XVI Decoration Day1
Seldom does any community have the good fortune to have two great events fall upon a single day, but on May 30, 188-, Claybanks and vicinity palpitated from centre to circumference over the celebration of Decoration Day and the opening of the Claybanks Bath-house. The public buildings did not close; neither did the stores, for the entire community flocked to the town, and the stores were the only possible lounging-places. Grace had learned, to her great regret, which was shared by Caleb, that the local Grand Army post never paraded in uniform, for the reason that the members found it too hard to supply themselves with sufficient clothing, for every day and Sunday use, to afford a suit to be worn only a single day of the year, and she had told Caleb that it was a shame that the government did not supply its old soldiers with uniforms in which to celebrate their one great day, and Caleb had replied that perhaps if it did, the Southerner Ojam, who had charged with Pickett at Gettysburg, and who always marched with the “boys” to decorate the graves, might feel ruled out, and then Grace had unburdened her heart to Philip, and given him so little peace about it that finally he became so interested in the Grand Army of the Republic that he studied all the local members as intently as if he were looking for a long-lost brother.
But when the sun of Decoration Day arose, the centre of interest was the bath-house. The veterans who had been selected for the opening ceremonies approached the place as tremblingly as a lot of penitents for public baptism; some of them were so appalled at the prospect that they approached the house by devious ways, even by sneaking through various back yards and climbing fences. Caleb himself was somewhat mystified by a request from Black Sam that he would remain out of sight until the ordeal had ended; and as the store filled early with customers, and Philip was obliged to be absent for an hour or two, Caleb was compelled to comply with the request, after sending word to the non-drinking members to keep the others from the vicinity of Bustpodder’s store and all other places where liquor was sold. The caution did not seem to be necessary, however; for not a man emerged from the bath-house to answer the questions of the multitude that was consuming with curiosity, and from which arose from time to time sundry cheers and jeers that must have been exasperating in the extreme.
Suddenly Philip appeared in the store, and said:—
“Caleb, you’re wanted at the bath-house. Better go up there at once. No, nothing wrong; but go.”
Business went on, and Grace did her best to attend to a score of feminine customers at one and the same time; but suddenly the entire crowd hurried out of the store, for the sound of the G. A. R.’s fife and drum, playing “We’ll Rally Round the Flag,” floated through the open doors and windows.
“I suppose we, too, may as well look at the procession,” said Philip, moving toward the door.
“Oh, Phil!” exclaimed Grace, looking up the street, “they have guns, and they’re in uniforms. How strange! Caleb told me they hadn’t any.”
“True, but Caleb is a great man to bring new things to pass.”
“They’re all in uniform but three,” said Grace, as the little procession approached the store. “The fifer and drummer and the man with the flag haven’t any. What a—”
“The fifer and drummer were not soldiers. The man with the flag is One-Arm Ojam, who was in Pickett’s great charge at Gettysburg, and he’s in full Confederate gray.”
So he was, even to a gray hat, with the Stars and Bars on its front, and a long gray plume at its side, and the magnificent Southern swagger with which he bore the colors was—after the flag itself—the grandest feature of the procession. The multitude on both sides of the street applauded wildly, but the old soldiers marched as steadily as if they were on duty, for the uniforms and muskets were recalling old times in their fulness. Suddenly, as the procession reached the front of the store, Post-Commander Caleb Wright, sword in hand, shouted:—
“Halt! Front! Right—dress! Front! Present—arms!”
To the front came the muskets, Caleb’s sword-hilt was raised to his chin, Ojam drooped the flag, and Philip doffed his hat.
“Why did they do that, I wonder?” asked Grace.
“Oh, some notion of Caleb’s, I suppose,” Philip replied.
“Shoulder—arms!” shouted Caleb. “Order—arms! Three cheers for the uniforms!”
Eighteen slouch hats waved in the air, an eighteen-soldier-power roar arose, the fife shrieked three times, the drummer rolled three ruffles. Then One-Arm Ojam, the flag rested against his armless shoulder, waved his gray hat picturesquely, and roared:—
“Three cheers for the giver of the uniforms!”
When a second round of cheering ended, a man in the ranks shouted “Speech!” and the word was echoed by several others. Then Philip, while his wife’s lips became shapeless in wide-mouthed wonder, removed his hat and said:—
“Fellow-Americans, the uniforms weren’t a gift. They’re merely a partial payment, on my own account, for what you did for mine and me when I was very young. This is one of the proudest days of my life; for though I took the measure of each of you by guess-work, no man’s clothes seem a very bad fit.” Then he returned abruptly into the store, followed by his wife, who exclaimed:—
“You splendid, dreadful fellow! You were letting me believe that Caleb did it!”
“So he did, my dear. ’Twas your telling me the story of Caleb’s pension that set me thinking hard about the old soldiers and what they did, and of how little consideration they get. Besides, I’m always wishing to do something special to please Caleb, and this was the first chance I’d seen in a long time. His fear of One-Arm Ojam being estranged if the Post got into uniform troubled me for a day or two, but I seem to have taken Ojam’s measure—in both senses—quite well.”
Suddenly Grace began to laugh, and continued until she became almost helpless, Philip meanwhile looking as if he wondered what he had said that could have been so amusing.
“If your Uncle Jethro could have been here!” she said as soon as she could.
“To be horrified at the manner in which a lot of his money has been spent? If I’m not mistaken, ’twill have been the cheapest advertising this establishment ever did, though I hadn’t the slightest thought of business while I was planning it.”
“That isn’t what I meant,” Grace said. “I was thinking of your uncle’s disgust when he learned that one of your reasons for wishing to live in New York was that you might study art. Your studies never went far beyond sketching the human figure, poor boy; but if he were here to-day, and you were to tell him that your art studies, such as they were, had enabled you to guess correctly the proportions of eighteen suits of men’s clothes, imagine his astonishment—if you can.”
Then the laughter was resumed, and Philip assisted at it, until Caleb entered the store and said:—
“We’ve been comparin’ notes,—the boys an’ me, an’ we’ve agreed that it beat any surprises we had in the war; for there, we always knowed, the surprises was layin’ in wait for us a good deal of the time. How you managed it beats me.”
“Phil, didn’t even Caleb know what was going on?”
“Not until he left the store about half an hour ago.”
“Oh, you splendid, smart—”
“Spare my blushes, dear girl. As to the things, Caleb, I had them addressed to Black Sam, whom I let into the secret, and I had them wagoned at night from the railway to the bath-house, where he unpacked them and hid them in one of his rooms.”
“I want to know! But what put you up to thinkin’ o’ doin’ the greatest thing that—”
“’Twas a story my wife told me, about the way you dispose of your pension. ’Twas all of your own doing, after all, you see.”
Caleb looked sheepish, said something about the “boys” becoming uneasy unless the march was resumed, and made haste to rejoin his command, but stopped halfway to the door, and said:—
“Mebbe ’tain’t any o’ my business, but as I’m Commander of the Post, an’ yet you’ve been managin’ it most o’ the mornin’, an’ I hadn’t time to ask the why an’ wherefore o’ things,—how did you get Ojam to carry our flag?”
“Oh, I dared him.”
“An’ he, bein’ a Southerner, wouldn’t take a dare?”
“On the contrary, it needed no dare. He said he’d been longing for such a chance for many years; for you’d reminded him one day that he was an American, and that plain American was good enough for you. ’Twas a case exactly like that of the uniforms, Caleb; ’twas you that did it—not I.”
Again Caleb looked sheepish, and this time he succeeded in rejoining his command and marching it toward the cemetery, followed by the entire populace.
“We may as well go, too,” said Philip, closing the store.
“But not empty-handed,” Grace said, snatching a basket from a hook and hurrying into her garden, where she quickly cut everything that showed any color or bloom, saying as she did so:—
“Perhaps they don’t use flowers here, but ’twill do no harm to offer them.”
“I’ll get out the horse and buggy; that basket will be very heavy,” said Philip.
“Not as heavy as the veterans’ guns—and some widow’s memories,” Grace replied; “so let us walk.”
Together they hurried along the dusty road and joined the irregular procession of civilians that followed the veterans. The Claybanks “God’s acre” bore no resemblance to the park-like cemeteries which Grace had seen near New York, nor did it display any trace of the neatness which marked the little enclosure in which rested the dead of Grace’s native village. A man with a scythe had been sent in on the previous day, to make the few soldiers’ graves approachable; but weeds and brambles were still abundant near the fence, and Grace shuddered when she saw that most of the graves were marked only by lettered boards instead of stones, and that tiny graves were numerous. Evidently Claybanks was a dangerous place for infants.
Soon she saw that the usefulness of flowers on Decoration Day was not unknown at Claybanks, and, as the “Ritual of the Dead” had already been read and as the veterans were informally passing from grave to grave, she made her way to Caleb, and said reproachfully:—
“Why didn’t you ask me for some flowers?”
“I ’lowed that I would,” Caleb replied, looking at Grace’s basket, “but Mis’ Taggess came to me, an’ says she, ‘Don’t you do it, or she’ll cut everything in sight,’ an’ from the looks o’ things I reckon that’s just what you’ve done. It’s a pity, too, for we hain’t got many soldier-dead, an’ their graves is pretty well covered.”
“In the paht of the Saouth that I come from,” ventured One-Arm Ojam, “ev’rybody’s graves has flowers put on ’em on Memorial Day, an’ the women an’ children do most of it.”
“You Grand Army men won’t feel hurt if the custom is started here, will you?” Grace asked of Caleb.
“Not us!” was the reply; so Grace begged the women and children to assist her, and within a few moments every grave in the cemetery had a bit of bloom upon it, and the women had informally resolved that the custom should be followed thereafter on Decoration Day.
Then the Grand Army Post was called to order, and marched back to the town, led by the fifer and drummer and followed by the people.
“Is that all?” Grace asked, when the store had been reopened, and Caleb entered, unclasped his sword-belt, and gazed affectionately at the sword.
“All of what?”
“All of the day’s ceremonies.”
“In one way, yes, but we vets have a sort o’ camp-fire; we get together in my room, after dark, an’ swap yarns, an’ sing songs, an’ have somethin’ to eat an’ drink, an’ manage to have a jolly good time.”
“I hope you’ll leave the windows open while you sing.”
“We’ll have to all the time, I reckon, the weather bein’ as hot as ’tis, but I know the boys’ll be pleased to hear that you asked it.”
“Oh, wouldn’t I like to be a mouse in the corner to-night!” Grace said after she had laid away the very last of the supper dishes and dropped into a hammock-chair on the coolest side of the house. “A mouse in the corner, and hear the war-stories those veterans will tell! They looked so unlike themselves to-day.”
“Possibly because of Caleb’s bath-house,” Philip suggested, “although I don’t doubt that Caleb would be gracious enough to hint that the new uniforms also had some transforming effect.”
“What do you suppose they will have to eat and drink in Caleb’s room? I wish I dared make something nice and send it in. Let me see; we’ve a lot of the potted meats and fancy biscuits and other things that I ordered from the city a week or two ago, to abate the miseries of summer housekeeping. I could make half a dozen kinds of biscuit sandwiches in ten minutes, and I could give them iced tea with lemon and sugar, and oh—”
“Well?”
“There’s been so much excitement to-day that I entirely forgot the grand surprise I’d planned for some of the farmers’ wives. I declare ’tis too bad! Our ice-cream freezer came last week, you know, and this morning I made the first lot, and I was going to serve saucers of it to some of the women who came to the store—it seems that ice-cream is unknown in this country. But your surprise, of putting the Grand Army men into uniforms, put everything else out of my mind for the day. Let’s bring it from the ice-house, and send it over to Caleb’s room to the veterans!”
“My dear girl, the cream will keep till to-morrow, so do try to possess your soul in peace, and leave those veterans to their own devices. Old soldiers are reputed to be willing to eat and drink anything or nothing if they may have a feast of war-stories.”
“When do you suppose they’ll begin to sing?”
“Not having been a soldier, I can’t say. Perhaps not at all, if Caleb’s plan of keeping the drinking men from liquor has succeeded.”
“Phil, don’t be so horrid. Oh!—what is that?”
It was the beginning of a song—not badly sung, either—“’Tis a Way We Have in the Army.” Some of the words were ridiculous, but there could be no criticism of the spirit of the singers. Advancing cautiously, under cover of semi-darkness and the brushwood arbor, Grace saw so many figures near the front of the house that she could not doubt that the Grand Army Post was tendering her or her husband the compliment of a serenade, so she applauded heartily. Another song, “There’s Music in the Air,” followed, and yet another, both in fair time and tune.
“I’m going to find out whom those leading voices belong to,” Grace said. “Light the lamps, won’t you?” Then she stepped from the arbor, and said:—
“Thank you very much, gentlemen, but my husband and I are real selfish people, so we won’t be satisfied until you come into the house and sing us all the army songs you know.”
Two or three veterans started to run, but they were stopped by others. Grace heard them protesting that they were not of the singers, so she hurried out and declared that she would forego the anticipated pleasure rather than break up their own party; so within a moment or two the entire Post, with One-Arm Ojam, were in the parlor, where some stared about in amazement, while others looked as distressed as cats in a strange kitchen. But host and hostess pressed most of them into seats, and Caleb stood guard at the door, having first whispered to Grace:—
“The pianner’ll hold ’em—but don’t play ‘Marchin’ through Georgy,’ please; we take pains not to worry One-Arm Ojam.”
Grace whispered to Philip, who left the room; then she seated herself at the piano and rattled off “Dixie” with fine spirit. Soon she stopped, looked about inquiringly, and asked:—
“Can’t any of you sing it? Now!”
Again she attacked the piano. Some one started the song, darkey-fashion, by singing one bar, the others joining vociferously in the second; this was repeated, and then all gave the chorus, and so the song went on so long as any one could recall words. This was followed, at a venture, by “Maryland, my Maryland,” for which the Union veterans had one set of words, and Ojam another, although the general effect was good. The ice was now broken, and the men suggested one song after another, for most of which Grace discovered that she knew the airs—for while the war created many new songs, it inspired little new music.
The singing continued until the guests became hoarse, by which time Philip entered with iced lemonade made with tea, and Grace followed with sandwiches and biscuits and cake, which prompted some of the men to tell what they did not have to eat in the army. From this to war-stories was but a short step, and as every veteran, however stupid, has at least one war-story that is all his own, the host and hostess enjoyed a long entertainment of a kind entirely new to them. Meanwhile Grace was pressing refreshments on the men individually, but suddenly she departed. When she returned, in a few moments, she bore a tray covered with saucers of ice-cream, and the astonishment which the contents produced, as it reached the palates of the guests, made Grace almost apoplectic in her endeavors to keep from laughing.
“What is it?” whispered a veteran who had not yet been served to one who was ecstatically licking his spoon.
“Dog my cats if I know!” was the reply, as the man took another mouthful. “It tastes somethin’ like puddin’—an’ custard—an’ cake—an’ like the smell of ol’ Mis’ Madden’s vanilla bean,—an’—” but just then the questioner was given an opportunity to taste for himself, after which he said:—
“It beats the smell o’ my darter’s hair-ile—beats it all holler.”
“I reckon,” said Caleb, who had inspected the freezer on its arrival, and had been wildly curious as to its product, “I reckon it’s ice-cream.”
“What? That stuff that there’s jokes about in the newspapers sometimes,—jokes about gals that’s too thin-waisted to hug, but can eat barl’s of it?”
“Yes; that’s the stuff.”
“The dickens! Well, ef I was a gal, I’d let out tucks all day long an’ durn the expense, if my feller’d fill my bread-basket with stuff like that. Must be frightful costly, though.”
“Not more’n plain custard, Mis’ Somerton says.”
“Wh-a-a-a-a-at? Say, Caleb, I’m goin’ to j’in the church, right straight off. No more takin’ any risks o’ hell for me, thank you, for it stands to reason that they can’t make ice-cream down there.”
When the contents of the freezer were exhausted, Philip, who never smoked, opened a box of fine cigars which he had ordered from the East, with a view to business with visiting lawyers in the approaching “Court-week.” Then the joy of the veterans was complete; the windows were opened, for, as Caleb said, no mosquito would venture into such a cloud, and it was not until midnight that any one thought to ask the time.
“I’m afeared,” said Caleb, after all the other guests had departed, “that you’ll have a mighty big job o’ dish-washin’ to-morrow, but—”
“But ’twas richly worth it,” Grace said, and Philip assented.
“That’s very kind o’ you, but ’tain’t what I was goin’ to say, which was that I’ll turn in and help, if you’ll let me, an’ another thing is, you’ve put an end to any chance of any of the boys takin’ a drink of anythin’ stronger than water to-night, an’ you’ve made sure of some new customers, too.”
“Oh, Caleb!” Grace said, “can’t we do anything hearty for its own sake, without being rewarded for it?”
“Nary thing!” Caleb replied. “That’s business truth, an’ Gospel truth, too.”
Notes
1 In most states of the American Union the 30th of May is a legal holiday called Decoration Day, the purpose being to honor, by various means, the memory of the soldiers who died in defence of the Union in the great Civil War of 1861-65. More than a quarter of a million survivors of the Union army are members of a fraternal society called the Grand Army of the Republic, which is divided into about seven thousand local branches called Posts. The organization is military in form, each post having a body of officers with military titles and insignia. All posts carry the national colors in their parades, and are expected to be uniformed in close imitation of the service dress of the army of the United States. A few posts bear arms, and each member of the order wears a medal made by the national government from cannon captured from the enemy. The posts always parade on Decoration Day, and at cemeteries where soldiers of the Union army have been interred they read their “Ritual of the Dead” and decorate the graves with flags and flowers. In recent years the order has decorated the graves of dead Confederates also, and there have been many friendly interchanges of civilities and hospitalities between the Grand Army of the Republic and the Southern survivors’ organization known as The United Confederate Veterans—an order which has about fifty thousand members.