 'I '11 drop in durin' the evenin' 
 with my daughter Hallie,' he says. 'It 
 promises to be a mixed affair,' he says, 
 'but we '11 remain a short time.' An' so on. 
 Talk like that 'bout 'G. A. R. affairs cal- 
 lin' out a rough attendance,' an' so forth. 
 
 "That cut into my hide. 'Well, Judge,' 
 I says, 'ol' soldiers ain't al'ays social 
 leaders,' I says. 'When our country needed 
 men, she took 'em wherever she could get 
 'em. Sometimes they were rough,' I says, 
 'but a rough man died just 's hard 's a pol 
 ished one an' fought 'bout 's well,' I says. 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 the Post 's hearth,' says I. 'Don't know 
 but what I prefer 'em. I belong to the 
 mixed classes myself.' ' 
 
 Bigelow had thrown back his head and 
 squared his jaw, glowering reminiscently. 
 
 " 'My objection,' the Judge says says 
 he 'is 'at you invite only soldiers' frien's 
 an' soldiers' widows an' soldiers' sympathiz 
 ers. Why not appeal to another class?' 
 
 " 'You mean,' I says, 'the ones that 
 stayed home an' got rich while we saved the 
 Union?' 
 
 "That started him off fer the door with 
 a crack o' the whip. I had to whoa him up 
 an' coax him to back in ag'in. An' then I 
 says, 'As senior Vice, don't you think y' 
 ought to drill with us t'-night?' says I. 
 An' he sticks out his long finger at me, an' 
 he says, 'I been judge in this distric' fer 
 seventeen years,' he says, 'an' honored in 
 my state. I 've got a repatation fer sever 
 ity, I believe, but no one never questioned 
 34 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 my integrity. You,' he says, 'you, a bro 
 ther veteran, took off yer coat to defeat me 
 durin' the last election, an' the members o' 
 this Post followed yer example. After 
 seventeen years I retire from the bench a 
 target fer public abuse. You,' he says, 
 'you ' 
 
 " 'Yes,' I says. 'When Jim Pope died, 
 owin' you a small amount,' I says, 'I might 
 'a' kep' quiet when you took possession of 
 his widow's cow. I might 'a' swallowed the 
 cow,' I says, 'but when you sent back an' 
 levied on the chickens' " he pointed to his 
 throat significantly " 'those chickens stuck 
 right here!' 
 
 " 'Legally,' he says, 'that widow's pos 
 sessions belonged to me!' 
 
 " 'Judge,' I says, 'if God A'mighty don't 
 make a charitable man, they 's no use no 
 body else undertakin' the contrac',' I says. 
 'I give you the road.' An' he clapped on 
 his hat, an' piled out the door there, with 
 35 
 
* If God A'mighty don't make a charitable man, they 
 no use nobody else undertakin' the contrac' " 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 as much noise as a team goin' over the 
 Boggsville bridge." 
 
 Smiffen laughed applaudingly, and 
 slapped the table. "Good! Good enough!" 
 There was a new look in his pale eyes ; it 
 was one of amused admiration. 
 
 Bigelow waited his mouth hard in 
 wrath, his nostrils working. "Warn't I 
 right?" 
 
 "You were. You were." 
 
 He made a gesture of despair. "Yes," 
 he said hoarsely, "an' it warn't more 'n a 
 day more before I 'd 've eat ev'ry word of 
 it. Ev'ry word of it! Without butter. 
 That 's what it is to be right!" 
 
IV 
 
 HE rose from his chair and began 
 to pace up and down the room. 
 "I was right 'bout Robert, too, 
 an' what come of it? Ev'ry one else wanted 
 me to put him stage drivin' " 
 
 Letitia suggested mildly, "Well, I can't 
 help thinkin' we ain't done right to bring 
 up Robb the way we did, Wes'. Sendin' 
 him to college was bad fer him, maybe." 
 
 "Did you send him to college?" Smiffen 
 asked, amazed. 
 
 "Yes ; a year in a bus'ness college," Bige- 
 low explained simply. "Don't you worry 
 'bout Robert, 'Tish. He 's greater 'n Rob 
 ert Fulton." 
 
 "Oh, Wes'J" she remonstrated. 
 38 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 "Well," he cried, "what 'd Robert Fulton 
 ever invent?. Nothin' but steam. While 
 Robb paint an' bolts an' printin' presses 
 an'-" 
 
 "But he ain't!" 
 
 "He will. Give him time. I 've been as 
 sure of him ever since he was a little scamp 
 in red-topped boots." 
 
 She resigned herself to silence, looking 
 at him with the fond anxiety of the woman 
 who dares not interfere. 
 
 "Why, that same afternoon," he said, 
 "after the meetin', when he come ridin' up 
 on his bicycle Why, his mind was that 
 full o' things he scarcely saw a body. It 
 was 'Hello, Aunt Letitia,' an' 'Hello, Dad,' 
 an' then he grabs his saw off the mantel an' 
 his plane off the desk, an' begins workin' 
 away at them shelves he was makin' fer 
 'Tish's books. He did n't have time to eat 
 that boy. Bite a sandwich, gulp a glass o' 
 milk, an' grab a saw ag'in. I tell you he 
 39 
 
" He did n't have time to eat that boy " 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 made the chips fly. It kep' us busy cleanin' 
 up after him. Did n't it, 'Tish?" 
 
 "Most wore out my turkey feather," Le- 
 titia confessed. 
 
 Bigelow smiled and smiled with a mist in 
 his eyes, recalling the vanished presence 
 that had meant so much to them. "Won 
 derful boy ! You could tell he was a genius 
 he was so modest. I could see he was sort 
 o' worried about something. I thought it 
 was his inventions, because he said he had n't 
 been able to keep his mind on 'em. I cheered 
 him up. 4 Yer thoughts ain't just right yet,' 
 I told him. 'A good soldier 's got to wait 
 till it 5 s time to fire. P'raps these setbacks 
 are needed fer the upbuildin' o' genius,' I 
 says. 'All sunshine an' no rain don't bring 
 out the fields.' 'Well,' he says, 'mebbe 
 you 're right, Dad.' " 
 
 Letitia interrupted. "He was worried 
 'bout his mail. He was expectiii' a letter." 
 
 "That 's so ! That 's so !" Bigelow stopped 
 41 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 to eye her with a new comprehension. 
 "That letter from town, eh? He must 'a' 
 been worryin' about it then" 
 
 She nodded sadly. "Don't you remem 
 ber you sent the boy over on the colt fer the 
 las' mail. . . . An' I thought 't was all be 
 cause he was in love." 
 
 "Why!" Bigelow said. "That 's what 
 he must 'a' meant when he said he was goin' 
 to make his fortune. D' you 'member? 'I 
 won't explain jus' yet,' he says, 'but before 
 I get through I '11 be ev'ry bit as big a man 
 as Judge Andrews.' That 's what it was." 
 He groaned and shook his head. "If we 'd 
 only knowed, 'Tish. It might n't 'a' been 
 too late then" 
 
 They stared at each other, in a reminis 
 cent tragicality. 
 
 "I could see he was discontented," he ex 
 plained to Smiffen, who had been listening 
 with a sympathy that was no longer merely 
 assumed. "But I did n't know what it was. 
 42 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 I thought it was just 'at he was young an 5 
 seein' things in lumps. He was talkin 5 'bout 
 havin' failed in life him that had n't both 
 feet out o' the shell yet! Talkin' about 
 ev'ry one in town bein' down on him because 
 he 'd been born without a penny in his 
 pocket as if ev'rybody warn't! An' com- 
 plainin' because he warn't ast to Judge An 
 drews'. That was another thing. An' 
 sayin' that young Wellman was ast there 
 right along." He shook his head, in deep 
 thought, piecing it all together. 
 
 Smiffen asked, to keep him going, "Who 
 was Wellman?" 
 
 "Well, you see," Bigelow began at the be 
 ginning, "Wellman an' Robb 'd been at 
 school together, with young Hallie An 
 drews, the Judge's daughter. An' then 
 Wellman went to Indianap'lis he was a lot 
 older 'n Robb to study in a law office. An' 
 he came back here that spring to represent 
 the District Attorney before the Grand 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 Jury. An' Judge Andrews 'd kind o' picked 
 him out fer Hallie an' he lorded it over 
 Robb. He come in here one day fer an ex 
 press package. Sort o' doughfaced-lookin' 
 feller, with spectacles an' a walkin' stick. 
 The kind that 's al'ays blowin' 'bout how 
 he 's got along. An' when Robb spoke up 
 'bout some people havin' luck, says he, 'My 
 dear boy,' he says through his nose, 'there 's 
 no such thing as luck. I had n't any bad 
 habits,' he says, 't' encourage me to throw 
 away my money. I neither drink ner smoke, 
 an' I 've al'ays found time t' atten' church 
 ev'ry Sunday' an' he stalks out with his 
 chin up, sayin' something 'bout jus' havin' 
 time to get to supper at the Judge's 
 An' that brung it all to a head with 
 Robb. 
 
 " 'There you see, Dad,' he says, 'that fel 
 ler comes back home an' gets the girl he 
 wants. If a boy 's goin' to succeed he 's got 
 to get away from where ev'rybody knows 
 44 
 
I had n't any bad habits,' he says 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 him.' An' then he up an' out with it that 
 he was goin' to leave home. 
 
 "At first Well, when yer boy says a 
 thing like that, you don't know you don't 
 know how to think. At first I did n't believe 
 him. An' then I tried to put him off by 
 tellin' him to go over to Terry H'ute fer a 
 day an' see life. An' then when he went on 
 'bout havin' big plans to get the money to go 
 away an' how he 'd never amount to a row 
 o' pins if he stayed here er he 'd go to the 
 devil He was shakin' like a colt, as white 
 as paper. I thought he 'd overstudied, 
 mebbe a boy like him, talkin' foolishness!" 
 
 "So," Letitia put in, with spirit, " 'stead 
 o' listenin' to him, you ordered him off to lie 
 down in the hammock. An' then you quar 
 reled with me fer tryin' to tell you he was in 
 love!" 
 
 Bigelow had taken a horse collar out of 
 the closet and sat down to mend it, like a 
 cobbler, with needle and waxed thread. 
 46 
 

 She burst into tears and fled from the room " 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 "You were pickin' at the boy," he defended 
 himself. "Ev'rybody was pickin' at him, 
 'cause they could n't see the workin' of his 
 brain. . . . They could n't see far." 
 
 Letitia rose to clear the dishes from the 
 table. "A woman may not see 's far 's a 
 man," she said, "but what she does see she 
 sees quicker. I could see that boy was 
 spoilt." 
 
 "Well, if he was spoilt," Bigelow cried, 
 "it was you spoilt him." 
 
 "The whole town was criticizin' you 
 fer " 
 
 "An' you were sidin' with 'em. You " 
 
 "Yes," she declared. "I was sidin' 
 with" 
 
 "Well, that fer this town," he cried in a 
 passion, snapping his fingers. "An' that!" 
 He threw the horse collar on the floor at her 
 feet, and she retreated from the storm she 
 had raised, taking refuge behind the table. 
 
 "Why, Wes'," she whimpered. 
 49 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 "I come home here t'-day perfectly amia 
 ble," he shouted, shaking his fist at her. 
 "An' you keep at that boy ! Dern it ! You 
 keep a-pickin' at him an' a-dingin' at him !" 
 
 She burst into tears and fled from the 
 room. 
 
 "You keep a-pickin' at him an' a-dingin' 
 at him!" he cried, stamping about. "An' 
 a-pickin' at him an' a-dingin' at him !" 
 
 He flung out of the room himself, slam 
 ming the door after him ; and Smiff en, look 
 ing around at the sudden emptiness of the 
 place, lay back in his chair, convulsed with a 
 silent laughter that was not at all unkind. 
 
 Before he could compose his features, 
 Bigelow burst in again, and pointing a 
 threatening forefinger at the closed door of 
 the staircase up which Letitia had vanished, 
 he shouted in a voice that shook the win 
 dows, "You let that boy alone ! You let him 
 alone ! I brought up Robert to suit myself, 
 an' I won't hear no more 'bout it !" 
 50 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 His angry glance fell on Smiffen, and he 
 snorted, fuming. 
 
 "What 's that?" he cried wheeling on the 
 closed door. There was no answer. He 
 caught up the horse collar from the floor, 
 turned on the door again, opened his mouth 
 and shut it, and stood listening. 
 
 He could hear nothing. He stood back 
 to look, through the fanlight, at the stair 
 case landing above. He could see nothing. 
 Then he called, in a relenting tone, "Leti- 
 tia!" He got no answer. "Letitia!" No 
 answer. He opened the door, and said, 
 "'Tish! 'Tish!" 
 
 It was all so delightfully simple and un 
 conscious that Smiffen turned his back on 
 it, touched, and went to the window to smile 
 out at the snow. 
 
 "'Tish," he pleaded. "Oh, come on, 
 'Tish. Come on an' set down." 
 
 And when Letitia came down the stairs 
 again, wiping her eyes, he apologized, 
 51 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 "Come an' set down. Mebbe I I admit I 
 was hasty. I " 
 
 "If you 'd only take a calm view o* 
 things," she sobbed. "But if I ever " 
 
 "Now I 'm I 'm 'calm,' 'Tish," he 
 wheedled her, showing all his teeth in an in 
 gratiating grin that was irresistible in its 
 pitiable eagerness to make up. "I 'm just 
 as pleasant." 
 
 "I know what Robb 's meant to you," she 
 protested, allowing herself to be coaxed into 
 a chair. "But just because his mother was 
 the only woman you ever " 
 
 "Oh, pshaw!" he said. "Pshaw! We 
 ain't goin' to quarrel after all these years. 
 Two parents like us " 
 
 "That 's just the way Wes' went on," she 
 accused him to Smiffen, "when I told him 
 Robb wanted to run away because he was in 
 love." 
 
 Bigelow sat down, subdued, and began to 
 sew penitently on his horse collar. 
 52 
 
"He flung out of the room himself" 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 "An* it was n't till I showed him the let 
 ters Robb had written to Hallie an' been 
 afraid to send right in this drawer here." 
 She went to the desk to show him. "Robb 
 did n't know I could get into his drawer by 
 takin' out this upper one. An' it was n't till 
 I showed Wes' the book 'To Hallie An 
 drews from Robb,' an' all those letters ad 
 dressed " 
 
 "Well, an eighteen-year-old boy!" Bige- 
 low argued. "With his head full o' paints 
 an' printin' presses ! I did n't think he was 
 that kind o' boy." 
 
 "You were that kind o' boy, were n't you ? 
 D J you think he was the only one off his pat 
 tern?" 
 
 "Why, it did n't seem more 'n the day be 
 fore that I 'd seen him out in the garden 
 ridin' on a stick horse !" 
 
 "Yes, an' when I proved it to you, what 'd 
 you say? What 'd you say? That he 'd 
 been led on! That he 'd never 'a' thought 
 55 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 of it himself ! That she 'd led him on. You 
 were just as unreasonable, Wes'." 
 
 "Well, p'raps I was," he admitted hum 
 bly. "P'raps I was. But I could n't let my 
 boy go without tryin' to keep him, 'Tish. 
 . . . An' I did n't, neither," he boasted. "I 
 got the girl fer him anyway, if he had n't 
 'a' gone an' " 
 
 "What?" Smiffen blurted out. "Did n't 
 he " He sat down, blushing at this sud 
 den betrayal of a curiosity which they 
 might consider impertinent. "I mean I 'd 
 like to " He had supposed that the boy 
 had run away because of an unfortunate 
 love affair. "I feel sort of a personal in 
 terest in him. I 
 
 "Well," Bigelow challenged his house 
 keeper, "they 's no denyin' Robb has mag 
 netism." She did not dispute it. "I '11 tell 
 you," he said to Smiffen. "Robb don't 
 know 'bout it, but I'll tell you how it 
 
 was. 
 
 56 
 
HE sewed on his horse collar. 
 "You see," he said, punctuating 
 his narrative with stitches, "the 
 gal came over here that afternoon to bring 
 some flowers she wanted to give 'Tish fer 
 the openin' o' the new hall to put on the 
 Relief Corps table. An' I coaxed her to 
 come in an' set a little. . . . No, she 
 could n't come in, at first. An' then she 
 could n't stay. An' then she could only 
 stay a minute. . . . Well, I had n't rightly 
 seen her since she was growed up, an' when 
 I put on my glasses to get a good look at 
 her, she took me back thirty year." He 
 wagged his old head. "There ain't nothin' 
 like 'em at that age all curls an' blushes 
 an' lookin' at you sideways, like you was 
 57 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 tryin' to ketch a yearlin' with a pan o' oats. 
 . . . She was purty. I never seen nothin' 
 purtier since Robb's mother." His eyes set 
 in a vacant gaze that was bright with 
 smiles. "Seventeen! She was seventeen." 
 
 Letitia whispered, "And when she told 
 him she was seventeen, he said, 'Letitia! 
 Get her a piece o' cake!' That 's all he 
 knows about girls!" 
 
 She began to clear away the dishes from 
 the table. The clatter roused Bigelow. 
 
 "I 'd no idee she 'd growed up so much. 
 I remembered her 's a little gal 'bout so 
 high. She was big fer seventeen an' she 
 said she was 'nearly seventeen' the way me 
 an' you 'd say we was nearly seventy. It 
 made me wish I was young ag'in myself. 
 . . . She was purty. 
 
 "I begun to make up to her when I got 
 her settin'." He winked knowingly. "An' 
 I says, 'Miss Andrews,' I says, 'bein' a gal, 
 o' course you 've thought 'bout beaus an' 
 58 
 

 
 There ain't nothin' like 'em at that age" 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 an' marriage?' An' she laughs, an' picks 
 at the flounce on her muslin, an' says, 'No, 
 o' course I have n't.' But I could see she 
 had. Sure." He smiled that indescribable 
 wide smile of his, tender-eyed to the point 
 of pathos, but with an almost grinning 
 show of teeth. "They mostly do gals. 
 A boy, now, he won't know what 's the mat 
 ter with him when he 's in love like that ; 
 an' he ain't thinkin' 'bout marriage no 
 more 'n a spring lamb. Eh? The gals 's 
 got more sense. I could see she had the 
 way she laughed an' looked down at the 
 flounce she was fingerin'. An' I says, 'Now 
 I tell you, I don't know but they 's a 
 steadyin' influence in early courtship, Miss 
 Andrews a steadyin' influence.' An' she 
 says, 'Do you think young gals need 
 steadyin'?'" 
 
 Smiffen chuckled. "You were thinking 
 of the boy?" 
 
 He nodded, with an air of sober mis- 
 61 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 chief. "An' I says, 'No, no. I don't mean 
 it that way. But it 's a great inducement 
 fer young people,' I says. 'Gives 'em some 
 thing to work fer,' I says. 'I don't know,' 
 I says, 'considerin' all the temptations in 
 life I don't know but what early mar 
 riages are best,' I says, 'with the consent o' 
 the parents, o' course. An' then,' says I, 
 'it keeps 'em home.' An' she says, 'D' you 
 think many gals need keepin' home?' ' 
 
 Smiffen, with his head on one side, senti 
 mentally, had his mouth set in the fatuous 
 broad grin of the heart-tickled. 
 
 "She did n't know what I was at, 't all. 
 I could see. She was thinkin' 'bout her 
 father wantin' her to marry young Well- 
 man. She said her father 'd said a gal 
 should n't think fer herself 'bout marriage 
 that he was the one to decide. An' o' 
 course I told her I could n't encourage a 
 gal to go ag'in' a parent but Well, you 
 see, I wanted to find out how she felt 'bout 
 62 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 Robb, so I ast her a few leadin' questions. 
 I ast her what she knowed 'bout housework, 
 an' she 'dmitted she 'd been studyin' the 
 cook book." 
 
 At this picture of the guileless old plotter 
 and the unsuspecting girl Smiffen exploded 
 in a sudden guffaw; but his hilarity was 
 merely the nervous over-expression of his 
 almost tearful delight in Bigelow's simplic 
 ity in the charming simplicity of a lova 
 ble old man. He regained control of 
 himself as suddenly, and coughed behind 
 his hand. 
 
 Bigelow went on, smiling: "An' then 
 after a little maneuverin' 'bout it bein' a 
 good idee fer young people to start in early 
 an' raise a fam'ly I up an' tells her that 
 Robb was talkin' 'bout leavin' home 'bout 
 runnin' away. An' I seen by the way she 
 looked up at me, scared an' took sudden 
 I suspicioned how it was with her. An' I 
 says, 'Hallie,' I says, 'I don't want him to 
 63 
 
She 'dmitted she 'd been studyin' the cook book" 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 fall in love with the wrong kind o' gal. An' 
 that 's why I sort o' begin to wish he 'd 
 steady down to the right one with both 
 the parents' consent an' stay at home,' I 
 says. An' when I said 'the right one' I let 
 her see I meant her." 
 
 Letitia had disappeared into the kitchen 
 with her dishes. Bigelow laid aside his 
 horse collar. 
 
 "Well," he said, "that brung it all out 
 'bout young Wellman. You see, she had n't 
 any mother she could go to an' o' course 
 her father was ag'in' her an' she had n't 
 any gal friends, 'cause her father would n't 
 let her have none. He put her above 'em. 
 An' she had to tell some one. An' so she up 
 an' tells me. 'My father,' she says, 'wants 
 me to marry a man I can't love. It 's Mis 
 ter Wellman,' she says. An' she wants to 
 know what she was to do. 
 
 "I did n't know what to tell her. An' I 
 wanted to make sure 'bout Robb. So I ast 
 65 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 her if she 'd ever picked out any young 
 feller 'mongst those that were comin' to 
 her home. An' she said she could n't 
 'cause her father never let hardly anybody 
 come. An' then she says, 'I ain't very 
 happy,' she says, an' purty near begins to 
 cry. 
 
 "So then I seen I 'd have to take a holt 
 o' the bus'ness by the bridle. An' I says, 
 'Look-a-here, now, Hallie,' I says, 4 I want 
 to show you something.' An' I went to 
 Robb's drawer an' got out the letters, an' 
 tells her they 're love letters he 'd been 
 writin' to some gal an' never sendin' 'em. 
 An' that made her look kind o' queer. They 
 were in the envelopes an' all addressed an' 
 all but I did n't let her see who to. 'He 
 must 'a' thought a good deal 'bout some 
 gal,' I says. An' then when I leaned down 
 so to find the book, 'To Hallie Andrews 
 from Robb,' I kind o' held the letters be 
 hind me, so 's she could see the addresses on 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 'em. An' when I straightened up, she 'd 
 been peekin' at 'em, an' an' Eh?" he 
 crowed. "Eh?" 
 
 Smiffen smacked his knee, flattering the 
 old man with his pleased interest in this lit 
 tle idyll of country courtship. "Good 
 enough! Did n't that" 
 
 Bigelow wiped his smile on the back of 
 his hand. "She begun to cry!" 
 
 "To cry?" 
 
 "She begun to cry. You see, Robb 'd 
 never ast her, an' she Well, you see, she 
 said it warn't no use. Robb 'd never ast 
 her, but she 'd sort o' knowed, she said, an' 
 her father 'd knowed, too. 'He knows ev'ry- 
 thing,' she says. An' I guess that was 
 'bout right. Judge Andrews 's a mighty 
 knowin' sort. That was why he wanted her 
 to marry Wellman. An' she jus' put her 
 head on the table an' cried, an' said she 'd 
 sooner drown herself than marry Wellman 
 said she 'd sooner die. 
 68 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 "That 's the way when you 're young, 
 eh? As if there warn't goin' to be plenty 
 o' time to die in when there warn't any 
 thing else to be done. An' she sobbed so 
 she shook the table." 
 
 "You had your hands full," Smiffen said. 
 
 "Yes, sir. I 'd wanted to call in Letitia 
 to help when she 'd first started to cry, but 
 she said, 'Oh, no, don't, Mister Bigelow !' 
 she said. 'If you knew how I was enjoyin' 
 this visit!'" 
 
 "What !" Smiffen cried. "Well, I '11 be 
 Say!" 
 
 Bigelow nodded and smiled and shook his 
 head. "Poor gal," he said pityingly, "I 
 guess she had n't had much kindness. She 
 thought I did n't understand. 'You don't 
 know what it is,' she said. 'You think 
 'cause I 'm young I can't suffer,' she says. 
 'You don't know what it is to love some one 
 with no hope an' ' ' 
 
 He looked hard at the horse collar. "I 
 70 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 knowed that feelin'," he said. "I had it once 
 fer Robb's mother. An' when she chose the 
 other feller, I 'd wanted to die morn 'n once 
 myself. . . . That 's why all my feelin's 
 had gone out to the boy. An' why I 
 could n't part with him. . . . He had his 
 mother's eyes, an' his mother's smile." His 
 face was working, tremulous with the ap 
 proach of tears. 
 
 He rose abruptly, to put away the collar. 
 When he came back, he said, "Well, I tol' 
 her I could n't give neither o' them no en 
 couragement. Could n't encourage a gal 
 to go ag'in' her father. 'But if I was a 
 gal,' I says, 'an' loved a boy, I 'd give him 
 a chance to prove himself,' I says, 'an' then 
 I 'd stick to him fer life.' An' an' then I 
 called in Robb." 
 
 "What !" 
 
 "Well, I could n't do no more fer him. 
 I seen he 'd have to do the rest himself." 
 
 "Did she run?" 
 
 71 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 "Hallie? She ain't the kind that runs! 
 She was just say in' 'Please don't tell him, 
 Mister Bigelow!' when he comes in, an' 
 stops dead when he seen her. An' I says, 
 'Robb,' I says, 'I wanted you to know we 'd 
 got comp'ny' an' 'scused myself an' 
 backed out." 
 
 The door bell rang. 
 
 He added, as he turned to the door, "I 
 peeked in a while later, an' they was holdin' 
 hands an' sweetheartin'. Eh?" He winked. 
 "Eh?" 
 
VI 
 
 THE door bell rang, or rather it 
 tinkled the timid, faint tinkle of 
 a sleigh bell on an agitated spring. 
 Smiffen looked up to see it quivering si 
 lently, as if in speechless excitement; and 
 he smiled at it, not because its palsied trem 
 ors amused him, but because he was full of 
 a kindliness that was ready to smile upon 
 anything. He gave one friendly glance 
 about the room (with an air of reconsider 
 ing surroundings upon which he had once 
 rather looked down), and then turned again 
 to the doorway through which Bigelow had 
 gone into the little vestibule. He heard 
 Bigelow's astonished "Why, I did n't know 
 you 'd come back, Miss Andrews. I thought 
 you 'd Come in! Come in!" 
 Miss Andrews! 
 
 73 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 Smiffen half rose from his seat in the 
 suddenness of his surprise, his pale eyes big 
 with pleasure, his face even flushed. 
 
 He had imagined her a country girl in 
 gingham, with an awkward manner, shy. 
 The young woman who entered in fur 
 cape and muff, with a little seal cap on her 
 fair hair had all the self-possession of her 
 youthful sadness, and accepted the unex 
 pected presence of a stranger with the pre 
 occupation, the indifference, the blank eye 
 of grief. She was more than girlislfly 
 pretty; there was a woman's character in 
 her face, and though her features had a 
 waxen and dainty regularity, they had evi 
 dently been strengthened by suffering, and 
 they showed no trace of tears. She was 
 beautiful with that beauty of young trag 
 edy that is as yet unembittered and still 
 sweetly grave with hope. 
 
 "I thought you were in Indianap'lis," 
 Bigelow said. 
 
 74 
 
' She was more than girlishly pretty 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 She explained that she had come back, 
 on a visit to her cousins, for the holidays; 
 and the "tie-up" on the railroad had de 
 layed her. There had been no one at the 
 station to meet her train when it came in, 
 and she had left her trunk in the baggage 
 room and driven as far as Bigelow's to ask 
 him if he would get the trunk and take her 
 "the rest of the way." 
 
 "Are they lookin' fer you t'-day?" Bige- 
 low asked. 
 
 She admitted that they were not. She 
 had written to them, she said, but she had 
 not set any particular date for her arrival. 
 
 "Well, then," Bigelow proposed with 
 ready hospitality, patting her on the shoul 
 der, "you stay here t'-night, Hallie, an' 
 I '11 drive y' over in the mornin'. Them 
 two horses 've earned a holiday an' 
 Well, this 's a kind o' lonely house these 
 days, Hallie. Letitia '11 'Tish," he called. 
 " 'Tish." 
 
 76 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 She put in, suddenly, "I '11 find her, Mr. 
 Bigelow"; and drawing a crumpled paper 
 from her muff, she said : "I brought a letter 
 from him. A few days ago ... I 
 want to know if it sounds as cruel to you 
 as it does to me." And before he could 
 reply, she thrust it into his hands and hur 
 ried from the room. 
 
 "Well," Bigelow muttered, bewildered, 
 j ?> 
 
 Smiffen watched her disappear through 
 the dining room into the kitchen. "Say ! 
 She 's a fine-looking girl !" he told Bigelow 
 with an air of drawing the old stage driver's 
 attention to a fact which he had over 
 looked. 
 
 He was not speaking of her beauty only. 
 He had been more impressed by the style 
 and evident costliness of her dress a girl 
 ish costume of the early eighties, when 
 tight-fitting waists accentuated the bustles 
 and flounces of elaborate skirts. He felt 
 77 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 that Bigelow did not appreciate the honor 
 which she had done his boy by condescend 
 ing to this courtship. And when he got no 
 reply to his remark to Bigelow, he looked 
 up at the boy's picture again, puzzled to 
 understand what there could be in the 
 youngster to attract such a girl. 
 
 Bigelow had put on his spectacles, un 
 folded the letter and addressed himself to 
 the reading of it leaning back against the 
 table as he sat, and holding the paper high, 
 to catch the strong light from a window be 
 hind him. 
 
 He had evidently become quite oblivious 
 to Smiffen's presence in the room ; and like 
 all persons unaccustomed to reading, he 
 found it necessary to pronounce his words 
 aloud, in a reflective low voice, as he read 
 them, one by one, with difficulty. 
 
 " 'Dear Miss An-drews.' ' He gave each 
 syllable deliberately, with the tonelessness 
 of a child spelling out a lesson. " 'Your 
 78 
 
The pathos of that sentence choked poor Bigelow 
 to tears 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 let-ter re-ceived, and . . . al-though I re- 
 ques-ted you to dis- . . . dis-con- . . . 
 dis-con-tinue our cor-res-pon-dence, ... I 
 take this oc-casion to wish you a 'Happy 
 New Year.' . . . Huh! . . . 'You say your 
 fath-er wishes . . . you ... to re-main 
 in Indian-apolis. Well it ... is a good 
 plan. . . . Every-body says Indian-ap-olis 
 is a fine place . . . and I ... am sure 
 you will en-joy vis-it-ing the Grand Op-era 
 House and the Glass Works which . . . 
 are lo-cat-ed there. . . . Please ob-lige me 
 by for-get-ting me.' ' 
 
 The boyish simplicity and pathos of that 
 sentence choked poor Bigelow with tears. 
 He blinked behind his glasses, his lips trem 
 bling; and Smiffen who had been leaning 
 forward, instinctively, to hear drew back 
 and looked down at his feet and did not look 
 
 up again. 
 
 " 'Nothing you have said can 
 
 me re-new our en-gage-ment 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 sug-gest for . . . my life is en-ded. . . . 
 I shall love you always . . . but I shall live 
 a bach-el-or's life like my dear father . . . 
 who is heart-broken by my conduct. . . . 
 You will forget me . . . but my father 
 nev-er will . . . and I shall help him out 
 on my return ... by driv-ing stage un 
 til he gets on his ... feet ag-ain. . . . 
 Then I am going to take off my coat . . . 
 and go to work . . . and make him proud 
 of me yet. I know ... I have done wrong 
 . . . and am willing to pay.' ' 
 
 He held his glasses away from the tears 
 that drenched his tanned cheeks. After a 
 pause he continued, in a stifled voice, " 'I 
 hope you will take the first chance . . . 
 and mar-ry be-cause you are the sort . . . 
 of a girl that needs some one to look . . . 
 after her and though I nev-er thought 
 much ... of the fel-lows you liked before 
 you met me . . . per-haps you will have 
 bet-ter judg-ment now. ... I have de- 
 82 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 cid-ed . . . this cor-res-pon-dence is very 
 bad for us ... both . . . bringing up 
 mem-ories of by-gone days, . . . when I 
 was young and happy . . . which I am not 
 now . . . and never will be ag-ain.' ' The 
 letter rustled. Bigelow was wiping his 
 cheeks with his bare knuckles. " 'With best 
 re-gards for your con-tinued health . . . 
 pros-perity . . . and matri-monial suc-cess 
 ... I remain . . . very re-spec-fully 
 yours . . . Robert Bigelow.' ' 
 
 He took off his glasses, dropped his 
 hands in his lap, and sat staring at nothing 
 until the tears dried in his eyes. 
 
 He had no smile for the boyish conceit, 
 the boyish despair, the almost incredible 
 mixture of the pathetic and the ludicrous 
 in the letter. Smiffen had, but he did not 
 show it. He was trying to remember where 
 he had seen that name, "Robert Bigelow." 
 It had been the name of a school fellow of 
 his, and he had seen it somewhere, recently, 
 S3 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 in print. He could not remember. He did 
 not ask. He did not raise his head. And 
 Bigelow and he were sitting so, in silence, 
 when the girl returned, without her wraps, 
 and asked Bigelow, accusingly, "Well?" 
 
 She ignored Smiffen too absorbed in 
 her own emotion to be aware of him and he 
 rose from his seat and went to a far window, 
 where he turned his back and did not listen. 
 
 "Well," Bigelow said, giving her the let 
 ter, "it ain't newsy, but it 's def'nite. He 
 writes a mighty good letter, that boy." 
 
 She put aside this parental impulse to 
 defend the boy. She sat down at the table 
 with a characteristic directness; and as if 
 fortified by her interview with Letitia, she 
 said in a low voice that shook with a tension 
 of girlish resolve and abandon : "I '11 never 
 give him up. I '11 never let him go. I 'd 
 give up the whole world first. I 've taken 
 my stand." 
 
 Bigelow shook his head sadly. "When 
 
 ' 
 
 III 
 
 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 we 're in love, we 're blind. You 've got 
 youth, but it don't al'ays stay by you. We 
 get older an' harder an' wiser. . . . 
 Hallie, my boy 's made a bad mistake. I 
 would n't admit that to nobody but you. 
 An' some day, when you 're older, you 
 might regret it. The boy 's got to begin 
 over ag'in, at the bottom o' the ladder. We 
 know what was in his heart, but the world 
 don't know an' don't want to know an' 
 it 's many 's the hard hour an' the hard day 
 he 's got to win back its confidence ag'in." 
 He put away his spectacles. "Go back to 
 yer father, Hallie. Live on the sunny side 
 o' life. Go back." 
 
 "Mr. Bigelow," she pleaded, "you ought 
 to know how any one can love Robb. I 
 could never love any one else." 
 
 "Well, o' course," he admitted, "they 's 
 no denyin' Robb has pers'nal magnetism, 
 but it might be 's well fer you to try an' 
 live fer a while without love." 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 She reached out to lay her hand on his 
 arm. "My father tried that. . . . I 've 
 quarreled with him. ... I can never go 
 back to him. . . . I I want to be here, 
 near you waiting for Robb when he " 
 
 "Think well ! It '11 stand ag'in' him all 
 his life!" 
 
 "Do you advise me to give him up? Do 
 you? Really? In your heart?" 
 
 "No," he confessed, "I das n't do that. 
 After all, he might be the one man an' 
 you might be missin' life. . . . No. . . . 
 That 's something only you can decide." 
 He went around the table to her, and bent 
 down to kiss her. "Hallie," he said, "I 
 al'ays liked you." She burst into tears 
 the tears of a rather tragic happiness 
 with her head on the table. "Tsh ! Tsh !" 
 he comforted her. "Don't cry." And see 
 ing Smiffen trying politely to efface him 
 self from notice beside the window, he 
 added, "Here 's Mister Mister Smiffen. 
 86 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 You have n't met Mister Smiffen. He 's 
 on his way from Jeffersonville. He 's been 
 held -up, too. . . . That 's a good gal." 
 
 Any one hearing Smiffen tell "funny 
 stories" in the smoking car or the "sample 
 room" would have thought he had a merely 
 gallic opinion of women, and never looked 
 at any except with the predatory eye of a 
 lady-killer, smiling like Mephistopheles and 
 Don Juan. But when Hallie rose, on Bige- 
 low's introduction, and offered her hand 
 blindly, still wiping her eyes, Smiffen took 
 and held her cold fingers with as decent a 
 feeling of compassion as any one could wish. 
 He even tried to comfort her with a fatherly 
 squeeze as he said, "I don't know what 's 
 the matter, Miss Andrews, but it '11 come 
 out all right, I guess. It '11 come out all 
 right." And she replied to the reassuring 
 pressure of his handshake with an apolo 
 getic smile a faint but trusting smile that 
 accepted him, through her tears, as a kindly 
 87 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 stranger who had seen her emotion and 
 sympathized. 
 
 He felt somewhat embarrassed. He need 
 not have felt so. Her simple training had 
 not taught her to wear one face to strangers 
 and another to friends ; and she had no 
 false modesty about her love for the boy 
 before either strangers or friends. 
 
 Bigelow had been explaining : "I 've been 
 tellin' him 'boutRobb 'bout his inventions, 
 an' all like that. I wanted he should know 
 in case he ever heerd anything ag'in' him." 
 
 "Yes," she said, withdrawing her hand 
 reluctantly. And Smiffen assured her, "I 
 have n't heard anything but good things 
 about him yet." 
 
 The accent on the "yet" did not exactly 
 hint that he wished to hear more, but it 
 conveyed the impression that if they wished 
 to tell him more, they would find him a 
 friendly listener whose interest was already 
 engaged on the boy's behalf. 
 88 
 
" And he said he did n't know whether a girl could 
 understand about stocks " 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 She thanked him with a shy regard, and 
 glanced at Bigelow. He was evidently con 
 sidering whether it would not be better for 
 Smiffen to hear the whole story from them 
 rather than from the gossip of the village. 
 
 Bigelow sat down thoughtfully, his hands 
 in his pockets. The girl took a seat at the 
 table, her arms on the marble top, gazing 
 out the window. Smiffen withdrew to his 
 chair by the stove. 
 
 After an interval of thought, Bigelow 
 said unexpectedly, "What I can't make out, 
 Hallie, is how the Judge knowed 'bout Robb 
 before any of us." 
 
 "Why, you see, Mr. Bigelow," she fal 
 tered, "Robb had told me and I" 
 
 "When ? When did he tell you ?" 
 
 She confessed faintly, "That afternoon." 
 
 " Hallie! . . . Why did n't you come an' 
 tell me?" 
 
 "But I did n't understand!" she cried. 
 "I did n't understand what it meant. And 
 91 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 lie did n't. . . . You see," she defended 
 herself, "the first words he said when you 
 left us alone here that afternoon he said 
 in case he left town suddenly, he wanted me 
 to know he thought there 'd be more than 
 one successful fellow come out of this town. 
 And I knew he was referring to Mr. Well- 
 man, and I thought he meant that one of 
 his inventions had turned out well. And he 
 said, 'No; it was n't that.'" 
 
 She hesitated, glancing up at the bell 
 above the door. "He showed me the burg 
 lar alarm to ring the door bell and about 
 his idea for putting wooden casters on the 
 table. But he said it was n't about those." 
 
 She turned to the old man. "And then," 
 she said, in a sudden desperate rush of 
 words, "he told me that when he rode over 
 to the city to deposit the money for the 
 G. A. R., he met a man that he used to know 
 when he was at the business college, and 
 this man showed him how he could make five 
 92 
 
He showed me the burglar alarm to ring the door bell 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 thousand dollars by investing the one thou 
 sand for three days. And that was what 
 he meant by saying there 'd be more than 
 one successful He was expecting a letter 
 with the profits any minute." 
 
 "An' did n't you know "Bigelow began. 
 
 "I did n't understand at all," she cut in, 
 twisting and untwisting her handkerchief 
 around her fingers. "Even after he figured 
 it out on a page of his note book so many 
 stocks at so much a stock to show me. 
 And he said he did n't know whether a girl 
 could understand about stocks." 
 
 "But did n't you know it was wrong fer 
 Robb-" 
 
 "Why, that 's what I asked him! if it 
 was n't wrong to use the G. A. R. money 
 for something else when he 'd been given it 
 to deposit in the bank. And he said the 
 sureness of it made it all right, because 
 he 'd have the money back, and the profits, 
 too, that night. And when I asked him if 
 94 
 
"I told him I wished he would n't go away, because 
 this was my home" 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 you knew, he said, 'No; a man of eighteen 
 ought to depend on his own judgment' 
 and he was so sure of it that I did n't really 
 think. I just thought how lovely it would 
 be when he had the money, because father 
 And I told him I wished he would n't go 
 away, because this was my home. And 
 and " She put her face in her hands. 
 "He he kissed me," she sobbed, "and I 
 was so happy, I " 
 
 "There !" Bigelow cried, rising in all the 
 majesty of an old man's emotion. "It ain't 
 guilt that 's punished in this world! It 's 
 innocence ! It ain't the boy that knows he 's 
 done wrong. It 's the boy like like my 
 Robb!" 
 
 And Smiffen, staring gloomily at the 
 rag carpet, was thinking to himself: The 
 same old story! The boy steals, and runs 
 away, and leaves his father to foot the bill. 
 And his father never really understands; 
 and his sweetheart refuses to lose faith in 
 97 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 him even when he writes to her and throws 
 her over; and then, when the awakening 
 comes 
 
 He looked up, compassionately, at Bige- 
 low trying to comfort the girl. When the 
 awakening should come! 
 
VII 
 
 HE had a premonition that it was 
 going to come to them very 
 soon that they would continue 
 discussing the incidents of the theft, and 
 piecing together their recollections of it, 
 until they would see it in its true colors and 
 understand the whole horrible truth. And 
 he watched and listened in the nervous ap 
 prehension of a spectator at a murder trial 
 who sees the evidence of the prisoner's guilt 
 growing before the jury. 
 
 Bigelow, when he had quieted the girl, 
 icturned to his question of how the Judge 
 discovered what Robert had done, before 
 any one else knew of it. And she explained : 
 "When Mr. Wellman took me over to the 
 opening of the hall that night I I told 
 99 
 
 L 
 
 3 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 him I could never marry him. And I told 
 him why. And of course he did n't expect 
 me to dance with him after that, . . . and 
 I tried to find Robb. He had n't come yet, 
 'Aunt Letitia' said. And he had n't told 
 her any good news about his prospects. . . . 
 And then I found him just outside, near the 
 door, looking in ; and I could see something 
 had happened. He had n't his Sons of Vet 
 erans' uniform on. And when I asked him 
 what was the matter, he said he 'd never 
 wear it again, and he was leaving town that 
 night, and he 'd only come to the hall to tell 
 me good-by, and he 'd lost the money, and 
 it was all gone, and he had n't any of it left. 
 And then he showed me the letter from the 
 man, and he kept putting his hand up to 
 his forehead, as if he had a headache and 
 he said he felt sick. 
 
 "I told him," she wept, "that I 'd asked 
 him whether it was n't wrong to use that 
 money and he said he 'd been so sure he 'd 
 100 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 never really thought about it being wrong, 
 maybe. And he said that even now he kept 
 saying to himself, 'You never took money 
 that did n't belong to you,' but he had, and 
 he 'd been made a fool of, and it was n't his 
 money, and Oh, everything was 'up the 
 spout.' " 
 
 She imitated the tone and the hopeless 
 gesture of his "up the spout," and there 
 was something pathetically funny in the 
 way she did it. 
 
 "He was going to Wapahoe City on the 
 midnight train without letting you know 
 and going to leave a letter saying he 
 would pay it all back. He said he knew 
 some one in Indianapolis who got work 
 there at eight dollars a week, and in ten 
 years he 'd have it all paid, but I was n't 
 to wait for him, because by that time he 'd 
 be old he 'd be twenty-eight too old to 
 start life over again. And and I would n't 
 let him go. 
 
 101 
 
 in 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 "I could n't," she choked. "I could n't." 
 
 Bigelow had sunk down in his chair, in a 
 hopeless misery. 
 
 She went on, in a strained and tortured 
 struggle to have it all out, "I wanted him 
 to let you help him. And when he said he 
 could n't face you, I told him I had money 
 of my own, and I 'd ask father for it. And 
 he said he could n't do that . He could n't 
 take money from a girl, or he 'd be worse 
 than he was. And I told him he could pay 
 me back but he would n't do it. And I 
 tried to persuade him to wait until morn 
 ing, anyway. And then some people were 
 coming, and I got him inside, to the coat 
 room, and I made him promise to wait there 
 until I came back, and then I ran to get 
 father." 
 
 Bigelow groaned. 
 
 "I did n't tell him," she cried. "I did n't. 
 I told him I wanted some money some of 
 my own that mother had left me and he 
 said he 'd give me part of my monthly 
 102 
 
" I told him I wanted some money " 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 allowance the next day and I told him I 
 wanted quite a sum, and he asked what I 
 wanted it for, and I said I could n't tell 
 him, except that I wanted to do some good 
 with it, and it was my money, and it need n't 
 matter to him what I did with it. And he 
 said I wanted it for some one else, and I 
 told him no one had asked me for it that 
 I had been asked not to ask for it. And 
 he said, 'Then some one has spoken to you 
 about it.' And I told him I had n't said 
 that, but any one might be unfortunate and 
 lose everything and I begged him, and told 
 him that after all I had a lot more money 
 that I only needed a thousand dollars. 
 And he said, 'Is that all !' And I said, 'No ; 
 a thousand dollars and forty-seven cents.' 
 And he said, 'That 's an odd sum. One 
 thousand dollars and forty-seven cents. 
 Where have I heard that sum before !' And 
 then all at once he said I wanted it for 'the 
 
 $ sc 
 
 104 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 She broke down and sobbed, "I I told him 
 I loved Robb, and asked him to help us, 
 b-but it was no use." 
 
 Bigelow shook his head. "It was no 
 use. Ev'ry thing played against us ev'ry- 
 thing!" 
 
 "I did n't think he 'd know," she cried, 
 "just from the amount." 
 
 "An' he would n't," Bigelow exonerated 
 her. "He would n't, Hallie if it had n't 
 been fer that check o' his. It might 'a' 
 been days an' I could 'a' got the money 
 put back in the bank if it had n't been fer 
 his check. I should n't 'a' took it. I 
 should n't 'a' took it." 
 
 He turned to Smiffen, as if to clear the 
 girl by confessing his own mistake. "He 'd 
 come in here that afternoon," he said, "be 
 fore he 'd found out anything. You was 
 here, was n't you, Hallie?" 
 
 "Yes," she replied faintly. "I hid in the 
 dining room when I saw him coming." 
 105 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 "She 'd been here with Robb. An' when 
 the Judge came in, I Well, I shook 
 hands with him, an' made Robb shake hands 
 with him, 'cause I thought I had it fixed 
 fer Robb to stay home an' marry her, an' 
 I wanted to be frien's with the Judge. An' 
 he said, 'Mr. Bigelow, you tell me the Post 
 has deposited to its credit one thousan' dol 
 lars.' An' I says, 'One thousan' dollars an' 
 forty-seven cents, in the Wapahoe City 
 Bank,' I says. 'Robert deposited it. Rode 
 over on his bicycle,' I says. An' the Judge 
 says, 'A balance o' four hundred dollars is 
 still needed to complete the final payment 
 on the hall?' he says. An' Robert said that 
 was right that the bank book was in his 
 room. An' the Judge said he 'd decided to 
 give us this balance on condition that the 
 Post paid ev'ry bill, so 's we could say the 
 hall opened that night free o' debt. 
 
 " 'Well, Judge,' I says, 'I salute you. I 
 salute you, Judge. You 're a good soldier, 
 106 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 after all.' An' he set down at the table 
 there to write the check. An' while he 's 
 writin' it, he says, 'Wesley,' he says, 'I take 
 this means of answerin' those who opposed 
 me. I want you to announce this gift pub 
 licly t'-night. I want ev'ry one to know 
 that you, who caused my defeat, an' the 
 Post members, who are drivin' me from the 
 bench ' An' I said, 'No, Judge. I balk 
 at that. I ain't out eatin' crow,' I says. 
 An' I let him take his check an' go." 
 
 He passed his hand across his forehead 
 wearily. "Well, what was the use? There 
 was the boy an' Hallie. I could n't let him 
 go away mad. I called him back an' took 
 it." 
 
 "I coaxed you to," Hallie accused her 
 self. "You would n't have" 
 
 "Yes, I would," he lied. "Yes, I would. 
 I 'd 'a' done it anyway. . . . An' besides," 
 he consoled her, "it would n't 'a' made no 
 diff'rence either way. An' we were happy 
 107 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 fer the rest o' the day, anyway, were n't 
 we?" 
 
 "Yes," she said. "I thought it was go 
 ing to come out all right. I thought Robb 
 was going to get his five thousand dollars." 
 
 Bigelow pondered sadly, as if overcome 
 in his old age by a despairing sense of the 
 vanity of human virtue. "It 's the inno 
 cent," he said. "It 's the innocent an' the 
 foolish. I ought to 've got more sense. 
 An ol' man like me. I ought to 've learned 
 more more craft. I did n't know noth- 
 in'." 
 
 Smiffen, weighed down with his universal 
 gloom, asked throatily, "What did he do? 
 Expose the boy?" 
 
 "Expose him !" Bigelow cried. "Expose 
 him ! 'S soon 's Judge Andrews left her 
 that night after he 'd found out 'bout 
 Robb he got Let' Pettingill, the treasurer 
 o' the Post an' him drunk! He 'd come 
 to the hall drunk that night, an' I took his 
 109 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 badge off him an' ordered him to take off 
 his uniform an' go home An' the Judge 
 got him when he was drunk an' sore ag'in' 
 me, an' what did he do, d' you think? Got 
 him to make a charge ag'in' Robb ! Got 
 him to ambush my boy a dead comrade's 
 son." 
 
 He sprang to his feet. "Here !" he said. 
 "Here! Here I was, with Cap Bestor an' 
 Jim Bishop an' the boys just after we 'd 
 been welcomin' the Boggsville Post, an' was 
 all goin' into supper Here I was just 
 at the door into the dancin', when I seen 
 Judge Andrews comin' in. An' that re 
 minded me 'bout the check fer four hun 
 dred I was t' announce. An' I told him I 
 was goin' to make the announcement right 
 after supper. An' he says, 'Since you 
 speak publicly o' this matter, Mister Bige- 
 low,' he says, 'I want to say that when I 
 contributed I was led to do so under a false 
 impression.' 
 
 110 
 
An ordered him to take off his uniform an go home 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 "Well, I could n't make no sense out o' 
 that. I says, 'You '11 have to speak plainer, 
 Judge,' I says. An' he says, 'How could I 
 complete a payment when I don't believe 
 the G. A. R. had any funds in the City 
 Bank t'-day?' " 
 
 "That looked like some one 'd been 
 playin' a joke on him, an' I laughed at him. 
 So did Jim. So did Cory. 'Well,' I says, 
 't'-morrow I '11 show you.' 
 
 " 'I doubt it,' he says. 'I doubt it. As 
 Senior Vice,' he says, "I '11 prove t'-morrow 
 mornin' that the G. A. R. money that young 
 Robert Bigelow took over to the bank is 
 missin' !' 
 
 "Well, I could n't make nothin' out of it, 
 unless the bank 'd been robbed. An' then 
 I seen by the look in his eyes that he meant 
 something ag'in' Robb. I seen it in the 
 way he looked at me as much 's to say, 
 'Take that, now. That 's fer you. 9 An' 
 I says, 'Judge Andrews,' I says, 'you can 
 
If they had n't 'a' held me back, I 'd 'a' 
 wrung his neck " 
 

A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 attack me. You al'ays have,' I says, 'but 
 that boy You keep yer hands off him! 
 D' you hear! He 's my boy! Don't you 
 accuse that boy !' ' 
 
 He was trembling with passion, shaking 
 a venomous forefinger at Smiffen. "I knew 
 what he 'd got ag'in' Robb, an' I told him 
 so. 'I know what you got ag'in' him,' I 
 says. 'I know.' An' he hollers, 'Then if 
 you know, you keep yer boy away from my 
 house, an' away from me an' mine.' He 
 'dmitted it. He 'dmitted it in them very 
 words. Ev'ry one could see. I told 'em 
 it was 'cause Robb loved his daughter. So 
 anything to injure him. Any mean, con- 
 tem'tible An' I says, 'Boys,' I says, 'I 
 propose we give this man back his money. 
 Give him back his God.' 'Yes,' they says. 
 'Give it back to him. We can raise it in 
 some more respectable way.' An' then he 
 out with it. 'As you will,' he says, 'but 
 you '11 find that yer son has robbed' 
 115 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 "By God, if they had n't 'a' held me 
 back, I 'd 'a' wrung his neck. By " 
 
 "Wesley ! Wes' !" Letitia cried, running 
 in to the sound of his angry voice. "Why, 
 Wes'! What" 
 
 "Go inside now, Letitia," he said, con 
 trolling himself. "I feel I 'm goin' to use 
 language." 
 
 She caught his arm. "Nonsense, Wes'," 
 she said. "Stop it. The boys are comin'. 
 The boys are comin' up the road. Listen." 
 
 They listened. They could hear a chorus 
 of untuned voices singing a canteen song. 
 
 Hallie rose hastily, and fled to an inner 
 room to hide her tears. Bigelow said, "All 
 right, 'Tish. I was jus' tellin' 'bout the 
 Judge." And Smiffen studied his knuckles 
 and tried to look as if he did not feel that 
 he had been caught peeping at the family 
 skeleton through a keyhole. 
 
 The arrival of "the boys" saved him 
 from an uneasy situation. 
 116 
 
VIII 
 
 THEY were as ancient a lot of 
 "boys" as one could find "between 
 here and heaven" as Bigelow 
 would say. 
 
 Jim Bishop, the secretary of the Post, 
 who was town constable also, and clerk of 
 the county court Jim Bishop, who had 
 been courting Letitia with an antique gal 
 lantry for twenty years Jim Bishop came 
 stumping in first, in his faded army over 
 coat, his hat in his hand, bald headed, cry 
 ing "Happy New- Year, Wes' !" and "Happy 
 New- Year, "Titia!" as sprightly, in spite 
 of his artificial leg, as a bridegroom of 
 fifty, his plump face creased in smiles. 
 
 Behind him there puffed in a perfect 
 whale of a man Comrade Cory Kilbert 
 117 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 who had nearly starved to death in a South 
 ern prison during the war, and who had 
 been overeating four times a day every day 
 since. It was his complaint that he had 
 not drawn a full breath "sence Antietam" ; 
 and he gave his "Happy New-Year" in the 
 brief gasp of a man who realizes that his 
 every breath is numbered. He was so cor 
 pulent that his round face looked like the 
 surface of a firkin of lard that had "set" 
 in the dimples and crinkles and smooth 
 puckers of a white fat. 
 
 He was followed by Captain Bestor, a 
 lawyer who wore a frock coat on all occa 
 sions, and had one on now under his army 
 cloak. He was gray, with a martial gray 
 mustache. He was carrying a canteen, 
 from which they had all been drinking to 
 the New- Year ; and his accustomed dignity 
 had been deepened thereby to the platform 
 manner of a public orator. He was most 
 portentously sober, and he gave the sea- 
 119 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 son's greetings as solemnly as if it were a 
 part of the ritual of some religious cere 
 mony. 
 
 They had brought with them an old blind 
 veteran named Hickman, an inmate of the 
 soldiers' home at Knightstown ; and they 
 introduced him to Bigelow as "Hickman of 
 the battle of Cedar Creek, the fellow who 
 stole the cow an' saved our lives." And 
 Bigelow shaking hands with one, clapping 
 another on the back, and raising his voice 
 to a shout to wish the deaf Hickman the 
 compliments of the day received them 
 with all the eager joviality of his simple 
 soul, and made them "acquainted" with the 
 smiling Smiffen as one might present a 
 stranger to the boon companions of a club. 
 "Boys! Boys!" he cried. "It does me 
 good to see you! Hickman, you take me 
 back twenty year ! How are you, Hick 
 man? I say HOW ARE YOU?" And 
 Hickman, smiling blankly before him, lean- 
 ISO 
 
He was most portentously sober" 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 ing on his stick with one hand, the other 
 behind his ear, answered in a voice that 
 seemed to come across those twenty years, 
 like a distant halloo, small and faint. "Oh, 
 . . . prut-ty . . . well. Prut-ty . . . well." 
 
 Letitia had to find chairs for them all, 
 and then bring them each a glass of "cherry 
 bounce"; and when they had drunk her 
 health, primly, in that precious beverage, 
 Bigelow called to her to bring the old 
 "volunteer flag" which she had been mend 
 ing. "Goin' to show you the ol' flag," he 
 shouted at Hickman. "Want you to tech 
 her. ... It 's ready ain't it, 'Tish to 
 go down to the hall? You can take it 
 along, Cap." 
 
 They were taking Hickman to the hall; 
 they could take the flag with them. 
 
 They stood, when Letitia appeared with 
 the striped bundle in her arms. "Handle 
 her gentle, 'Tish," Bigelow cautioned her. 
 "She 's gettin' worn." 
 122 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 She spread it on the table top, and they 
 saluted it mutely. Bigelow put the hem 
 of it into Hickman's hands. The blind man 
 said, in his far-away voice, "The ol' 
 Indianny Sixteenth volunteer! Well, well. 
 She 's good to the touch" ; and bending his 
 shaking old spine before it, he kissed it like 
 an altar cloth. 
 
 "Robb's mother made it," Bigelow ex 
 plained over his shoulder to Smiffen, "an' 
 his father carried it. Color-Sergeant Bal- 
 lard killed at Five Forks." 
 
 "Marched right ahead o' me," Jim 
 Bishop added proudly. 
 
 Bigelow cried in Hickman's ear, "D 5 you 
 remember the color-sergeant Phil Bal- 
 lard?" 
 
 "Ah!" Hickman wagged his sparse 
 beard. " 'Member the day we found him 
 at Five Forks near dawn?" His blind 
 eyes seemed fixed on that dead past. 
 
 "Yes. Yes," Bigelow said. "A-steppin' 
 
 
 ; 
 
 
 
" The ol* Indianny Sixteenth volunteer ! 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 over bodies like cobblestones. Found him 
 layin' with his head on his arms an' in 
 his pocket a letter from Robb's mother 
 sayin' she was waitin' with the baby fer 
 him Robb." 
 
 They nodded. "Yes. Yes. That 's it." 
 
 "Spoke to him purty sharp, rec'llect?" 
 Bigelow said, trying to smile at him 
 self now for not having understood that the 
 man was dead. "Reminded him he had a 
 boy at home. Begged him to get up. . . . 
 Well, well. An' to think it all happened 
 so long ago ! An' him layin' there dead, in 
 his blood-stained unyf orm !" 
 
 He turned to Smiffen with a determined 
 cheerfulness. "Wish you 'd been over to 
 the hall the openin' night," he said. 
 
 That set them all recalling the glories 
 of that famous night ; and they chaffed Jim 
 Bishop on his dancing and Captain Bestor 
 on his speech. ["On this memorable and 
 momentous occasion which marks the open- 
 125 
 
" On this memorable and momentous occasion ' 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 ing of this imposing edifice which now 
 lifts its stately cupola into the cerulean 
 sky," etc. "An 5 there warn't no cupola," 
 Cory Kilbert explained to Smiffen. "An' 
 there warn't no such sky," said Bigelow.] 
 They even tried to make Letitia recite again 
 the verses which she had composed in the 
 Post-Commander's honor, and delivered her 
 self that evening in the costume of Colum 
 bia, with a liberty cap on her thin locks. 
 
 ["Welcome to this festal hall 
 
 Soldiers marching to and fro! 
 Welcome townsfolks, one and all, 
 And Post-Commander Bigelow" 
 
 and so forth, through half a dozen stanzas 
 of which every last line ended in "Post- 
 Commander Bigelow!"] 
 
 "Well," Captain Bestor said, "there may 
 be finer halls, but" 
 
 "But there ain't," said Kilbert; and 
 Bestor brought them to their feet again to 
 drink to the luck of the hall. 
 127 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 "Friends and comrades," he said orator- 
 ically, "it is now my privilege to say that 
 it is the unanimous opinion of this Post 
 that our new hall needs the honored pres 
 ence of one who has not been seen there 
 since our opening night, to the success of 
 which he so largely contributed, our ex- 
 Post-Commander, Mr. Wesley Bigelow. It 
 is my privilege to say, on behalf of the 
 comrades of this Post ' 
 
 "Boys. Boys," Bigelow cut in modestly. 
 "I appreciate I I can't thank you. 
 But but Well, mebbe when Robb comes 
 back. I I can't face the place yet." 
 
 "Well, now that Pettingill 's been ex 
 pelled," Bishop argued, "an' the Judge 's 
 left town, there 's no one there but what 
 took the boy's part !" 
 
 "It ain't that," Bigelow said. "You 
 don't know. You 're all right, boys. I can 
 never thank y' enough fer what you did fer 
 128 
 
"Soldiers marching to and fro!" 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 Robb. G. A. R. blood 's thicker 'n water. 
 ... It ain't that" 
 
 He began to shake hands with them all, 
 to express the gratitude that choked him; 
 and they accepted the action as a signal to 
 go. They took Smiffen with them, to show 
 him the hall ; and when they had all trooped 
 out (Captain Bestor whispering confiden 
 tially that he would be back, that he had 
 something to say for Bigelow's private 
 ear), the old stage driver sat down and 
 sighed and shook his head. 
 
IX 
 
 I 
 
 T ain't that," he said to himself. "It 
 ain't that." 
 
 It was something that had happened 
 between the boy and him,, on the night of 
 the opening of the new hall something 
 that had made the hall such a place of 
 sickening memories to him that he could 
 not face it something that kept coming 
 back to the eye of memory with a hypnotic 
 vividness, in moments of solitude, to torture 
 him with all the miseries of shame and re 
 morse. 
 
 It came back upon him now; and sunken 
 in his chair he stared at it, pale, sick at 
 heart, like a man haunted. He went through 
 it all again, incident by incident. He wiped 
 131 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 his forehead. He shifted in his chair and 
 half groaned to himself. 
 
 "Mary's boy!" he whispered. "Mary's 
 boy!" 
 
 For it was on that night of the opening 
 of the hall, in the "Commandery Room" 
 with its flags and bunting, its lemonade 
 stand and its oil lamps in brackets, its 
 memorial tablet on the wall and its rack of 
 muskets in the corner it was there that 
 Judge Andrews had made his accusation 
 against the unfortunate Robert, just at 
 the door that opened into the dance-room ; 
 and Bigelow, dragging the men who tried 
 to hold him, had backed the Judge across 
 the room towards the entrance, shouting: 
 "You 're lyin'! He 's lyin', boys! He 's 
 lyin'!" his neck outstretched, his teeth 
 bared, his face purple with anger furious 
 enough to have bitten if the men clinging to 
 him had let him get near enough to the 
 Judge to bite. 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 "Don't be apprehensive, gentlemen," the 
 Judge had said, though he was pale. "I 'm 
 a cool man on the battlefield as well as " 
 
 "Yes," Bigelow yelled. "You 're so cool 
 on the battlefield you just shiver. . . . No! 
 No !" he told the men who tried to coax him 
 away. "The good name of my boy 's been 
 questioned, an' I never side-flank trouble. 
 He 's got my blood a-singin', an' he '11 have 
 to eat his crow !" 
 
 They hurried the women out of the room, 
 and he tore himself free from the men who 
 tried to hold him. "Close that door!" he 
 ordered. "Now !" he challenged the Judge. 
 "Now. Come on !" 
 
 The Judge said: "Call young Bigelow." 
 And going himself to the door of an outer 
 room, he summoned Pettingill. 
 
 "Call my boy!" Bigelow cried, and set 
 tling his coat on his shoulders it had been 
 almost dragged from his back he con 
 fronted, sternly, in his old uniform, the 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 staggering Quartermaster whom Andrews 
 brought up to support his case. 
 
 "As Senior Vice," the Judge said, "I 
 have advised Pettingill to press this 
 charge." And Pettingill, with the butt of 
 a bar-room cigar in the snarling corner of 
 his mouth, mumbled defiantly: "Feel the 
 mor'l respons'bility bein' treasur' one thou- 
 san' dollars 'n forty-sev' cents." 
 
 Bigelow passed them over with a con 
 temptuous glance, and turned to the door 
 through which he expected to see Robert 
 appear. 
 
 Kilbert undertook the boy's defence. "I 
 propose a vote o' confidence in Wes' Bigelow's 
 boy," he said, "before he opens his mouth." 
 
 "Yes. Yes," the others seconded him. 
 
 "Thanks, comrades," Bigelow replied, 
 with a ring in his voice, "but mine 's a boy 
 can stan' up an' face anybody. Anybody 
 an' ev'rybody! He ain't needin' no de- 
 fendin'. Look at him. Come here, Robb." 
 134 
 
 rnrrj 
 
 
 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 Robert had entered with Captain Bestor. 
 He was a shabby lad in snuff-colored 
 clothes which he had outgrown ; and he was 
 pale and frightened, though he did not 
 know yet what was wanted of him. 
 
 Bigelow went to him and put an arm 
 about his shoulders and led him forward. 
 
 "Robert," he said, when they were facing 
 Andrews, with the men grouped around 
 them, "the Judge says that you " He 
 swallowed and tried to smile apologetically 
 at the circle. "Well, I 'm ashamed to tell 
 it." 
 
 Bestor offered, in his best professional 
 manner: "Perhaps I 
 
 Bigelow waved him off, and patted Rob 
 ert on the shoulder to reassure him. The 
 boy was already hanging his head. "My 
 boy," he said, "stan' up an' face Judge An 
 drews an' answer. You deposited the Post 
 funds in the City Bank." 
 
 Robert took one scared look at the stern 
 135 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 accusation of the Judge's scowl, and said: 
 "I Dad " 
 
 "Speak so ev'rybody can hear you," 
 Bigelow ordered confidently. 
 
 "Speak out, my boy," Captain Bestor 
 helped. 
 
 But the unhappy boy, shrinking from a 
 confession before all these strangers, try 
 ing vainly to hide his guilty face from them 
 and make his voice reach his father only, 
 gulped "Dad" and stuck on the word. 
 
 "Young man !" the Judge said sternly. 
 
 "Hoi' on!" Bigelow interfered. He 
 caught the boy by both shoulders and 
 shook him affectionately, turning himself 
 at the same time to face the circle of eyes 
 before which Robert quailed. "I ought n't 
 to 've asked him so sudden. Got him 
 frightened most to death. He can't stan' 
 by an' hear his integrity questioned. He 's 
 a sensitive boy." 
 
 He was fond enough to believe what he 
 136 
 

 Post-Commander Bigelow 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 said ; and the others tried to look as if they 
 believed him all except the Judge and Pet- 
 tingill. 
 
 "Did you, or did you not," the Judge 
 began. And Pettingill threatened drunk- 
 enly: "My duty to press a charge ag'in' 
 him shortage an' I '11 do it!" 
 
 Bigelow upheld the boy with an arm 
 about him, patting him and smiling a deter 
 mined reassurance. "You don't have to an 
 swer till you 're ready, Robert. No one 
 here doubts you at all. Take yer own 
 time, my boy." 
 
 But the boy, his arms hanging limp, his 
 knees visibly weakening under him, his chin 
 on his chest, could not raise his eyes from 
 his feet; and the Judge said impatiently: 
 "Come, come. I simply want a yes or no." 
 
 "You don't have to answer till you 're 
 ready," Bigelow counseled him. "Just 
 speak up an' tell the Judge." 
 
 And at last the boy faltered, in a voice 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 that trembled and cringed before them all: 
 "I can't, Dad. I did n't put it in the bank. 
 I-" 
 
 In the amazed silence that ensued, Bige- 
 low stood back with his mouth open, speech 
 less. The comrades looked at one another. 
 The Judge smiled. 
 
 "Well," Bigelow said hoarsely, "if you 've 
 been disobey in' orders leavin' funds lay in' 
 aroun' the house " 
 
 "A bad business, I 'm afraid," the Judge 
 interposed, in a tone of cold finality. 
 
 "Well, / 9 m responsible," Bigelow flared 
 up. "/ *m responsible!" And the Judge 
 turned his back ignoring him and took 
 Pettingill by the elbow, and stalked off, 
 righteous and vindicated. 
 
 "Boys, go inside," Bigelow turned to the 
 others. "I '11 have better news fer you 
 later." 
 
 They offered, if there was "anything" 
 they could do 
 
 140 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 "No. No," he assured them, struggling 
 to keep a brave face. "There 's nothin' 
 really wrong, I guess." 
 
 But when they had all gone into the 
 dancing-room, and shut out the sound of 
 the music as they closed the door behind 
 them, he dropped his faltering smile, and 
 turned to Robb the worried and miserable 
 face of an old man disgraced. His shoul 
 ders drooped dejectedly: he wiped his face 
 in his handkerchief; and seeing a kitchen 
 chair under the balcony near where Robert 
 stood, abandoned to his guilt, he dragged 
 himself wearily to the seat and called the 
 boy over to him. 
 
 "Robert," he said plaintively, "if you 've 
 been careless an' lost this money takin' it 
 over, why did n't you come to me like a 
 man an' say so? 'T ain't as though you 'd 
 did any delib'rate wrong. Then I could 'a' 
 found some way to help you out. Now I 
 ain't got time to turn round." 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 The boy hung his head, his shoulders stiff 
 with the effort to keep down the sobs that 
 gathered against his heart, looking down 
 at the hat which he kept turning and turn 
 ing in his hands. 
 
 "Now. What 's happened?" 
 
 But overcome by a realization of his 
 irretrievable guilt and ruin, unable to con 
 fess the hopelessness of his situation to his 
 father, Robert could only answer in the flat 
 voice of despair : "It would n't do any good 
 to tell you now, Dad." 
 
 "Robert!" Bigelow said huskily. "We 
 got to keep cool-headed an' find some way 
 to recoverin' it. ... You lost it takin' it 
 over. That 's it; ain't it?" 
 
 The boy gasped: "It 's gone." 
 
 "Gone where 't can't be got back?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 At that strained voice of hopelessness, 
 Bigelow licked his dry lips, and wiped the 
 back of his neck, and struggled with his 
 

 " Who 's got it ? Answer me ! 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 anger and then cried: "Who 're you 
 shieldin'? Some scamp 's led you on. 
 Who is it?" 
 
 The boy shook his head, too weak to do 
 more. 
 
 "Who 's got it ? Answer me !" 
 
 He could not answer; he was struggling 
 against a sob that stuck in his throat, 
 strangling him. 
 
 "An-swer me !" Bigelow screamed in the 
 high cracked voice of impotent old rage and 
 grief. 
 
 The boy gulped, trembling. 
 
 "Answer me," he gasped, and beat on 
 his knee with his fist, his face convulsed 
 with wrath and tears. And in a low voice, 
 at the end of his self-control: "Answer " 
 
 "I I can't," he sobbed, unable to con 
 fess himself alone in his guilt. "I can't." 
 
 "You will," Bigelow cried, "fer I '11 
 make you. Whoever 's to blame has got to 
 take his punishment. You answer me." 
 
 "Oh, Dad!" the boy wept. "I can't." He 
 145 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 dropped his hat and burst into tears, wip 
 ing his eyes frantically with his hands and 
 with his bony wrists that protruded from 
 the sleeves of his jacket which he had out 
 grown. His father, his anger gone on the 
 instant, rose to thrust the handkerchief 
 into his hands. "Here," he said. "Here, 
 now. You tell me who it is." 
 
 He sat down, drawing the boy between 
 his knees. "It 's a sharper. I can see 
 that." He shook Robert affectionately by 
 the elbows. "Now, like a good boy," he 
 wheedled. "You 're shieldin' some one. 
 Now . . . now bell me. Like a good boy. 
 . . . Now. Now, like a good boy." 
 
 And Robert, his face hidden in the hand 
 kerchief unable to realize anything but 
 that he had taken the money to speculate 
 with sobbed: "Oh, Dad. Can't you see it 
 could n't be any one but me." 
 
 "You ain't meanin' Oh no ' ! He 
 shook his head. "A boy's whole nature can't 
 146 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 change like that." He looked up piteously 
 into the face of the miserable youth. 
 "Look at me." 
 
 Robert tried to look at him, but could 
 not; and with his eyes fixed on the hand 
 kerchief which he was pulling and tugging 
 at nervously, he pleaded: "I did n't mean 
 to take it for good, Dad. I wanted to make 
 some money and I used it." 
 
 Bigelow sank down slowly in his chair, 
 shrinking in upon himself as if all his pride, 
 all his strength as if his very breath 
 were leaving him. "You used it !" He put 
 his hands up to his temples. "God 
 A'mighty!" His voice was scarcely more 
 than a dry rustle in his throat. "Mary 's 
 boy!" And then, rising unsteadily, with 
 his under jaw shaking weakly as he stood 
 to face the terrible truth, he quavered: 
 M-mary's boy! . . . an' yer father's name 
 up there on that tablet. You stole from 
 the comrades of my You You 're a " 
 147 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 "No, no !" the boy cried. " I 'm not! I 
 meant to pay it back!" 
 
 But Bigelow beat down his protests with 
 a violent: "You 're a thief! A common 
 thief! There ain't a man in this hall but 's 
 got the right to have you locked up. Judge 
 Andrews 's got the right to sentence you 
 like a dog. An' you not able to hold up 
 yer head." 
 
 The boy had huddled himself up under 
 this attack, shivering horribly. Bigelow 
 caught him by the shoulders and swung 
 him round. "Come here ! How 'd you come 
 to do it?" 
 
 "I I don't know. I just did it." 
 
 Bigelow dropped his hand. The tears 
 flooded his old eyes and trickled down to 
 the corners of his mouth his distorted 
 mouth with its protruding under jaw that 
 shook with a hysteria of grief and shame. 
 "My my boy!" he said, heart-broken. 
 "My wonderful boy ! 'S turned out a thief. 
 148 
 
44 Take that, you 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 . . . Have n't I been good to you? 
 Have n't I, Robb? Why did n't you come 
 an' ask me fer what you wanted? You 
 did n't have to do this. All I got an' all 
 I could raise 't ain't much, but it 's 
 yourn." He stretched out his hands. 
 "Ever since you was put in my arms, I 've 
 done the best I could fer you. I " 
 
 "Dad !" the boy broke down at the sound 
 of his father's sobs. "Don't! Don't! I 
 can stand anything but that." He dropped 
 into the chair and put his head on his arms. 
 "Oh, for God's sake " 
 
 Bigelow looked down at him. "Well, 
 I 've been a bungler !" he cried. "An ol' 
 bungler ! Ev'rybody was right. I never 
 learnt you right from wrong. An' here you 
 are now where music an' dancin' 's goin' 
 on ashamed to face an honest comrade." 
 He drew himself up. "Well, I 've ruined 
 you with kindness. Now He clenched 
 his teeth. "Get up," he said hoarsely. 
 151 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 Robert did not move. 
 
 "Get up!" he snarled, through his teeth. 
 "Get up when I tell you!" And clutching 
 the boy by the coat collar he dragged him 
 to his feet. 
 
 "T-take off yer coat. Take it off!" 
 
 The boy drew the coat from his shoulders 
 and let it slide from his arms to the floor. 
 
 Bigelow pointed to a stack of carriage 
 whips, tagged, in a barrel by the door, 
 where their owners had left them when they 
 had put up their horses and come into the 
 hall. "Bring me one o' those whips !" His 
 outstretched arm trembled with an old 
 man's passion. "Get it !" 
 
 The boy got it. 
 
 "You little D' you know what I 'm 
 goin' to do?" He snatched the whip and 
 shook it. "I 'm g-goin' to flog you," he 
 shouted, "till I hain't got strength to flog 
 you no longer. Take that, you " 
 
 He swung the whip. It whistled as it cut 
 152 
 
I '11 stan' by you" 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 the air and came down with a pitiless lash 
 on the boy's shoulders. 
 
 He quivered under it but held stiff; and 
 turning his mute face to his father, he 
 looked at him without a word. 
 
 Without a word but with the eyes of 
 the dead, with the eyes of his mother. And 
 Bigelow let the whip fall from his hand and 
 faltered: "Mary's boy! I 've struck you." 
 He threw his arms about him, as if he would 
 cure with his embrace the wound of that 
 cut on the shoulders ; and gathering the 
 boy to him, he sobbed: "I '11 stan' by you, 
 Robb. I '11 stan' by you." 
 
IT was this scene it was this grief 
 that confronted the tender old senti 
 mentalist whenever he thought of the 
 new hall. He could not bear to see the place 
 where he had turned on guilty innocence 
 and struck it with a whip. It seemed to him 
 that the spirit of the boy's mother must 
 have seen him and shuddered. It was as if 
 his whip had fallen on her very shoulders, 
 since the boy had always been to him visibly 
 her flesh and something of her soul. And 
 now that Robert had gone, with the sting 
 of the lash on his back as the last memento 
 of his foster-father's love, Bigelow felt as 
 if he had maltreated a child on its death 
 bed; and he hated himself and loathed the 
 memory of the Commandery Room with a 
 156 
 
 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 passionate self-horror that woke him in his 
 bed to long hours of sleepless remorse and 
 persecuted him even in his uneasy dreams. 
 
 What had happened since that night had 
 only served to make the boy seem more 
 the innocent martyr more the persecuted 
 victim of circumstances more guilelessly 
 forgivable and over-punished. And Bige- 
 low accused himself the more bitterly be 
 cause, when every one else had turned 
 against the lad, he too had failed Robert 
 instead of defending him, right or wrong. 
 
 "Hallie," he told the girl when she 
 came into the room after the departure of 
 Smiffen and the veterans, and found him 
 alone with such thoughts as these "Hallie, 
 us parents has a hard time knowin' what to 
 do. We got to sit in judgment-like on our 
 children an' an' we 're afraid to spoil 'em 
 by not punishin' 'em an' all the time, 
 mebbe, we ought to be defendin' an' helpin* 
 'em. I been thinkin' that the Judge now 
 157 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 p'raps he done what he thought was best. 
 Mebbe he 's missin' you. You ought n't 
 to be too hard on a father, Hallie." 
 
 "Mr. Bigelow," she replied, with all the 
 hardness of her inexperience, "my father 
 did wrong to Robb and he knows it. At 
 first I thought he would undo it, and I 
 waited. And when he left town and went to 
 Indianapolis, because people here would n't 
 speak to him on the streets, I went with him 
 and tried to make him do something to 
 make it right and he would n't. He 
 knows he has done wrong. He knows it. 
 But he 's too proud to do anything to let 
 people think so !" 
 
 "Mebbe it was an impulse," Bigelow tried 
 to excuse him, thinking of his own action. 
 "Mebbe he did it before he thought." 
 
 "No !" she cried. "No ! He made up his 
 mind to do it, that night after he found 
 out what Robert had done after we came 
 home from the Hall. He said Robert was 
 
 158 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 a thief, and I told him I told him how it 
 happened that Robert did n't understand 
 that he had n't meant to steal. And he 
 would n't believe me. He said Robert 
 had n't told me the truth. And when I told 
 him I would never give Robert up, he said 
 he would never have his daughter marry a 
 thief and he sent me to my room, and got 
 Mr. Wellman, and they were together in 
 the library until it was nearly morning. I 
 was watching at my window when he went 
 away. I was afraid but I did n't think 
 they 'd dare. I did n't think they could." 
 "No," Bigelow said. "Ner me !" 
 "And next morning, when he called me 
 down to breakfast, and I would n't eat any 
 thing, he watched me, but he did n't say 
 anything; and I knew his mind was made 
 up to do something, but I did n't know what 
 it was. I thought it was just that he in 
 tended to have Robert disgraced by having 
 him brought into court. And I told him 
 159 
 
"He could n't tell me anything " 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 again that I did n't care what he did, I 
 would n't give Robert up. And he did n't 
 say anything. And that frightened me 
 more than ever. And when he went away to 
 his office, I ran around the other way, and 
 came here to tell you they were going to do 
 something, and there was no one here " 
 
 "I was out raisin' the money," Bigelow 
 said, in the manner of a man recalling the 
 inevitability of fate. "They 'd told me 
 that Pettingill was n't goin' to press the 
 charge. They 'd been up all night with 
 him. I was here with Robb when they came 
 an' told me it 'd be all right if I 'd raise the 
 money." 
 
 "And so," she hurried on, breathlessly, 
 "when there was no one here I ran down to 
 the Court House, and I could n't find any 
 one but the janitor Mr. Kilbert and he 
 could n't tell me anything except that the 
 whole Post had been up all night. Then 
 Mr. Wellman came in, and I knew it 
 161 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 would n't be any use to ask him, but I did. 
 And he tried to get out of it by saying he 
 represented the District Attorney and 
 could n't 'venture an opinion' ; and he tried 
 to put me off by saying it was n't very 'flat 
 tering' to him that I should prefer Robb, 
 and I saw he was hiding it what they in 
 tended to do and I saw he was trying not 
 to smile to himself when he looked at his 
 watch. And when I told him, too, that no 
 matter what they did I 'd never change to 
 Robb, he said 'Oh, I think you will. I 
 think you will,' and went away to the 
 Grand Jury room. And then I knew they 'd 
 do it. And that 's when I wrote the note to 
 Robb that you gave him ; and then I ran out 
 again to try to find you or some one. 
 And-" 
 
 She sat down, biting her lips to keep 
 back the tears. Bigelow had been pacing 
 up and down heavily. He stopped to pat 
 her on the shoulder. "They could n't 'a' 
 162 
 
 
 
 
 
"He tried to get out of it" 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 done nothin' if it had n't been fer Pet- 
 tingill," he said, as if that excused her 
 father. "Never mind, Hallie. You done 
 yer best. You got nothin' to regret. You 
 never turned on the boy Well, it 's hard 
 to know what to do when you 're a parent. 
 I s'pose the Judge thought he was doin' 
 what was best. An' when you owe a man a 
 grudge, like he owed me " 
 
 "I '11 never forgive him," she said. 
 "Never !" 
 
 She had set her pretty mouth in a tight- 
 lipped determination. Her expression re 
 minded him of her father. "Well, well," he 
 said, "don't let 's talk about it." 
 
 He turned to the garden window where 
 the afternoon sun was beaming in strongly, 
 and the frost was melting on the panes. He 
 scratched at a translucent film of ice with 
 his forefinger, reflectively. "He 's like his 
 father Robb is," he said. "Some boys 're 
 that way. . . . His father now I remem- 
 164 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 her when Mary met him. I seen I had no 
 chance with her after that. She 'd 
 'a' done anythin' gone anywhere with 
 him. . . . Well, that 's the way it is. ... 
 I mind old Woods askin' me if I thought I 
 was drivin' a hearse. I was mighty glad 
 when the war broke out an' I could get 
 away from here." He shook his head over 
 it, smiling ruefully; and then, catching 
 sight of a moving figure down the road, he 
 said: "Here 's Cap Bestor comin' back 
 with Oh, it 's Mr. Smiffen. Don't go, 
 Hallie. Set where you are." 
 
XI 
 
 IT was apparent at once when Smiffen 
 entered that he had heard something 
 to fill him with amazement. His eyes 
 showed it ; he showed it in the way he with 
 drew himself into the background of Bes- 
 tor's meeting with Hallie, and looked 
 blinkingly at Bigelow and turned from him 
 to study the girl. There was not only 
 amazement there was an indignant in 
 credulity in his expression, as if these two 
 had been the victims of some impossible in 
 justice of which he knew the bare outline 
 but was eager to hear the details. And he 
 sat down on the edge of a chair impatiently, 
 to wait until Bestor was quiet, so that he 
 might ask the questions that were trembling 
 on his lips. 
 
 166 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 Bestor was cautiously insinuating to 
 Bigelow and the girl that he had had a let 
 ter, an inquiry from an important person, 
 some days before, and that he confidently 
 expected and he believed that he had 
 "good grounds to confidently expect" 
 that something would be done about Rob 
 ert. He had not mentioned the matter 
 before ; he had kept it a secret, because, he 
 said, he had not wished to raise any false 
 hopes. 
 
 Unfortunately it was obvious that his 
 more rosy view of the matter was due now 
 to the influence on his spirits of a New 
 Year's celebration and a convivial canteen. 
 Bigelow glanced at the girl, to see that she 
 understood the situation; and then he 
 wrung Bestor's hand with gratitude, if not 
 with hope. "It 's all right anyhow, Cap," 
 he said, forcing the lawyer into a chair. 
 "You done yer best. Don't you worry. Set 
 down. Set down." 
 
 167 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 "But I don't see how it happened," 
 Smiffen blurted out. "A judge can't " 
 
 "Well, he did!" Bigelow turned to him. 
 
 "But your lawyer " 
 
 "/ was counsel in the case," Bestor said, 
 and drew himself up in his chair. 
 
 "It was n't him. It was Pettingill," 
 Bigelow defended him. "We thought he 
 was n't goin' to press the charge." 
 
 "He was influenced," Hallie said faintly, 
 "by my father." 
 
 Bestor waved his hand, in the manner of 
 authority. "Mr. Lester Pettingill was 
 'got at.' My legal instinct told me he 'd 
 been got at. And when he came into the 
 court-room that morning, I told him so. 
 'At dawn,' I said, 'you were in a very differ 
 ent frame of mind; and, on the strength of 
 what you said then, I told Mr. Bigelow that 
 if he could return the funds, you were 
 willing to drop the charge.' And when he 
 told me that I might talk to his lawyer, I 
 168 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 said to him: 'Mr. Pettingill,' I said, 'I 
 stamp that assertion as a lie. There are n't 
 but two lawyers in our community. I rep 
 resent the boy. The other one, though not 
 a comrade in fact, is a gentleman, and he 
 has assured me that he would not appear in 
 the case. I stamp your assertion as a lie, 
 sir.' And he replied to the effect that 
 young Wellman had advised him as to his 
 duty, and he was determined to do it." 
 
 "There!" Hallie cried, at this confirma 
 tion of her own suspicions. 
 
 "But," Smiffen began impatiently. 
 
 Bestor stopped him with a legal fore 
 finger. "Lester Pettingill was wearing his 
 Sunday clothes a significant fact to any 
 one who knew Mr. Pettingill. He was 
 chewing a cigar which he had not lighted. 
 Significant! Significant! He was pre 
 pared to appear before the Grand Jury. 
 And when we asked him not to do so, 'out of 
 pity for our Post Commander,' he replied 
 169 
 
" I stamp that assertion as a lie 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 that he did not see why he should pity the 
 Post Commander that the Post Com 
 mander had said he was in no condition to 
 be trusted with the Post funds that the 
 Post Commander, on the night of the open 
 ing of our Hall, had made him take off his 
 uniform, had threatened to have him put 
 out of office, had taken from him his com 
 mittee badge, had, in fact, as he said, 'dis 
 graced' him. He had, he maintained, been 
 persecuted in the Post " 
 
 Smiffen interrupted this tedious explana 
 tion: "But the boy " 
 
 "Nevertheless," Bestor went on, glaring 
 at him, "I could see that Mr. Pettingill was 
 by no means easy in his mind. I coaxed him 
 to sit down. I had our comrades shut the 
 door of the court-room. I gave him a fresh 
 cigar. And then, taking a seat beside him, 
 concealing my distaste for him, I said, 
 'Lester, my old friend, we have all been 
 pressing you too hard. There 's really a 
 171 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 loyal and splendid side to your character, 
 if people only knew how to appeal to it.' I 
 soothed him. I appealed to him. 'Why,' 
 'I said, ''there 's Wes' out now, getting the 
 last few dollars together, believing what you 
 said this morning happy thinking the 
 trouble 's all over.' And while I spoke, I 
 saw his face soften. I saw him stop chewing 
 his cigar. I said, 'I know you, Let. I 
 know that at the last minute you '11 never 
 stand against an old soldier.' 
 
 "Then I heard some one enter the court 
 room. It was Miss Letitia Grigsby. She 
 was weeping, and I said to him: 'The tears 
 of a woman I know you, Let! The tears 
 of a woman will break you, gallant comrade 
 though you are.' ' 
 
 He spread his hands eloquently. "Miss 
 Grigsby did not understand the situation. 
 When she saw him there she flew into a 
 passion justified, but impolitic. She 
 abused him. I attempted in vain to silence 
 172 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 her. I defended him. She declared that he 
 should have been able to look after his own 
 funds that it was 'all his fault' that he 
 was a 'miserable excuse for an old veteran.' 
 She even reminded him that his war record 
 was not clear that he had run away at the 
 battle of Wilson's Creek that the whole 
 Post knew it, though they did try to cover 
 it up. All of which was true, but ill-timed. 
 Unhappily, very ill-timed ! 
 
 "And Pettingill replied that now he knew 
 how he was discussed in the Post Com 
 mander's family. He asserted that he 
 could see through the holes in a ladder by 
 which he meant that he understood I had 
 been trying to get around him. He said 
 that he had been deceiving us at daybreak 
 that the boy had taken the funds and that 
 the boy would have to pay the penalty. And 
 while we were still arguing with him, to the 
 best of our ability, he was summoned to 
 attend before the Grand Jury; and, break- 
 173 
 
" run away at the battle of Wilson's Creek " 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 ing away from our persuasions, he went to 
 answer the call." 
 
 He folded his arms on his breast, with an 
 air of defiantly inviting the impertinent 
 stranger to cross-examine him. But in spite 
 of his defiance, his eyes were uncertain in 
 their focus, and he found it difficult to keep 
 them fixed on Smiffen. 
 
 "But the boy had n't intended to steal the 
 money," Smiffen argued. 
 
 "That 's what / said," Bigelow cried. 
 "Why when I was a boy I remember, once 
 when I was about so high I took fifty 
 cents from the wagon seat rolled out o' 
 my father's pocket. The same thing ex 
 actly! I went right out with it, an' saw a 
 sign said 'Cherry Tarts.' Went an' paid it 
 all over the bak'ry counter. An' just as I 
 was goin' out with the bag, my father come 
 in. 'Eat 'em!' he says. 'Eat 'em all 
 now!' ' He made a wry face. "I can taste 
 'em yet whenever I think of it." He smiled 
 175 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 at them, pathetically. "Boys will be boys. 
 Robb 'd-" 
 
 "And anyway," Smiffen cut in, "if you 
 knew the Judge was prejudiced " 
 
 "Mr. What's-your-name," Bestor rounded 
 on him, "there is such a thing in Indiana as 
 contempt of court." 
 
 "Well, here," Bigelow interfered, to stop 
 a quarrel. "You don't understand the way 
 things were." He rubbed his forehead, 
 worried. "Cap Bestor explained it to me, 
 when I come in with that money." 
 
XII 
 
 Y 
 
 P OU see," he said, "when I 'd got 
 the money I thought the trouble 
 was all over, an' when I come into 
 the court-room an' saw 'Tish cryin', that 's 
 what I told her: that if she wanted some- 
 thin' to cry fer, she 'd better go out an' try 
 to raise money in a hurry. The only thing 
 that was worryin' me was about Robb, be 
 cause he had n't eat nothin'. Would n't 
 tech the sandwich I 'd bought him. . . . 
 He was waitin' down in the hall, an' I sent 
 'Tish down stairs to try him with it again. 
 
 "Well, I set down to the table there an' 
 was countin' the money again to make sure, 
 when the Cap here set down beside me an' 
 said somethin' about Pettingill pressin' the 
 charge. I did n't get it at first, but when 
 177 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 I looked up at him I seen by his face that 
 the trouble was still on." 
 
 He turned apologetically to Bestor. "I 
 guess I was kind o' short with you, Cap. I 
 thought you was too full o' the law. I 
 thought if I could see Let I could put it to 
 him, man to man. . . . An' then," he ex 
 plained to Smiffen, "when I heerd Let was 
 in the Gran' Jury room, I started in to 
 order him out." 
 
 "Forgetting," Bestor added, "that you 
 had no authority over Pettingill in the mat 
 ter. Not in the Court." 
 
 "That 's right, Cap. That 's right. I 
 did n't know which way to turn. I 'd been 
 thinking about gettin' the money. Had n't 
 thought of anything else. . . . An' I 
 thought if I took the money into the Gran' 
 Jury room an' showed it " 
 
 "Nonsense. Nonsense," Bestor ruled. 
 
 "Well, there it was," Bigelow sighed. 
 "There was n't no way o' stoppin' Pet- 
 178 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 tingill. An' the Cap said we 'd have to 
 plead guilty." 
 
 "The boy had no case," Bestor said. "He 
 had admitted to the Judge, in the Hall, that 
 he was guilty. The Post check had come 
 back marked 'No funds.' There was nothing 
 to do but throw ourselves on the mercy of 
 the Court." 
 
 Bigelow muttered: "The mercy o' John 
 Andrews !" 
 
 "Well!" Smiffen objected. "Was n't 
 there any way a lawyer could " 
 
 "That 's what / said !" Bigelow cried. "A 
 Habeas Corpus er somethin'." 
 
 Bestor looked his disgust. 
 
 "Well, what 's the use o' havin' a lawyer 
 if he can't lie out o' things," Bigelow com 
 plained. 
 
 "The boy himself," Bestor said, "could n't 
 have lied out of it." 
 
 Bigelow sighed again, resignedly. "I 
 wanted him to blame it on me. Sort o' say 
 179 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 I went to the city with Robb er somethin' 
 like that an' an' make out that well 
 that I spent the the money." 
 
 "An insult to the intelligence of the 
 Court! Wesley, Robert had made his 
 bed-" 
 
 "Well, Cap, it was awful." He wiped his 
 forehead, at the mere memory of that real 
 ization of his impotence. "To think we 
 could n't do nothin' f er that boy !" 
 
 "There was nothing we could do but plead 
 guilty." 
 
 Bigelow sat dejected. "It was awful. I 
 did n't know what to do. When the Judge 
 come in, I scooped the money into my hat 
 an' held it out to him. Wanted him to know 
 I had it. Asked him if he could n't fix it all 
 up somehow. An' he said there warn't no 
 charge ag'in' Robert before him yet. So 
 that was no use." 
 
 "Certainly not," Bestor held. 
 
 "That 's where they had me," Bigelow 
 181 
 
" Wanted him to know I had it " 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 said, piteously. "They had me in a game I 
 did n't know nothin' about. An' ev'ry time 
 I tried to do anythin' they said it was ag'in' 
 the rules, an' stopped me. ... I could n't 
 make out what was goin' on, half the time 
 lot o' men comin' in, an' young Wellman 
 sayin' somethin' about some papers he gave 
 the Judge, an' the Judge sayin' somethin' 
 an' tellin' 'em they could go " 
 
 "That was the Grand Jury," Bestor ex 
 plained, "making their returns. They had 
 found a true bill in the case of the People 
 versus Bigelow. There was nothing else 
 for them to consider, so the Judge dismissed 
 them." 
 
 "Yes. Yes. I heerd the Judge say some- 
 thin' like that. I did n't know what it 
 was." 
 
 "And," Bestor took up the story, pomp 
 ously, "the Judge, you will perhaps remem 
 ber, announced that he would take the 
 defendant's plea and proceed with the trial 
 183 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 at once. I immediately objected. I held 
 that it was not customary to try a case in 
 the same term as the presentment; and the 
 Judge replied that he wished to clear his 
 docket before his retirement, and this was 
 his last day on the bench. 
 
 "What could we do? I argued that we 
 were entitled to some time in which to pre 
 pare our defence. The prosecuting attor 
 ney, Mr. Wellman, immediately pointed out 
 that, judging by the statements made by the 
 defendant, we would require very little time 
 to formulate our defence. Which was true ! 
 We had no defence. The Judge gave us 
 until the afternoon session. There was 
 nothing to be gained by protracting the 
 suspense of the defendant's family. I did 
 not suppose that Judge Andrews would 
 allow his personal feelings to enter into his 
 judgment. I elected to go to trial at once. 
 
 "The Judge ordered the defendant to be 
 produced, so that the trial might proceed. 
 184 
 
Incompetent, irrelevant, immaterial" 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 Jim Bishop went for the boy, and Mr. Bige- 
 low tried to explain " 
 
 "I tried to explain the whole thing," 
 Bigelow said. "I wanted to do it before 
 Robb was brought up. I did n't see no 
 necessity fer a trial at all." 
 
 "And Mr. Wellman," Bestor went on, 
 "promptly and very properly objected that 
 all this was 'incompetent, irrelevant, imma 
 terial and not germane to the issue.' I rose. 
 I said: 'Your honor, I must apologize, and 
 as counsel for the defendant I am sure 
 that he will enter a plea of guilty to the 
 charge in the indictment. But I desire to 
 say that this Post is anxious to have the 
 matter settled amicably, and as we are pre 
 pared to make restitution, the ends of 
 justice will be subserved by suspending 
 sentence.' To which Mr. Wellman replied, 
 'There should be no suspension of sentence' 
 and the boy was brought in." 
 
 At the recollection of it, Bigelow 
 186 
 
Your honor, I must apologize ' 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 groaned: "My boy!" There were tears in 
 his eyes. "He had n't teched his sandwich," 
 he said to Smiffen. "He had it in his hand, 
 with the paper on it." 
 
 Smiffen felt his own eyes filling up. He 
 looked away and shook his head. 
 
 Bestor had gone on, ponderously. 
 "There was nothing that we could object 
 to in the indictment. It had been correctly 
 drawn. It deposed and set forth the known 
 facts in the case without an error. I was 
 compelled to plead guilty. 'Your honor,' 
 I said, 'it is useless for me to dwell upon the 
 circumstances leading up to this unfortunate 
 affair. They are already familiar to you. 
 This lad went to the city, and fell into the 
 hands of a shrewd scoundrel who played 
 upon his credulity. The lad has already 
 learned a bitter lesson, and I am sure that 
 your Honor will suspend sentence and repri 
 mand him. I might urge further that his 
 father's record be taken into consideration 
 188 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 as a private citizen and in the service of his 
 country.' To which Mr. Wellman replied 
 that there were no extenuating circum 
 stances that the breach of confidence of 
 which the defendant was guilty was only 
 made more serious by his father's, implicit 
 trust in him that to discharge him with a 
 reprimand would only encourage him in his 
 vicious habits ; that in vindication of the 
 Post Treasurer, who had had 'the manly 
 courage to press the charge,' and as an 
 example to the youth of the community, 
 the defendant should be punished to the full 
 extent of the law. 
 
 "I could not take any legal exception to 
 these remarks. His delivery was bad his 
 voice high his manner jerky and he 
 showed unmistakable signs of personal ani 
 mus against the defendant. But " 
 
 "He was lyin' !" Bigelow cried. "He was 
 lyin'. Robert never had no vicious habits." 
 He had risen to his feet, his handkerchief 
 189 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 clutched in his hand, his face twitching 
 with an emotion he could no longer control. 
 "There he was, lyin' away my boy's char'c- 
 ter sneerin' face like a a 'I 'm his 
 father,' I says. 'I got a few remarks to say, 
 Judge,' I says. 'I want to bring out some 
 fac's that nobody knows but me.' " He 
 waved his arm, speechless. "They had to 
 let me. Extenuatin' circumstances. No 
 body knowed but me ... I says, 'You be 
 lieve me, Judge,' I says, 'he 's a good boy. 
 His heart 's all right. Ain't nothin' wrong 
 about him at all,' I says. 'If you 'd only let 
 him explain it to you in his own boy's way 
 like he did to me it 'd make all the dif- 
 f'rence in the world ' " 
 
 He gulped frantically, as if he felt him 
 self fighting for the boy again and had to 
 struggle to keep his old voice clear. "He 
 he tried to head me off. 'Con-confine yer- 
 self to the fac's,' he says. John Andrews! 
 Mouth like a 'I 'm gettin' right at 'em,' I 
 191 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 says. 'Jus' tryin' to p'int out how easy it 
 was fer anybody to deceive a boy who be 
 lieves in ev'rybody yet. A boy that ain't 
 had no bringin' up. Me an ol' soldier I 
 brought him up !' " 
 
 He mopped his face desperately. "I 
 could n't think o' nothin' to say. I I ain't 
 ust to thinkin'. I he wanted to know 
 somethin' about 'the support, er the support 
 o' the home' whether Robb 'd ever con- 
 contributed to the support, er the support 
 o' the home. I had him there! The boy 
 had earned some money once an' come an' 
 put it right into my hand. Had the whole 
 Post there to prove it, did n't I, Cap? It 
 was his first money! Jim Bishop, Cory 
 Kilbert they 'd all heerd about that five 
 dollars. Had him there ! 
 
 " 'You see, Judge,' I says, 'all this that 's 
 happened to-day it 's my fault 'cause he 's 
 an orphan an' after his father died at 
 Five Forks he was only so big just a 
 192 
 
" An' Robb begun to cry " 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 little baby an' his char'cter warn't formed 
 an' I ain't done well by him. There was 
 so little of him we were sort o' scared of 
 him an' humored him too much an' so I 
 kep' puttin' off trainin' him,' I says, 'an' 
 lettin' him be happy in his own little way 
 'cause a lost childhood can't never come 
 back.' ' His voice broke ; he swallowed in 
 a frenzied eagerness, his eyes staring like 
 a child's in the attempt to utter what he had 
 no words to express. " 'An' the first thing 
 I knowed,' I says, 'before I seen he needed 
 serious advice, he he shot up like a weed 
 an' suddenly he warn't a baby no longer. 
 An' so,' I says, 'an' here he is to-day, be 
 fore you, Judge,' I says 'a foolish boy, 
 perhaps, but not a bad one an orphan 
 but if you '11 overlook this, Judge,' I says, 
 'I '11 do better. I can't let my respons'bility 
 end here. So so don't,' I says I was 
 An' Robb begun to cry. He broke down 
 an' an' I could n't say nothin' more. It 
 194 
 
 ?=? 
 
 
 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 got me in the throat. I was n't ust to 
 speakin'." He made a blind gesture of 
 apology with his handkerchief, and turning 
 suddenly as Hallie, weeping too, sprang 
 up to hurry to him he stumbled out of the 
 room, shaking his head spasmodically as if 
 the recollection were an ache in the brain 
 that tortured him. 
 
 195 
 
XIII 
 
 I 
 
 T 'S a shame ! A damn shame !" Smiff en 
 muttered, wiping his eyes and blowing 
 his nose. 
 
 Hallie sat down stiffly, trying to control 
 her contorted lips, while the big tears rolled 
 down her cheeks unheeded from eyes that 
 saw nothing but that picture of her father 
 sitting in judgment on the boy she loved. 
 
 Bestor had clenched his hand on the table 
 top. "I knew it," he said, in a hushed voice, 
 with something of the same fixed gaze as the 
 girl. "I knew we 'd lost as soon as he began 
 'Young man, those interested in you may 
 advance specious arguments in extenuation 
 of your conduct.' I knew it. I knew it. 
 But when he said 'in the Jeffersonville Peni- 
 196 
 
Jim Bishop had the worst to take him away from Wes' " 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 tentiary one year at hard labor,' I 
 could n't believe my ears. State's Prison !" 
 
 At the words "Jeffersonville Peniten 
 tiary," Smiffen had started and frowned 
 and looked up at the ceiling and down at 
 the floor, as if searching his memory for 
 something he had almost found again. Sud 
 denly he said "Ah!" with raised eyebrows, 
 his face alight. 
 
 Bestor had gone on. "I could n't believe 
 my ears. State's Prison! For that bo?//" 
 He wagged his old head, commiseratingly. 
 "Jim Bishop had the worst to take him 
 away from Wes'. God ! I thought Wes' 
 would go mad. ... I 've seen men die, on 
 the battlefield, in the hospital. I 've had 
 them cling to my sleeve and fight for an 
 other breath. It was worse than that. I 
 thought it 'd shake the heart out of his 
 body. He ran after the Judge. I had to 
 hold him fighting fighting like a drown 
 ing man !" 
 
 199 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 He put his hands up, closing his eyes, his 
 lips compressed in an expression that said 
 the thing was beyond words. The girl 
 sobbed. 
 
 He sighed and shook his head. "Wes' 
 was right. No judge had a right to take 
 a boy's future and throw it away like that. 
 It 's law, but it 5 s not justice. Judge An 
 drews did that out of personal spite. It 's 
 a hard thing to say of the bench Why!" 
 He turned to Hallie. "Why, even young 
 Wellman had n't expected it! He as much 
 as told me so before he went back to Indian 
 apolis." 
 
 She did not reply ; and they were sitting 
 in silence Smiffen fidgetting with a desire 
 to speak, but compelled to wait a decent in 
 terval when Bigelow, having regained con 
 trol of himself, came back from the dining- 
 room, looking old and bent. 
 
 He sat down to stretch his trembling 
 hands out to the stove. "A man lives an' 
 200 
 
" I thought Wes' would go mad 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 learns," he said. "When I went to the war, 
 I 'd lost all int'rest in life. Did n't care 
 what happened to me. . . . An' then, fight- 
 in' and marchin' an' sleepin' with the boys, 
 I seen what life really was what makes it 
 with comrades like that. It was good. I 
 could 'a* gone on that way f erever. . . . An' 
 when it was over, I come back here with a 
 new feelin' among neighbors workin' 
 shoulder to shoulder, with Robb at home 
 here an' havin' no hard feelin's to nobody. 
 . . . An' then, that day in court, I thought 
 it 'd been all wrong. It all turned ag'in' me. 
 There was the law I 'd fought fer an' the 
 court! I 'd help make 'em. I 'd gone out 
 with my gun an' defended 'em. An' they 
 turned on me an' took Robert took ev'ry- 
 thin'. An' made Jim Bishop do it. An' 
 made all the boys stan' by an' see it done." 
 He turned shakily to Bestor. "That 's why I 
 took off my medals, Cap. I was done with it 
 all. There warn't nothin' more in it fer me." 
 202 
 
" It 's law, but it 's not justice " 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 Bestor nodded. He had understood. 
 
 "An' then the boys all come to offer what 
 they could Jim Bishop with his pension 
 money, eight dollars a month an' ev'ry one 
 helpin' drivin' Judge Andrews out o' town 
 an' Pettingill after him an' nobody pressin' 
 me to pay my debts." He threw out a hand 
 at them. "I tell you what it is. Human 
 nature 's better 'n its laws better 'n its 
 courts better 'n any thin'. 'S all right, 
 Cap. We all done our best. Robb '11 be 
 back some day. I ain't complainin'." He 
 smiled up bravely. "We '11 come out all 
 right." 
 
 Smiffen seized his opportunity. "Mr. 
 Bigelow," he said eagerly, "when I first 
 heard your boy's name, I remembered that 
 I 'd seen it in print somewhere. I used to 
 know a boy named Robert Bigelow at 
 school. And when I saw the name I won 
 dered if it was a son of his. That 's how 
 I noticed it. And just now, when Captain 
 204 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 well, I remembered, just now, that I read 
 it in a Jeff ersonville paper, on the train. It 
 was a news item from the penitentiary. It 
 said your boy had applied for a patent on a 
 spring bolt " 
 
 "What? There!" Bigelow cried. 
 "What 'd I tell you? Eh? ... 'Tish!" 
 he called. " 'Tish !" 
 
 Letitia came running in from the kitchen. 
 
 "Robb 's patented tell her! Go on. 
 Tell her. I want to hear it again." 
 
 "I was telling Mr. Bigelow," Smiffen ex 
 plained, "about an item I saw in a Jefferson- 
 ville paper on the train. It said that 
 'young Robert Bigelow,' in the prison there, 
 had applied for a patent on a spring 
 bolt" 
 
 "There! Did n't I al'ays tell you? 
 Printin' presses an' paint were n't possible 
 where he is, so he works patient Sundays 
 on his little bolt." He looked up at the 
 boy's picture, erect and proud. "Robert 
 205 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 Bruce an' the spider that 's what that boy 
 is ! Might as well lock up a streak o' light- 
 
 nm 
 
 The others clamored for further details, 
 but Smiffen could remember none except 
 that there was something in the item that 
 had struck him as amusing something 
 about Robert having given the option on 
 the patent to a "contractor of great politi 
 cal influence" who was also serving out a 
 sentence in the prison. 
 
 He swallowed his smile apologetically 
 when he saw that they did not find anything 
 amusing in the matter. 
 
 Bigelow had remained gazing fondly at 
 the picture. "Wonderful boy!" he said. 
 "You could tell he was a genius he was so 
 modest !" 
 
 Smiffen held out his hand, sincerely 
 moved. "Mr. Bigelow," he said, "I want to 
 congratulate you. I was never gladder of 
 
 206 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 anything in my life. I 'm proud to be the 
 one to bring the news. And I want to say 
 I 'm I 'm proud to know you. I 'm glad I 
 met you." 
 
 Bigelow grasped his hand, smiling a 
 crooked smile. "You ought to know Robb. 
 Wish he 'd been here. Eh, Cap? Eh, Hal- 
 lie? Well, this may be the turnin' p'int in 
 Robb's career. What 'd I al'ays tell you?" 
 And then, beaming with relief, turning to 
 Letitia, he cried: "What time is it, 'Tish? 
 Ain't it near supper time? I 'm as hungry 
 as a horse? Come on. Let 's have some- 
 thin' t' eat." 
 
 She did not wait to hear anything more. 
 She had been so worried by his lack of 
 appetite at dinner, that she hurried away 
 at once, with an almost maternal delight, 
 to prepare the meal although it was more 
 than an hour from supper time. 
 
 "I feel as if I could eat, now," Bigelow 
 207 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 laughed. "Stay to supper with us, Cap. 
 Come on." 
 
 But Bestor had still some New Year's 
 calls to pay with the Post members ; and he 
 went with a slap on the back from Bigelow 
 to carry the good news to the "com 
 rades." "Happy New Year, Wes'," he said. 
 "Eh?" 
 
 Bigelow dug his hands into his pockets, 
 delightedly. "Oh, our troubles '11 soon be 
 over now, Cap. Two er three months more 
 countin' time fer good behavior. It 
 won't take long to wipe this all off the 
 slate. He 's a wonderful boy !" He turned 
 to Hallie when the captain had gone. 
 "We '11 soon be payin' off all our debts, an' 
 ownin' our own roof once more. Startin' 
 out fresh in life. I feel good fer forty years 
 yet. Jus' beginnin' t' enjoy life. Eh?" 
 
 "Well," Smiffen said doubtfully, "I hope 
 the boy '11 appreciate " 
 
 "Oh, pshaw now," Bigelow replied. 
 208 
 
 
 
 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 "Parents don't expec' no appreciation. We 
 all know it 's easier fer one mother to look 
 after seven sons than it is fer seven sons to 
 look after one mother. He 's all right. 
 He 's a good boy. Don't you worry." 
 
 209 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 
XIV 
 
 COMING to their supper, in this 
 spirit of jovial optimism, they 
 made it a true feast and celebra 
 tion on the remains of the dinner's turkey, 
 helped out with home-made bread and a 
 plentiful dessert of cake and preserves. 
 Even Letitia came out unexpectedly with a 
 mild humor that set Bigelow wheezing with 
 his head thrown back, his eyes shut, in a 
 convulsion of noiseless laughter. He twit 
 ted her about Jim Bishop, and she replied 
 gaily: "Well, I used to think myself that 
 Jim Bishop did n't have exactly a romantic 
 figure to look at but as our own looks 
 change our minds change with 'em." 
 
 "Never mind, 'Tish," he said. "Romantic 
 figures don't get up early to build fires. 
 210 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 Jim 5 s all right. An' he 's waitin' any 
 time you want him." He winked at Smiffen. 
 
 "I don't believe in bein' too hasty," she 
 said. "Wait till Robb 's settled in life." 
 And she nodded and smiled at Hallie, who 
 blushed up prettily, as embarrassed as a 
 bride. 
 
 Smiffen was enjoying it. It was a little 
 home scene from a sort of life that he had 
 not known since his boyhood. It was as sweet 
 to him as poetry. And there was one inci 
 dent that almost brought tears to his eyes. 
 
 That occurred when supper was finished, 
 and Bigelow, after regarding the remains 
 of the banquet suspiciously, blurted out: 
 " 'Tish, how do we manage to live like this, 
 an' the grocer's bill last month only what 
 it was?" 
 
 Letitia, to conceal her mortification at 
 his asking such a question before company, 
 answered brazenly: "Cost of livin' 's gone 
 down, Wes'." 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 "Has, eh? Had n't heard it," he said. 
 
 She reached the grocer's book off the 
 desk behind her. "There it is!" She rose 
 to take away the plates. 
 
 "What 's this?" he said, discovering a 
 smaller book inside the other. "Why, this 's 
 a book o' yer own." 
 
 She tried to snatch it from him ; and fail 
 ing in that, she had to explain in a low, 
 shamed voice that it was "only fer little 
 nibbles" she had had "between meals" that 
 she had not thought it right to make him 
 pay for "extra bites" for herself. 
 
 He adjusted his glasses, and read drily : 
 " 'December twenty-six : one box starch.' 
 Huh ! 'Two packages bluein'. . . . One gal 
 lon kerosene. . . . One one mouse trap 9 ! 
 Been nibblin' between meals, eh?" 
 
 "Oh, WeiT she cried, catching at the 
 book. 
 
 He held her hand, patting it fondly. "I 
 won't have it, 'Tish. You 're a guardi'n 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 angel. All you want 's trumpets an' wings 
 to be one but I won't have it. I '11 atten' 
 to this." 
 
 He put the book in his pocket, and 
 looked around for Smiffen, who had risen 
 quickly and gone to make a pretense of 
 studying the portrait of General Grant 
 over the mantelpiece. Letitia went away to 
 the kitchen with her tray. "Oh!" Bigelow 
 said apologetically, recalling himself to his 
 duties as host. "I got to go out an' bed 
 the horses. Come along an' see Robb's 
 workshop. Ever seen it, Hallie? Have to 
 have it all swep' an' ready fer him when 
 he comes back, eh? Come on. Want to 
 show you what he 's done on that printin' 
 press." 
 
 They had to wrap themselves up and go 
 with him, smiling affectionately at him be 
 hind his back ; and Letitia, slipping into the 
 empty room as soon as they had gone, hast- 
 tened to take from the desk drawer a shallow 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 basket of sewing which her experience with 
 the grocer's book had made her guiltily 
 anxious to conceal in a safer place. 
 
 It was with such sewing that she had 
 secretly earned the money to pay for her 
 "extra bites." 
 
 This particular piece happened to be a 
 wedding wreath and veil which she had been 
 making for Captain Bestor's daughter. 
 She turned it over critically, took it out of 
 its basket and scrutinized the sewing on the 
 hem; and as she fingered it, a mild flush 
 mounted her cheeks. She stood with it in 
 her hands, smiling at it absent-mindedly. 
 
 "Looks a mite too long," she said to her 
 self, with an air of offering herself an excuse 
 for yielding to a temptation. 
 
 She glanced at the windows ; she turned 
 from them to a small square of looking- 
 glass that hung on the wall near the man 
 tel; and she looked down from it at the 
 wreath of blossoms and the veil in her hands. 
 215 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 Then she put them on, twinkling at her re 
 flection in the glass. 
 
 Her blushes faded with her smile. She let 
 her hands fall slowly. She drooped a little, 
 and stood looking at herself sadly, her face 
 showing yellow below the white wreath. 
 
 The old room watched her that room to 
 which she had come, years before, when 
 Bigelow, a helpless bachelor, had wanted 
 some one to assist him in bringing up the 
 baby he had adopted. She had accepted the 
 care of the child as a duty of patriotism. 
 He was her "war baby" ; and she had not 
 begrudged him the maternal love and the 
 maternal solicitude she had lavished on him. 
 She had been willing to postpone her own 
 life, for the time to let Jim Bishop and his 
 affection wait until the boy should be big 
 enough to do without her. And with her 
 mind always upon these others, with her 
 days full of work and her thoughts all 
 pointing her forward, she had gone on in 
 216 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 a blissful unconsciousness of the fact that 
 time was not standing still for her either, 
 that no matter how short the years seemed 
 to be to look back upon, each year was a 
 year long and her life was passing. 
 
 The sight of her face in the glass, gro 
 tesque beneath its crown of bridal blossoms, 
 had put the truth before her shockingly. 
 She turned quickly to the room, wide-eyed; 
 and for the first time she saw that it too was 
 old, worn and shabby. She looked at the 
 baby's high chair, the chair that only yes 
 terday Robb had Yesterday! She sat 
 down, as if all the weaknesses of age had 
 descended upon her in an instant. Old? 
 She had grown old ! How had it happened ? 
 Why had n't she noticed it? And with her 
 hands in her lap, fumbling at the veil that 
 had entangled itself in her fingers, she sat 
 blinking like a person wakened from sleep 
 who tries to recapture the conviction of a 
 dream that has passed. 
 217 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 She did not see a shadow at the window. 
 She did not hear tfye outer door opened 
 gently. (Jim Bishop had met the others 
 outside, and he had come in to enjoy, in 
 their absence, a tete-a-tete with 'Tish.) 
 But as he came into the room, she turned, 
 startled; and he cried: "Lord, Letitia! 
 How it does become you!" radiant with 
 the admiration of a superannuated gallantry 
 that had risen at once to the call of the 
 sentimental occasion. 
 
 She snatched the wreath off in spite of 
 his protests, stammering that it was not her 
 veil that she was doing "a mite o' sewin' ' 
 which she would n't have Wes' know of, for 
 all the world. 
 
 "Well, well," he said, putting all that 
 aside, "it 's eighteen years since we first " 
 He sat down all smiles, his artificial leg 
 sticking out unbendingly straight before 
 him. "It 's eighteen years, 'Titia." 
 
 She did not brighten. 
 218 
 
Lord, Letitia ! How it does become you 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 "It 's come over me, to-day, with convic 
 tion" he said and the note of conviction 
 sounded rather forced "that a weddin' in 
 this fam'ly would cheer things up a little. 
 Eh?" 
 
 She did not reply. She looked down at 
 the veil in her hands. 
 
 "Come," he said. "It 's New Year's day, 
 Letitia. Let 's plan a New Year's weddin'. 
 . . . Seems to me it 's a sort of a duty on 
 our part." 
 
 She shook her head. "There 's a time fer 
 all things," she said hoarsely, "but fer some 
 things the time 's gone by." 
 
 "Oh, pshaw," he protested. 
 
 "I knew it, just now when I put this veil 
 on." 
 
 "Now, Letitia, don't you let" 
 
 "There 's some things you can't put off, 
 Jim," she said. "When I first knew you 
 wanted me, it it lifted me right up to the 
 skies. But after a man proposes fer eighteen 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 years steady to one woman " She smiled 
 dubiously in a distracted appreciation of 
 the humor of the situation. "It 's been a 
 G. A. R. weddin' an' a Fourth o' July 
 weddin' an' a New Year's weddin' but it 
 ain't never goin' to be a weddin'." She be 
 gan to fold up the veil and put it back in 
 its basket. "We 're old an' we got old 
 apart. It 's too late." 
 
 "Oh, pshaw !"he protested, undiscouraged. 
 "We ain't old." 
 
 "Well," she said, her sense of humor com 
 ing to her rescue, "maybe we ain't but, oh, 
 Jim, we 've been young an awful long time !" 
 
 He laughed, with her, reluctantly. 
 "Still" 
 
 "No," she said, putting aside the sewing 
 basket, "I 've sort o' got tangled up in 
 Wes's life an' Robb's life, till I don't seem 
 to have one just fer myself. I '11 tell you, 
 Jim: you 're welcome to sit in at a meal, 
 an' I '11 always run over an' darn your 
 222 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 clothes, same as ever, an' you can come and 
 keep me comp'ny evenings, an' sit by the 
 fire" 
 
 He had the doubtful face of a middle- 
 aged lover who finds the glamour of his occu 
 pation suddenly departed. "Sittin' by the 
 fire 's cold work," he said. 
 
 "Well, Robb '11 be home soon." She had 
 begun to bustle mechanically about her 
 housework. "It would n't seem home to him 
 without me. . . . No, there 's no way out 
 of it, Jim Bishop. We '11 have to go on 
 sweetheartin' the rest of our lives." 
 
 "It ain't on account o' it ain't because 
 I had to take Robb, is it, 'Titia? It was as 
 hard fer me as " 
 
 "Nonsense, Jim," she replied. "I know 
 how that was. We ain't worryin' about 
 Robb." And she told him the news of the 
 patent. 
 
 He was not as cheerful about it as he 
 
 might have been; and he rose, crestfallen, 
 is 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 when he heard Bigelow returning. He 
 grumbled: "I don't know that I thought 
 y' ever really would marry me, 'Titia, but 
 still" 
 
 Letitia had disappeared with her sewing 
 basket. He looked after her, rather mourn 
 fully. 
 
 "Well, Jim," Bigelow greeted him, "is 
 there any brighter prospec's fer the comin' 
 season ?" 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 "Don't give up," Bigelow chuckled. 
 "Women are like grasshoppers. You never 
 know which way they 're goin' to jump." 
 
 Bishop stood looking into his hat a long 
 time; and then, turning moodily, he went 
 out without a word. 
 
 There was an air of absent-minded finality 
 about his exit, and it had the effect of re 
 minding Smiffen that it was time he was 
 thinking of his own departure. 
 
 "Well, Mr. Bigelow," he said, "I don't 
 
*' Women are like grasshoppers " 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 know how to tell you how much I 've I 've 
 enjoyed the privilege of spending the day 
 of being here with you. I 'm not a well, a 
 family man, myself, and when I 'm not liv 
 ing in a hotel I 'm on the train. I never 
 realized before how much I 've missed in 
 life. I used to think I 'd missed a lot of 
 trouble and maybe I have. But, I don't 
 know even trouble even troubles like 
 yours well, they 're life! And the way 
 that you 've well, it 's taught me a lesson. 
 Human nature " He held out his hand 
 impulsively. "Human nature, like yours 
 anyway it makes a man think better of his 
 kind." 
 
 Bigelow grinned with an almost boyish 
 bashfulness, shaking hands. "Oh, pshaw! 
 You I what 've you got to go fer? 
 Can't you stop the night with us? 
 We '11" 
 
 "Got to get back to business! I 'd like 
 to stay here till the boy comes back and 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 see you all happy together. But I '11 see 
 him, maybe. I '11 stop off some time when 
 I 'm going through again. I '11 just run 
 along down to the depot before it gets dark 
 and see whether that eight o'clock 's going 
 to be anywhere near on time. I won't say 
 goodbye now. I '11 be back." 
 
 And with a hasty wave of the hat that 
 promised a speedy return, he too left them. 
 
XV 
 
 WHEN Bigelow turned from the 
 door he still wore a sort of 
 "company smile" that was 
 half pleased and half embarrassed. It 
 faded as Hallie left him to help "Aunt 
 Letitia" in the kitchen and his face gradu 
 ally fell into a look of fatigue. It had been 
 a trying day for him. All this talk of Robb 
 had worked upon his nerves as well as upon 
 his feelings. It had exhausted him. He 
 found himself tired flat discouraged. 
 The future looked less promising than it 
 had appeared in the first glow of the news 
 of the boy's success with his "spring bolt." 
 He stood at the window and watched the 
 still light of sundown deepening into early 
 dusk. 
 
 228 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 The old days had gone the bright days 
 of Robb's childhood, with their simple hap 
 piness and their assured hope. Now the 
 boy must come back to a marred life, and 
 have always in his memory the bitterness of 
 suffering, and work to win back the , con 
 fidence that he should never have lost. It 
 would take years, and Bigelow felt himself 
 an old man who might not live to see the end 
 of it. Perhaps Robb would not wish to stay 
 in the little town where his disgrace was 
 known to everybody. He would be going 
 away. He might even not come back from 
 prison, but prefer to take his work and his 
 inventions to the city. He was no longer a 
 child ; he could not be ordered out to lie in 
 the hammock whenever he talked of leaving 
 home. No, no. The old days were gone. 
 The old days were gone. 
 
 Bigelow turned his back on them with a 
 sigh, and went to take a lamp from the 
 mantel shelf, shuffling almost feebly across 
 
The old days were gone 
 
 
 
 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 the room. He struck a match and coughed 
 and wheezed weakly, choked with the sulphur 
 fumes, as he lighted the lamp. Old age was 
 coming a lonely old age. "Well," he said 
 to himself, "that 's the way it is. That 's 
 the way." And he went resignedly to his 
 room, to put on a pair of slippers so that 
 he might settle down to patient comfort for 
 the evening. 
 
 The clock ticked placidly in the silence. 
 The smoke from the match hung and drifted 
 about the lamp. The warm room waited, 
 as tranquil as domesticity, as calm as old 
 love. And when the door opened and the 
 boy stood there, the very hush and dimness 
 of it welcomed him into peace. 
 
 The mild light showed him pale, tired- 
 looking, and very sad. He wore his summer 
 suit of snuff-colored cloth, without an over 
 coat, his collar turned up against the cold, 
 his hands red to the wrists. He shivered; 
 his hat shook in his numb fingers; but his 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 face showed no consciousness of his con 
 dition. He stood looking from one re 
 membered detail of the room to another, 
 breathing quickly, all the desire of months 
 of longing feasting in his eyes. 
 
 He had lain awake in his cell at nights, 
 picturing that room to himself, in a boy's 
 attempt to cheat the empty darkness with 
 the image of home. He had gone in imagin 
 ation as his eyes went now from the old 
 desk in which he kept his love letters unsent 
 to the little melodeon long since dumb 
 past the mantelpiece with its remembered 
 ornaments with its war prints and its flag 
 and the bugle that he had so longed to play 
 with as a child and all these cheap and 
 simple furnishings were as dear to see again 
 as if they had been the beauties of some 
 Eden from which he had been driven. 
 Home ! It was home ! 
 
 His knees weakened with the rush of blood 
 to his heart. The whole place swam before 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 him. He dropped his hat and staggered to 
 the table ; and sinking into a chair there, he 
 laid his head on his arms and felt his tears 
 hot on his hands. 
 
 It was so that Bigelow first saw him. But 
 the old stage driver, coming noiselessly in 
 from his bedroom in his slippers, could not 
 be sure who it was or would not believe the 
 evidence of his own eyes that it was Robert. 
 He stood with one hand on the latch of the 
 door, staring palely at the head and shoul 
 ders that showed in the lamplight. And 
 when the boy sat up slowly, blinded with 
 tears, looking directly at his father with 
 out seeing him, Bigelow's "Robert?" was 
 given in that peremptory quick voice of 
 fear in which a man challenges a hallucina 
 tion. 
 
 The boy tried to blink away the blur in 
 his eyes, rising to face the voice. 
 
 "Robert!" 
 
 It was the cry that is wrung from the 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 heart when a strong joy gives it a wrench of 
 pain and the throat clutches on the voice 
 and the jaws stiffen. The old man, with his 
 arms outstretched, tottered forward; and 
 the boy sprang to catch him as if afraid 
 that he would fall. 
 
 Their words were inarticulate, broken 
 with a sobbing laughter. Bigelow, his arms 
 about the boy's shoulders, beat him on the 
 back, and held him off, and took his face 
 in his trembling hard hands, and fondled 
 him, and grimaced speechlessly with features 
 contorted in a tooth-chattering grin that 
 was drenched with tears of delight. 
 "M-m-myboy! Robert! T-tell me " He 
 reached with one hand to turn up the 
 light, holding the boy with the other as 
 if afraid he might escape again. "How 
 How" 
 
 The boy stammered: "I 've I 've been 
 pardoned, Dad !" 
 
 Bigelow let him go, then; and laughed 
 236 
 
14 Are you hungry ? Are you ?" 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 and wept together, wiping his eyes with his 
 bare hand and the sleeves of his shirt. "Par 
 doned! My my poor boy! You 've been 
 pardoned." He called: "Letitia! Letitia!" 
 He caught at Robert. "Are you hungry? 
 Are you ?" 
 
 "Yes, Dad!" the boy cried. 
 
 "Letitia! Letitia!" 
 
 And when Letitia came hurrying in, the 
 old man greeted her with a crazy: "He 's 
 hungry !" 
 
 "Robert!" she screamed, and rushed to 
 him. 
 
 She was still hugging him, hysterically, 
 when Hallie followed in, alarmed. She stiff 
 ened with an incredulous low gasp of 
 "Robb !" 
 
 Bigelow nodded and chuckled and caught 
 at Letitia and turned her around. The boy 
 started back at sight of Hallie and dropped 
 his head guiltily. The girl went to him. 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 She put her hand under his chin, and raising 
 his face, she 
 
 "Hallie!" 
 
 She kissed him. And as the boy's arms 
 went round her, Bigelow and Letitia tiptoed 
 silently out of the room. 
 
XVI 
 
 o 
 
 H, Robb !" she wept. "Robb !" 
 
 He caressed her and tried to 
 comfort her. "It 's all right, 
 Hallie. It 's all over now. It 's it 's all 
 right. I 've been pardoned. It 's all over 
 now. You ought n't to cry now." 
 
 "I 'm not," she sobbed. "Not because 
 I 'm-oh, dear!" 
 
 He understood, at last, that it was her 
 relief that had overcome her her happi 
 ness. "Hallie," he said, "I think it 's the 
 pluckiest thing a girl ever did your stand 
 ing by me this way. I " He caught her 
 to him. "I '11 be good to you, Hallie," he 
 whispered fervently. "Oh, I '11 be good to 
 you !" 
 
 "You you won't go away again?" 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 "Go away!" he cried. 
 
 "I was afraid you would n't come back." 
 
 He held her away from him with a sudden 
 thought. "Hallie," he said, "your father- 
 He came down on the train with me. He 's 
 looking for you. Does he know where you 
 are?" 
 
 "Father? Here?" She glanced back at 
 the door, startled for the moment. Then 
 she shook her head. "I 've left him. I '11 
 never go back. Never ! I 'm not afraid of 
 him. I have money of my own. I 'm going 
 to live with my cousins till till you 're 
 ready to " 
 
 "Hallie!" 
 
 His boyish ardor overwhelmed her in an 
 outburst of passionate young kisses. She 
 clung to him, breathless, a little frightened. 
 "Robb," she gasped, in a delighted tremor. 
 "You '11 oh, Robb!" 
 
 "I could oh, I could eat you," he 
 laughed. 
 
 243 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 "You must n't . . . now!" She freed 
 herself, to face Letitia's return with her 
 tray; and laughing, with her young cheeks 
 aflame and her eyes still bright with tears, 
 she danced over to the table and helped 
 spread the cloth, shaking her head mis 
 chievously at Letitia, who tried to tease 
 them both with an admonishing and roguish 
 smile. 
 
 Bigelow came in, bringing a lighted lamp 
 in each hand, in a festal desire to have light 
 on their happiness. Robert drew the blinds. 
 Hallie and Letitia set the table. And they 
 all talked and laughed together as if they 
 were about to make a picnic meal on a 
 holiday. 
 
 The boy had to tell them about his inven 
 tions, his plans and his hopes for the future 
 which he did, between ravenous gulps and 
 swallows, smiling from one face to another 
 as they all watched him with their elbows 
 on the table, delighting in his appetite and 
 244 
 
 lit 
 
 
 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 his good spirits. And they had to tell him 
 all the small happenings of the interval dur 
 ing which he had been gone. And if there 
 was, over them all, the dark memory of the 
 prison and his disgrace, it only served to 
 make them more determinedly happy in the 
 dear joy of being together again, here in 
 the simple sanctuary of their home, with the 
 world and the night well shut out and reso 
 lutely un remembered. 
 
 Even when Robert told them that Judge 
 Andrews was in town, looking for his 
 daughter, it gave them only a momentary 
 pause of doubt. "He spoke to me," Robb 
 said. "I think, from the way he acted, that 
 he helped Well, he knew I was pardoned. 
 I thought he 'd helped to get it, perhaps. 
 He asked me if I knew where Hallie was." 
 
 "Did he say he was sorry ?" Letitia asked. 
 "Fer what he'd done?" 
 
 "No-o," Robb admitted. "But well, 
 you know he could n't very well say it." 
 245 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 "Then you should n't 've spoken to him 
 till he did" Letitia cried. 
 
 "Oh, well" the boy apologized for himself. 
 "I don't think" 
 
 Bigelow nodded his approval. "That 's 
 right, Robb. We all made mistakes all of 
 us. It 's over. It 's all over. We got to 
 ferget it now. We can't do him no harm 
 by hatin' him ; an' we can't do ourselves no 
 good. Hate never hurt no one but the 
 hater. We got to put all that behind us 
 an' go ahead. The workshop 's waitin' fer 
 you. We opened her up t'-day." 
 
 "Did you, Dad? Good. I'm" 
 
 They were interrupted by a peremptory 
 ring on the door-bell. Hallie started to her 
 feet, expecting her father. Letitia's face 
 hardened, with the same thought. Bigelow 
 rose slowly, but without hesitation. "Fin 
 ish yer supper, Robb," he said. 
 
 It was Smiffen hurrying back to get his 
 valise, so that he might catch an unex- 
 246 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 pected train that had been delayed by the 
 "tie-up." And his surprise and pleasure, 
 when he saw the boy, put them all in high 
 spirits again all except Robb, who did not 
 appreciate the stranger's interest in him 
 nor quite respond to it at first. Smiffen 
 shook hands with them all and congratu 
 lated them all. "Well! Well!" he cried. 
 "I think I 've brought you luck! I feel as 
 good as if I 'd made a hundred-thousand- 
 dollar sale! This is fine! Fine!" He 
 beamed on the boy, paternally. "Young 
 man," he said, "I want to tell you that 
 you 're to be envied. I envy you myself. 
 To be able to come back to a father like 
 yours and a girl that does n't go back on 
 you when no matter what happens ! 
 What 's trouble when you have people like 
 that behind you? You 're in luck. You 're 
 in luck." 
 
 "Well," Bigelow replied, "there 's no de- 
 nyin' Robb has personal " 
 
 247 
 T\ 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 "Oh, Dad!" the boy stopped him, redden 
 ing nervously. 
 
 Bigelow patted him on the back. "All 
 right, Robb. All right." He winked apolo 
 getically at Smiffen. "He 's modest. 
 Can't stand to hear himself praised." 
 
 Smiffen signalled that he understood. 
 He did not laugh, even inwardly, at this dot 
 ing fondness. "Well, there 's a good time 
 coming," he assured them. "I '11 drop off 
 the train some time to see you all enjoying 
 it. I 've got to go now, but I '11 be back 
 some day. Goodbye." 
 
 He shook hands with them all round 
 again thanked by Hallie with a shy smile 
 and by Letitia with a little fluttered pres 
 sure of the fingers. Bigelow took him to 
 the outer door, and they stood a moment on 
 the porch, while the old stage driver renewed 
 his hospitable invitation to come and spend 
 a day with them any time that he could. 
 248 
 
tiptoed silently out of the room 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 "I will," Smiffen kept saying. "I will 
 with pleasure" retreating down the steps 
 sideways, reluctant to go. He was on the 
 last step when he saw a man with a walking- 
 stick shouldering up the path from the gate. 
 
 "Hello !" Bigelow said under his voice. 
 
 Smiffen stepped aside into the shadow, 
 lingering awkwardly, intending to say his 
 final farewell as soon as Bigelow had done 
 with this newcomer. 
 
 Judge Andrews stalked into the light of 
 the open door. He said, in the tone of a 
 challenge : "Mr. Bigelow, is my daughter " 
 
 Bigelow put out his hand. "She is, Judge. 
 She is. Come in." And when the Judge 
 made no motion either to accept the invita 
 tion or the proffered hand, Bigelow went 
 on: "There 's nobody in this house 's got 
 anything ag'in' you, Judge. We 've all 
 made mistakes. Ferget fergive an' fer- 
 get. Come in. Come in." 
 251 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 The Judge mounted to the porch, half 
 ashamed and still half resentful. "We 've 
 been expectin' you," Bigelow said. "You 've 
 got to be frien's now, fer the sake o' the 
 young ones. Shake !" 
 
 The Judge took off his hat to enter, and 
 held out his hand; and for a moment the 
 light showed his tight lips trembling in the 
 grim weakness of faltering pride. Then 
 he turned and went in and Bigelow fol 
 lowed and the door closed. 
 
 The door closed; and Smiffen stood, like 
 one who has finished a story and shut up 
 the book, staring blindly at the pictures in 
 his memory and disappointed because he 
 had come so soon to the end. The thin, 
 far whistle of a locomotive recalled him to 
 himself. He started hastily and stumbled 
 through the snow to the gate; but there 
 he paused and looked back at the lighted 
 window ; and when he went on again, more 
 slowly, it was with the tender-eyed smile of 
 
A GRAND ARMY MAN 
 
 a man who had met simple virtue in dis 
 tress, and watched it bear with sorrow un- 
 embittered, and seen it come to happiness 
 at last. 
 
 THE END 
 
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
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 RECALL 
 
 LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS 
 
 BookSlip-50/n-9,'70(X9877s8)458 A-31/5,6 
 
N? 808177 
 
 O'Higgins, H.J. 
 A Grand army man. 
 
 PS3529 
 
 H5 
 
 G5 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 DAVIS