When the train rolled into the depot, Ralph heard the shouts and cheers going up for the boys in blue, and a six-pounder was fired off, giving them a salute of thirty-six guns. He felt proud to belong to that stalwart band of men who had borne the brunt of the battle, and whose hands had helped to rear the massive structure of a reunited nation upon an enduring base—freedom for all. And then cheers broke forth from thousands of throats, women's faces grew brighter, children caught the contagion of joy, and men shouted v and hurrahed until they were hoarse. The boys had come home from the war, and their toil and privations were past. Never again, it was to be hoped, should the wave of dissension sweep across the land, but the banner of liberty should float from every tower and dome, for all nations to honor.
The soldiers had caught the glad spirit of welcome, and as they wheeled into line and kept step to the music of their bands, every nerve tingled and burned, and their hearts beat tumultuously. They were to be shown still farther attention, for they were escorted to a hall, where, when they had “stacked arms,” they clasped hands with old friends, and after a half hour passed in renewing old friendships and making new, they were invited to an elegant banquet, to which they all did justice.
To Ralph the scene was a revelation—the brightly lit hall, the perfume of countless flowers, the kind attentions of beautiful women, and the eloquent speeches—all in turn charmed him, and the home-coming seemed, indeed, a delightful fairy vision.
But there were yet three weary days of waiting ere the final forms were gone through with, the regiment paid off, the Board of Trade having assumed the payment, so as to permit the men to return home more speedily, and to Ralph they were the longest and most tedious he ever remembered. But at last his face was turned homeward, and as he sprang from the car, and hurried along the one short mile that divided the dear mother from him, his sunburned and speaking face, the erect form and swinging, elastic step, bore no resemblance to the boy who had come home to die, two years before.
His mother and sisters stood in the doorway, and as they threw their arms around him, and pressed him to their hearts, he knew at last the sweet and tender bliss those two simple words conveyed—“Home again!”
And when, in the years that followed, the simple army boy rose to position and fame in the field he chose for a life-calling, his dearest memories were of the toil and pain and sacrifice of the days he spent in the army. His proudest boast was that, humble as were his services, obscure as he was, he gave all he had, youth, energy, enthusiasm and endurance, to the cause of universal freedom, and dearly as he loved his mother and home, he still more dearly loved the land of his birth.
THE SANITARY COMMISSION.
I want to tell the boys and girls who have followed Ralph's simple story to the end of the war, about a grand body of men and women who worked valiantly for the soldiers while they were fighting in the field. Indeed, it would be unjust to the wives, mothers and sisters of the boys of the days of the war, did I not say something about this noble enterprise.