No wonder the crowd that lined the sides of the road cheered! No wonder that girls waved handkerchiefs! Here and there men, youths and boys who knew enough lifted their hats as the colors passed.
It is strange that not all American males, of all ages, know that the hat is to be raised from the head and lowered to place over the heart as the national colors are borne by.
Yet all of those of the male spectators who did not know enough to uncover on the approach of the colors still felt the glory of the scene. Love of the military is common to all true-beating hearts. The country dies in which this love of the military vanishes.
Behind the infantry lumbered the guns and caissons of two batteries of field artillery, drivers alert and gunners sitting up very straight, yet appearing wholly at ease.
It takes the man of military experience to be both erect and at ease at the same time. Some civilians come very close in this achievement, but theirs is the imitation grace of personal carriage.
At the extreme left of the line marched a platoon of engineer troops and a detachment of men from the signal corps.
The regulars were now in the last half mile of the march down a beautifully shaded road that led to the broad fields on which the encampment was pitched this year.
Hundreds of boys were following the parade as a matter of course. Where is the live boy whose heart is dead to the soldiers?
As the Thirty-fourth's band played out the final notes of the march, the order for route step marching ran down the line.
Just then, from a parallel road less than a quarter of a mile away, another band blared forth in a quickstep. The crowd was quick to turn and look.