Early in the morning the wagons began to go by our house, and all along the four roads that led to the grove we could see great clouds of dust that stretched away for miles and miles and told that the people were gathering by the thousands.  They came in wagons and on horseback, carrying babies; two boys on one horse were common sights; and there were various four-horse teams with wagons filled with girls all dressed in white, carrying flags.

All our folks went.  My mother fastened the back door of our house with a bolt on the inside, and then locked the front door with a key, and hid the key under the doormat.

At the grove there was much hand-shaking and visiting and asking after the folks and for the news.  Several soldiers were present, among them a man who lived near us, called “Little Ramsey.”  Three one-armed men were there, and a man named Al Sweetser, who had only one leg.  These men wore blue, and were seated on the big platform that was all draped with flags.  Plank seats were arranged, and every plank held its quota.  Just outside the seats hundred of men stood, and beyond these were wagons filled with people.  Every tree in the woods seemed to have a horse tied to it, and the trees over the speakers’ platform were black with men and boys.  I never knew before that there were so many horses and people in the world.

When the speaking began, the people cheered, and then they became very quiet, and only the occasional squealing and stamping of the horses could be heard.  Our preacher spoke first, and then the lawyer from Bloomington, and then came the great man from Peoria.  The people cheered more than ever when he stood up, and kept hurrahing so long I thought they were not going to let him speak at all.

At last they quieted down, and the speaker began.  His first sentence contained a reference to Abe Lincoln.  The people applauded, and some one proposed three cheers for “Honest Old Abe.”  Everybody stood up and cheered, and I, perched on my father’s shoulder, cheered too.  And beneath the legend, “Warranted Fifty Pounds,” my heart beat proudly.  Silence came at last—­a silence filled only by the neighing and stamping of horses and the rapping of a woodpecker in a tall tree.  Every ear was strained to catch the orator’s first words.

The speaker was just about to begin.  He raised one hand, but ere his lips moved, a hoarse, guttural shout echoed through the woods, “Hurrah’h’h for Jeff Davis!!!”

“Kill that man!” rang a sharp, clear voice in instant answer.

A rumble like an awful groan came from the vast crowd.  My father was standing on a seat, and I had climbed to his shoulder.  The crowd surged like a monster animal toward a tall man standing alone in a wagon.  He swung a blacksnake whip around him, and the lash fell savagely on two gray horses.  At a lunge, the horses, the wagon and the tall man had cleared the crowd, knocking down several people in their flight.  One man clung to the tailboard.  The whip wound with a hiss and a crack across his face, and he fell stunned in the roadway.