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Show were ranged In bowls, In case any sol dier be forgotten. Should there 'bo any such, away raced Tom or Johnny, John-ny, Will or Frank, or tomboy Nell, If the boys had all followed the drum corps, to supply the lack, glad o be of use on this day of days, and pleased with the grateful "Thank you" of the recipient. "One Memorial day, a tragic trag-ic day that I shall never forget," said the lady of the letter, "grandmother promised that I should help make Uncle Un-cle Henry's bouquet, an honor that seldom fell to an eight-year-old. Together To-gether Aunt Emily and I constructed the masterpiece, a triumph in bouquet building, for the climbing rose bloomed early that year, and our scheme was simple yellow and white. But Memorial Memo-rial day morning brought some childish child-ish ailment, and when Uncle Henry, resplendent in his uniform as a cap-; cap-; tain of volunteers, and carrying a silk Hag Just presented to the company, rode up to the door for his flowers, he found a weeping small girl clutching the bouquet and pushing away the sticky balsam remedy that was grandmother's grand-mother's panacea for all aches. "In an instant he was off his horse and down on his knees, spoon in hand, coaxing me to obedience. In a frantic attempt to be good I Jarred his elbow, and the contents of the tablespoon splashed down over his spotless uniform uni-form and the shimmering red, white and blue of the banner. In the general gen-eral confusion that followed, the white and yellow pyramid got badly damaged, dam-aged, and all that I recall of the remainder re-mainder of that holiday is the quiet haven of a big four-poster in a raftered raft-ered room, and. a comforting grandmother, grand-mother, who read me to sleep out of htr illustrated Bible. Parades were personal affairs in those days. Every other man in the procession was a friend, or at least an acquaintance. You knew even the distinguished gentlemen in the carriages. car-riages. In the first rode the squlr and the First church minister, escorting escort-ing the orator of the day, Hon. Mr. Brown, congressman of the district. Judge Smith and the school superintendent, superin-tendent, with the editor of the Daily News, came next, and so on down the line of lesser notabilities. Cheers were loudest when the crippled, age-worn veterans rode by, in the village bandwagon, band-wagon, followed by Grand Army men who were still able-bodied. A goodly array they presented in that decade. More than half have gone since. Every man who could hobble held his place in the line till the cemetery waa reached. There was a thrill in every blue coat, in each bit of tarnished tarn-ished metal, a story in the empty sleeve, a tale of adventure in halting step and twisted back. Bull Run and Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and An-tietam, An-tietam, were near at hand when the thin bluo columns passed us by. At the end of the company, the last man of all in the procession, one girl knew, there came Inevitably German Charlie, general utility man In the newspaper office, so bent and crippled by wounds and rheumatic pains that his treacherous treacher-ous legs could not bo relied on to keep time t Vhe martial strains of the band. But he plodded along, eyes Bhinlng under his service hat brim, a posy in his button-hole, a loyal veteran of the Union army he had enlisted in when a boyish Immigrant, proud to the core of his uniform and his right to wear it German Charlie ias gone, and so have most of the men who marched with him; and so, alas, has some of the spirit they kept alive. MEMORIAL DAYS QFJAST .EARS ACRILEGE, we would have fct called it in my girlhood, J ;o have failed to give very able -assistance in celebrating Memorial day," said a woman of middle age. "There was, first of all, the delight of gathering the flowers. How eagerly we watched the bushes, hoping that the loveliest blooms would open in time, or delay their coming till the great day. Peonies Peo-nies we could count on. Snowballs helped, despite their drooptness, and spirea was always to be had. We gasped in admiration over Miss Amy's contributions of exquisite garlands of the pliable bridal wreath, with touches of scarlet columbine, or the faint pink of wild honeysuckle clustered here and there, but we could never evolve anything any-thing half so lovely. They were at once our Joy and our despair." Boys were useful when it came to wild-flower gathering, even if picking garden posies waa not their forte. They knew where early laurel and wild azalea were to be found and they could be trusted to bring home columbine, colum-bine, wild germium and buttercups. For there never was a Memorial day with too many flowers. There was the town hall to decorate, where the veterans assembled for a brief session ses-sion before the march to the cemetery. ceme-tery. The G. A. R. ladles saw to that, and beautiful it was to childish eyes when, brave with bunting and odorous with flowers, you saw it the night before, under the shelter of mother's enfolding gingham apron. There is enly one proper sort of bouquet tor village Memorial day, and sorry would one woman be should she ever see It superseded by anything modern. An up-to-date florist would be horrified at its mako-up and bewail Its lack of grace; an artist might take it as a horrible example of crudity crud-ity of color scheme. But to many, the stiff, tlghtly-tled bunch of posies, conical, con-ical, or bullet-shaped, or flattened into a parti-colored disk, means mingled pathos and pleasure. To the making of these noBegays went all the patience and the primitive taste of the grown daughters of the household. There must be a rosebud for the center, grown in the house for garden roses were still sleeping, and florists were a needless luxury In the town of girlhood girl-hood days and brought to punctual perfection by much watering and sunning. sun-ning. Then In exact order of precedence, prece-dence, circle upon circle, came spice pinks, white or pale mauve, rjook orange, or-ange, candytuft, pausies, purple and yellow, with an encircling fringe of lilies of the valley. And around all, emphasizing the color scheme, v. as the green and rose geranium leaves or the striped slenderness of ribbon grass. It was redolent of spicy Bweetness and of loving caro, even if it were not artistic, this Decoration day bouquet, and no debutante ever bore her orchids or-chids more proudly than did youthful volunteer soldier bay cr tottering veteran the posy of daughter or sweetheart. sweet-heart. There was one corner Just by the First church where every extra bunch of flowers found its way. There, in ohnrge of the minister's wife, they |
