Late in March Company E came home from the border.
As the boys marched up from the station, stalwart, bronzed, with ringing steps and beaming faces, the citizenry of Fairweather lined the curbs and hung from the windows to greet and acclaim them. As they went by, Sarah Halpert, standing in her automobile, surrounded by the McCormack family, waved her handkerchief, and shouted her enthusiastic welcome. She had reason to be both proud and happy. For her old wish had been fulfilled; Halpert McCormack was captain of Company E, and Benjamin Barriscale was its first lieutenant. Captain Murray had resigned his commission, and the new appointments had come down through headquarters three days before the entrainment of the troops for home.
“Haven’t I told you times without number,” exclaimed Sarah Halpert, “that the boy had the stuff in him? All that was needed to bring it out was a Sabbath morning, and a howling mob, and a threat against Old Glory.”
Transcriber’s Notes:
A Table of Contents has been provided for the convenience of the reader.
Printer's, punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.
Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.
Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.
Except for the frontispiece, illustrations have been moved to follow the text that they illustrate, so the page number of the illustration may not match the page number in the List of Illustrations.