"Up the street came the Rebel tread, Stonewall Jackson riding ahead.
Under his slouch hat left and right, he glanced and the old flag caught his sight."
At these lines the boy flinched, but still he said nothing. Like a soldier who stands at attention under the threat of a firing squad he listened to the end—or rather to the stanzas which recite:
"'Shoot, if you must at this old gray head, but spare your country's flag,' she said.
A flush of manhood, a look of shame, into the face of their leader came...."
That was too much! The man of whom these impious words were spoken was that gallant knight, without reproach, whose name is hallowed in every Southern heart. Very slowly Stuart Farquaharson raised his hand.
"I think," he announced with a shake of repressed fury in his voice, "I'll have to go home now. Good afternoon."
"Then you don't like poetry?"
"I don't consider that poetry," he said with a dignity which an archbishop might have envied. "I consider it slander of a dead hero."