Now, as she was stepping aside to avoid crushing some young white clover-blossoms in the grass where she was walking, she looked up and wondered if she were going blind, or if her mind were giving way.
The vacant space behind the solitary veteran trembled and palpitated before her vision, as if it had been peopled. By what? By whom? Patience was no occultist. She had never seen an apparition in her life. She felt that if she had not lacked a mysterious, unknown gift, she should have seen spirits, as men marching, now. But she did not see them. She was aware of a tremulous, nebulous struggle in the empty air, as of figures that did not form, or of sights from which her eyes were holden. Ah—what? She gasped for the wonder of it. Who was it, that followed the veteran, with the dumb, delighted fidelity that one race only knows of all created? For a wild instant this sane and sensible woman could have taken oath that Reuben Oak was accompanied on his march by his old dog, his dead dog, Tramp. If it had been Tommy— Or if it had been Jabez Trent— And where were they who had gone into the throat of death with him at Antietam, at Bull Run, at Fair Oaks, at Malvern Hill? But there limped along behind Reuben only an old, forgotten dog.
This quaint delusion (if delusion we must call it) aroused her attention, which had wavered from her husband, and concentrated it upon him afresh. Suddenly she saw him stagger.
A dozen persons started, but the wife sprang and reached him first. As she did this, the ghost dog vanished from before her. Only Reuben was there, marching alone, with the unpeopled space between him and the procession.
"Leave go of me!" he gasped. Patience quietly grasped him by the arm, and fell into step beside him. In her heart she was terrified. She was something of a reader in her way, and she thought of magazine stories where the veterans died upon Memorial Day.
"I'll march to decorate the Post—and Tommy—if I drop dead for it!" panted Reuben Oak.
"Then I shall march beside you," answered Patience.
"What 'll folks say?" cried the old soldier, in real anguish.
"They'll say I'm where I belong. Reuben! Reuben! I've earned the right to."
He contended no more, but yielded to her—in fact, gladly, for he felt too weak to stand alone. Inspiring him, and supporting him, and yet seeming (such was the sweet womanliness of her) to lean on him, Patience marched with him before the people; and these saw her through blurred eyes, and their hearts saluted her. With every step she felt that he strengthened. She was conscious of endowing him with her own vitality, as she sometimes did, in her own way—the love way, the wife way, powerfully and mysteriously.