“I suppose you are surprised to see me in uniform after what I told you last night,” Beader said. “But, since it was I who first guided you, all the dragoons insisted that I should lead them to the corn patch this morning. Besides, Plunger didn’t mind being a horse for to-day. Did you, Plunger?” he appealed to the mouse upon whose back he sat.
“Ne—he—he,” answered Plunger, shaking his head and pawing Dan’s ruff with one foot.
“He means, ‘No, not a bit,’” Beader explained. “You see it is one of our rules that when a dragoon is a horse he is not to utter a word. He may only whinny, or say ‘no’ or ‘yes’ with his head.”
So, as they talked, Dan finished his breakfast.
“That over with, we will prepare to move to the square,” announced Beader. “Dragoons fall in!”
At this word from their leader, the others all sprang to the furrow and were soon once more at attention.
“Forwar—r—r—d, ha!” came from Beader. Onward they marched until the rear of their lines had passed well beyond the clown’s feet.
“Halt!” ordered Beader. “Now then, you, Diggeldy Dan, will march just behind the tails that come last. You, band-mice, will take up your position just behind Dan.”
With this last command a group of beady-eyed fellows swung into view from an adjoining furrow. They wore jackets of green that contrasted in most lively fashion with their pink pantaloons and still pinker hats. As for instruments, there were what one might have called fifes, which were made by placing blades of green grass between two whittled sticks; and fully two dozen drums fashioned from corncobs with the ends covered over with well-seasoned husks. On the head of the largest drum, Dan read the words:
Fielders’ Fife and Drum Corps