And now at last the city is to shake off the dust of the North.  “On to Camp Jackson!” was the cry.  The bands are started, the general and staff begin to move, and the column swings into the Olive Street road, followed by a concourse of citizens awheel and afoot, the horse cars crowded.  Virginia and Maude and the Colonel in the Carvel carriage, and behind Ned, on the box, is their luncheon in a hamper Standing up, the girls can just see the nodding plumes of the dragoons far to the front.

Olive Street, now paved with hot granite and disfigured by trolley wires, was a country road then.  Green trees took the place of crowded rows of houses and stores, and little “bob-tail” yellow cars were drawn by plodding mules to an inclosure in a timbered valley, surrounded by a board fence, known as Lindell Grove.  It was then a resort, a picnic ground, what is now covered by close residences which have long shown the wear of time.

Into Lindell Grove flocked the crowd, the rich and the poor, the proprietor and the salesmen, to watch the soldiers pitch their tents under the spreading trees.  The gallant dragoons were off to the west, across a little stream which trickled through the grounds.  By the side of it Virginia and Maude, enchanted, beheld Captain Colfax shouting his orders while his troopers dragged the canvas from the wagons, and staggered under it to the line.  Alas! that the girls were there!  The Captain lost his temper, his troopers, perspiring over Gordian knots in the ropes, uttered strange soldier oaths, while the mad wind which blew that day played a hundred pranks.

To the discomfiture of the young ladies, Colonel Carvel pulled his goatee and guffawed.  Virginia was for moving away.

“How mean, Pa,” she said indignantly.  “How car, you expect them to do it right the first day, and in this wind?”

“Oh!  Jinny, look at Maurice!” exclaimed Maude, giggling.  “He is pulled over on his head.”

The Colonel roared.  And the gentlemen and ladies who were standing by laughed, too.  Virginia did not laugh.  It was all too serious for her.

“You will see that they can fight,” she said.  “They can beat the Yankees and Dutch.”

This speech made the Colonel glance around him:  Then he smiled,—­in response to other smiles.

“My dear,” he said, “you must remember that this is a peaceable camp of instruction of the state militia.  There fly the Stars and Stripes from the general’s tent.  Do you see that they are above the state flag?  Jinny; you forget yourself.”

Jinny stamped her foot

“Oh, I hate dissimulation,” she cried, “Why can’t we, say outright that we are going to run that detestable Captain Lyon and his Yankees and Hessians out of the Arsenal.”

“Why not, Colonel Carvel?” cried Maude.  She had forgotten that one of her brothers was with the Yankees and Hessians.

“Why aren’t women made generals and governors?” said the Colonel.