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and that's the way it was with all the restin the two companies, and if all the nice girls in the west county hadn't been there smiling at us and waving tluf fv handkerchiefs, and looking too blame nation sweet to have trouble pushed under their pretty noses, we'd bavelaid downourmus kets an<l had joint debate on the Iight houseandbed ticking mat? ters there and then. We didn't do anything, however, ex? cept step on each other's feet and swear at each other gruf- and easy through the "This Man's Sister ThinKs the corniTS of Olir World o' That Brand of Sir." motltlis; but aswe marched along to our camping spots we sori of naturally knew inside us that the May training that year wouldn't be a really helpful and patriotic affair without there was further and complete understanding between Starks and Byron on certain points that I needn't elaborate. I have an idea that the spectators, after a time, noticed that something out of the ordinary b'ilin' was stewing between us, especially when the affair at the brook was over. The Starks Stalwarts were deploying down the hill toward the brook, and the Byron Bears were also deploying along the brook's banks, and all could see that we were due to collide. But neither Cap'n Britt nor Cap'n Cole would order "Ilah!" We knew then for sure that there was something special up between 'em; but the rest of us were by that time too mad to projick on reasons. We didn't care. Xo whisper of "Halt!" We were glad. Cap. Britt snapped the Stalwarts into platoon formation and rammed us against the Bears on the double-qtrick and they being on the sloping bank just naturally fell into the brook, and as they fell they grabbed us, each man his man, and in we piled on top of them. all hugging so affectionately that half the crowd was nigh drowned when they finally got us untangled. Old Colonel Zaccheus Jordan came whurrooping up on his fat gray mare?plickity, plockity, plack! whoa! ?and I never heard a man swear s. >. He was shaking both fists, and his chin was poked out between "id Keturah Ann's ears, and 111 bet that a full pint of new rum had set tied right into the end of his nose. "Ve're the everlastin' sp'ilin' of the whole mus ter!" he yelled. " Ye come onto this ground to day, hookin' at each other like Durham steers. Ye've been ready t< > lt >ck 1k ?rns ever since. Ye ain't worth a turnup crop in Tophet, neither crowd <>f ye! And as for tlt.ll. ye can't tlrill beet-seed. Git to your quarters, all of ye!" And?plackity-plack! ? away umbered the fat gray mare that Colonel Zaccheus Jordan followed at the plow-tail with a lot more comfort than he was feeling that day a-straddling her. Well, neither com? pany would have added much to the polite spectacular effect of a drill just then. We had mud-gobs in our hair, smutches across our faces and were soaked. But every man was like a barrel of lime?the water on him and in him made him burn hotter. So we sat tlown on either side the brook: on t tne side the "Smut foots, Clean-foots" (that was the Stal warts' nickname, be? cause we were mostlv Parson Wo. mi-11 Was lWi.li LiKe a Pt-rcheron carriage-shop men); the " Boot-foots, Shoefoots" on the other bank (and those were the Byrons. for there were a lot of little shoe shops in that town). We sat glaring at each other like so many cats cleaning themselves, each man us ing a handful of grass instead of a tongue. We had other employ? ment for our tongues. "Did you hear what Cap'n Sile Cole done last week?" shouted one of the Bears. "He stood tme of his paint ladders up on end right out in the open field, run up the ladder so quick it didn't have time to tip over. stepped out on the air, h'isted the ladder up another length, run to the top, ketched the upper rung, and held himself right out ann's length by the slack of his britches and then got down again before the ladder had time to fall. That's what our Cap'n Sile Cole done? and we're all of us good for one length of ladder, and then tell us?can ye??that ye've got a man in Starks spry enough to fight!" "That's only a monkey trick," replied a Stal wart. "It ain't test of a real man. Here's what our own Cap'n Mose Britt done last week. The two boom men in the mill-pond were standing on a log ar giing whuther MeCorrison's bat-eared bulldog can lick Todd's brindle terrier. Mose Britt hollered tt> 'em from the mill door to hitch that log onto the slip chain. cause he wanted it. But they were so busy chawin' tobacker and talkin* dog they didn't hear Mose, and so he stood there in the mill door, tied a rope to the end of a pick pole and throw ed it spear-fashion, and it went forty ro-ls and stuck right into the end of that log those men were standing on, and M< se give it such a quick and ahnighty yank that the log come right out of the bark and left the men standin' on that bark and still talkin'. And they never knowed that log was gone till they heard Mose callin' for another one. Now talk about your havin' muscle in Byron!" "Aw. it's spryness what counts," said a Bear. "We'll lick ye and be a mile away before you can get your fists up." "Let me tell you one thing." broke in a Stal wart. "If our Cap'n Mose Britt had been (icn'ral George Washington and had come to the Delaware River that time, Mose wouldn't have waited for a boat. Xo. sir! He would have just kicked up a bubble, stootl on it and let the wind blow him across. That's how light on foot Mose Britt is. and we all take after him, and if it's being spry vou're countin' on, come out of your dream!" That's onlv a sample of it. It was every- moment getting clear that there was no chance of com promising the thing. That question of spryness and muscle hatl got to be settled. We sat there and scruffed away at our clothes with grass tufts and hollered louder and louder and waited for night to come and the people to go away; for the feelings of the girls were always tirst to be considered in the old militia days. And Captain Mose Britt stood with his arms folded and scowled across at Captain Sile Cole, and Captain Sile Cole stood with his arms folded and passed back ihe compHments of the season?not saying them. but looking them. They let the rest of us do the talking. And that being in the good old times when new rum was steady beverage even for the best of folks, and pepper-sass hot and the standing up for your own rights and your own town a matter of duty, most of the folks that came and hung around the place said things to make us mad, just as people like to cuff and wopse a dog's ears hard before ste'-boying him <>n. That is, all except the two ministers. the parson from Byron and the parson from Starks. They came down to us and talketl and talketl. soothing anil deprecatory, and every body was very qtriet and let them talk, and nobody said a word when they got done. Captain Mose Britt never unclinched either his eyebrows or his mouth, m>r did Captain Sile Cole. So the ministers hurried away and tackled Colonel Zaccheus Jordan, who was then standing around his tent trying to get the kinks out of his anatomy, and Colonel Zach, who was from Standish and hated both Starks and Byron, roared to 'em that he hoped to Gad the Clean-foots, Smut-foots and Boot-foots, Shoe-foots would get together and claw themselves into liddle-strings like the Kil kenny cats. st > that they never could spile another May training for him. There wasn't much milk of human kindness left in old Zach Jordan late on a training day, nor much new- rum in his black bottle either. The coaxing ministers couldn't get him to stir a peg tointerfere. Heonly promised that he'd ambledown to look on after the fight got to going in good shape. The selectmen of Byron and Starks who were on the grounds said that it wasn't a town officer's business to interfere in militia matters. That was before Sherman sail that "War is hell"; but the selectmen intimatcd to the ministers that a man with a uni f'.rm on wasn't ex actly a standing ad vertisement of the peace <>f Heaven. So it happene 1 that the only one the parsons could interest in interfer ing was old Pelcrg Warner, the Ettstis ronstal.'.e, and they brought him along with them. It was getting near sundown then. and the farmer f< .Ik that had ch. .n-s t. > do and a long way to ride were trailingo:': along the roads lead? ing from the four corners. And the girls had to go too, of course. It 1. ii iked.lS though **Thi_Mo-_"_ Seest. r l-o'ea llim" we might be pre? pared to begin the 1 i "Cents." said old 1 tered complaini . that yeareplannin' I sha'n't allow no such goinj i ii thi l We were eating an 1 sipping new rum, and paid aboul to old Peleg as we would to a i Eustis bog. "Which side are you favoring, Constable 1' Warner?" inquired a Bear. Peleg was on bank. " Xuther," said he. "Then stand in the brook on i where youbelong," said the Bear.giving him al In he went. We wouldn't let hii our side, and he waded away down th using language that consl use when there are ministers ? And after that for some time nothing was and the dark came down. We stacked The Bears stacked theirs. They hung cq cockaded chapeaux on the bayonets. We our stove-pipe pomp m caps. We '? * !k ? so did the Bears. Both sides rolled up th. ir We drained off the last mouthful of n< our canteens; and so ctid the Bears; and tl empty canteens rattled on the gronn I I "Asit ain'tgenetaUycttstornaryto ? occasions as this with an invocati. i gested Captain Mose Britt politely, are standing right in the center of the b might we ask you to retire?" "We shall not," said the two of '? X. >w we ha In't been paying much attention to the par? sons for the last half h. >ur. One was on our bank. thei itheracn .ss the brook the Starks parson with ourtlock. the Byron shep herd with his own flock. Their arms were folded like the Captains' arms, and they scowled too. " Ye shall no' dees graee the fair fame of the town of Starks thus," sai*l Elder Davison. "It shall ne'er be said that the meenisters stood idly rrigh and spiered the young men open the vials of wrath for the worship of the Beelzebub of battles. I will stand on this side the burn and Parson Wormell <>n the aither, and we'll knock .!<>.m the {Coittintud o>t pagt 'i Parson Davison's _ > i LooKed as Tlu'U|,li 1 Were Ctt-rpill.. i ?_