Uncle walked on slowly in a very sad and meditative mood. Aunt looked as if there was something that had overthrown all her high sentiment on her first Sunday of seeing the entrancing visions of the great Exposition. There were religious realities touching her soul now, and she walked on rapidly with Fanny, leaving Uncle behind. Johnny was flipping pebbles at some ducks in the lagoon and Uncle had stopped to look in at one of the doors of Liberal Arts hall. While he was standing there two dapper young men came walking hastily by. One caught sight of Uncle and quickly uttered a low whistle. His companion stopped short as the first one said: "Der's de old duffer; let's work him."
"Naw, we can't do it. He'll remember me mistake in change an' de blasted trainboy biz."
"'I'll bet you a fiver he don't! You're trigged out altogether new, an' your gran'mother wouldn't know ye."
"Nothin' like tryin', so here goes," and the speaker walked on a few steps and half concealed himself behind a column, close enough to hear all that was said.
"Well, how do you do, Deacon Jones? I am awfully surprised. It's like two needles meeting in a haystack for us to meet here. Isn't it now! It's a long time since I saw you back in old Barnville, Sage county, Indiana; but I remembered you the minute I clapped my eyes on you. I suspect you'd like to hear from some of your old neighbors."
The speaker was still holding Uncle's hand, and Uncle was looking at him in a bewildered manner, as if searching intensely in the picture gallery of memory's old time faces.
"I see you can't place me, but I guess it's 'cause I was only a chunk of a lad, but I see you often in the 'amen corner' of the Barnville Baptist church. You see my father was killed in one of the battles before Atlanta, and mother and me, when I was a boy, didn't have much to live on, only our pension. So I had to work hard, and didn't git around much for to be seen by anybody. I was converted and joined the church just about the time you moved away. Then I went into Mr. Monroe's store and got to be chief clerk, and then when the bank was opened at Barnville I was made cashier, and in three or four years I was called to be cashier in the First National here, so you see I have been more successful than most of the poor boys about Barnville whose fathers never came back from defending their country."
"I SEE YOU CAN'T PLACE ME."
"Ah, my boy," said Uncle, "my heart always warms up for my comrades' children. I believe I recollect you now. Wasn't you the boy what swum out into the crick at high water, when the bridge went down while preacher Barker's wife was crossing with her baby to bring him back from Bethel, and towed 'em safe to shore?"