A tall, muscular man, with iron-gray hair and bushy beard, turned upon his heel with an oath, saying: “Marmor, the contemptible radical, takes too much pleasure in reading that preamble to me, and I’m a fool to hear it any way. All men created equal! It is a self-evident lie!” and he strode away, followed by the boyish young man, Tom, to whom the reader has already been introduced.
“Father,” said he, “that red-headed fool acts like a Yankee. You wouldn’t suppose he fought for the Lost Cause.”
“It is the cursed German blood in him!” replied “the old man Baker,” as his neighbors called him. “He hasn’t been in the State long enough to get the Republican taint out of it. His father wasn’t born here.”
“It is a pity that a Yankee bullet hadn’t hit him, instead of brother Will.” He’s a scalawag and a carpet-bagger, both in one.”
“Yes, I’d like to rid the State of his presence, and the niggers of one leader. If it wasn’t for the leaders, we could manage the ignorant ones.”
The exercises at “the stand” closed at five o’clock, and the Militia soon formed, thirty or forty strong, and marched off up Market street; which being over one hundred and fifty feet in width, afforded ample space for the evolutions which the men performed with commendable precision for nearly an hour.
At length they stood resting at the upper end of the street.
“Have you noticed the clouds, Captain?” asked the tall second-lieutenant, approaching his superior with raised cap, “That’s so, Watta,” replied Captain Doc, glancing at the clouds, “We’ll march down to the armory and dismiss. Attention, Company.”
The necessary orders being given, they proceeded by fours, interval march, open order, with guns across their shoulders, and arms over their guns; thus occupying little over one third of the width of the street.