The men’s backs bulged out with such a pack of supplies that when the regiment halted each man was forced to kneel and let a comrade take off or put on his knapsack.  And then the march through the streets—­every man known to scores in the throng!  The brisk, high-stepping drum corps rat-a-tatting at intervals; then tempests of cheers, flashing banners and patriotic symbols at every window; tears, laughter, humorous cries, jokes, sobbing outbreaks.  The whole city was in march as the Caribees reached the thronged main thoroughfare.  Ready hands relieved the soldiers of their burden as the line filed in sight of the Governor, who had come to speed the parting braves.

Lads and lasses made merry with the elated warriors.  The muskets were turned into bouquet-holders, and the first move toward real war took on the air of a floral fete.  There were popping corks and sounds of convivial revelry that made the scene anything but warlike.  Jack, in a cluster of his town cronies, caught sight of his mother at one of the windows of the Parthenon Hotel.  He wafted her a joyous kiss, pretending not to see the tears falling down her cheeks.  Olympia was not apparently very deeply affected.  She made her way through the crowd to her brother’s side, and with an air of the liveliest interest demanded: 

“Jack, what have you in your knapsack?  Let me see.”

“O Polly, it’s such a job to close it!  What do you want?  It is harder to manage than a Saratoga trunk.  I can’t really stuff another pin or needle in, so pray keep what you have for my furlough.”

“No, I am not going to put anything in.”  She bent over while Barney Moore, one of Jack’s Acredale comrades, gallantly loosed the straps.  She searched carefully through the divers articles, taking everything out, Jack looking on ruefully while his companions gathered about in vague curiosity.  When she had removed and restored everything she arose, saying:  “I feel easier now.  I merely looked to see if that marshal’s baton I have heard so much about was there.  I shall feel easy in my mind now, because a baton in your baggage would have made you too adventurous.”

There was a great shout of laughter as the fun of the incident flashed upon the listeners, many of whom had heard the ingenuous Jack often in other days sighing for war, and the chance that Napoleon said every man had of finding a marshal’s baton in his knapsack.  Jack bore the banter very equably, knowing that Olympia was rather striving to keep his spirits up and divert him from the tears in his mother’s eyes than indulge her own humor.  Indeed, most of the gayety at this moment was contributed by those whose hearts were heaviest.  The consecrated priesthood of patriotism must see no weakness in those left behind.  The only son, now brought face to face with the meaning and consequence of his rashly seized chance for glory, must not be reminded that perhaps a grave lay beyond