By this time all were on their feet, cheering and waving their flags wildly. Dick, Tom and Sam Rover saw them, and although they did not dare to turn their heads, they smiled broadly in recognition. For them the moment was just as thrilling as it was for those on the stand.
"Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!" shouted the boys and girls, and their parents and other relatives joined in as strenuously as any one.
Old Aunt Martha was crying openly, and the other women had also to wipe the tears from their eyes.
"Somehow it chokes me all up," declared old Uncle Randolph, and blew his nose vigorously.
The company containing the Rovers passed on and the great parade continued hour after hour until it seemed as if there would be no end to that grand procession.
"Gracious! I didn't know there were so many soldiers in the whole world," declared Aunt Martha at length.
"If you are getting tired, Aunt Martha, I'll have somebody take you back to the house," remarked Mrs. Dick Rover, after they had been watching the parade for four hours.
"No, no. I am going to see it to the end," declared the old lady. "It will be something to talk about as long as I live."
"Just think of a lot of soldiers like these fighting all over our farm at Valley Brook," was Uncle Randolph's comment. "That's what they did over in France. It must have been terrible, the way things were cut up."
"My dad says you wouldn't believe it if you didn't see it," answered Randy. "He said some of the shell craters were big enough to dump a small barn in. Think of holes like that in your pasture lot."