“And then we'd go home at night and find our mothers and sisters settin' round a coal-oil lamp, makin' our new grey uniforms, and sewin' a tear in with every stitch. And every feller's sweetheart was makin' him a silk sash to wear round his waist. I could git a sash round my waist then, but I s'pose if I felt called on to wear one now I'd have to hire old man Dillon, the mattress maker, to make one fur me out of a roll of bedtickin.” And the speaker glanced downward toward the bulge of his girth.
“My mother kept telling me that it would kill her for me to go—and that she'd kill me if I didn't go,” interpolated Doctor Lake.
“I reckin no set of men on this earth ever went out to fight with the right sort of spirit in 'em onless their womenfolk stood behind 'em, biddin' 'em to go,” said the old Judge. “That's the way it was with us, anyway—I know that much. Well then, right on top of everything else, along come the big ball they gave us at the Richland House the night before we left fur Camp Boone to be mustered in, regular fashion. There wasn't any absentees there that night—not a single solitary one. They'd 'a' had to tie me hand and foot to keep me frum comin' there to show off my new grey suit and my red-striped sash and all my brass buttons.
“Fur oncet, social lines didn't count. That night the best families mixed with all the other families that was mebbe jest as good, but didn't know it. Peter Galloway's old daddy drove a dray down on the levee and his mother took in washin', but before the ball broke up I seen old Mrs. Galloway with both her arms round Mrs. Governor Trimble, and Mrs. Governor Trimble had her arms round Mrs. Galloway, and both of 'em cryin' together, the way women like to do. The Trimbles were sending three sons; but old Mrs. Galloway was givin' up Peter, and he was all the boy she had.
“We danced till purty near sunup, stoppin' only oncet, and then jest long enough fur 'em to present Captain Meriwether Grider with his new gold-mounted sword. You remember, Lew, we buried that sword in the same coffin with him fifteen years later?
“About four o'clock in the mornin', when the first of the daylight was beginnin' to leak in at the winders, the nigger string band in the corner struck up Home, Sweet Home! We took partners, but that was one dance which never was finished.
“All of a sudden that sassy little red-headed Janie Thornbury stopped dead-still out in the middle of the floor, and she flung both arms round the neck of Garrett Hinton, that she was engaged to marry, but didn't—on account of her marryin' somebody else while Garry was off soldierin'—and, before everybody, she kissed him right smack on the mouth!
“And then, in less'n no time at all, every feller in the company had his arms round his sweetheart or his sister, or mebbe his mother, and kisses were goin' off all over that old ball room like paper bags a-bustin'. I fergit now-who 'twas I kissed; but, to the best of my recollection, I jest browsed round and done quite a passel of promiscuous kissin'.”
“I'll never forget the one I kissed!” broke in Doctor Lake. “With the exception of the ensuing four years, I've been kissing the same girl ever since. She hefts a little more than she did then—those times you could mighty near lock a gold bracelet round her waist, and many's the time I spanned it with my two hands—and she's considerably older; but her kisses still taste mighty sweet to me!”
“Go 'way, Lew Lake!” protested Judge Priest gallantly. “Miss Mamie Ellen is jest ez young ez ever she was; and she's sweeter, too, because there's more of her to be sweet. I drink to her!”