We followed as quickly as we could. I put on the helmet, and Max took the drum, and we let Toddles have the bugle this time, because he had just tumbled down; and he had the hearth-broom, too, so he was all right. We ran into the field, and found that the enemy had taken up a strong position behind the old cannon. (Ours is a real battle-field, you know, and has been there ever since the war.) We formed in line, and Fred made a flank movement, meaning to take the enemy in the rear; but when he heard Fred coming, he charged on our line, and Toddles ran away, but Max and I retreated in good order, and formed again behind a rock, and began to shell him with green apples. He stopped to eat the apples, and meanwhile Fred completed his flank movement, and falling on the enemy’s rear, whacked it violently with a stick, waving his flag all the time, and shouting, “Yield, caitiff! Yield, craven hound!” (I tell him that nowadays people don’t say those things in war, but he says that Roland and Bayard did, and that what suited them will suit him.)
Well, the enemy turned suddenly on Fred, and drove him back against the cannon: but by that time we had advanced again, and Toddles was blowing the bugle as hard as he could, which seemed to disconcert the foe. Fred took a flying leap from the cannon right over his back, and putting himself at our head, rallied us for a grand charge. We rushed forward, driving the enemy before us. A panic seized him, and he fled in disorder; we pursued him as far as the fence, and he got through a hole and escaped, but not before we each had a good whack at him. It was a glorious victory! Fred made us a speech afterward from the top of the cannon, and we all waved everything we had to wave, and vowed to slay the invader if ever he dared to show his nose on our side of the fence again.
So that was all!
“Who was the enemy?” Why, didn’t I say? Farmer Thurston’s pig, of course!
HALLELUJAH!
The trees were still bare, and the grass brown and sere in the Northern city; but the sky was blue and cloudless, and the air warm and soft. On a bench under one of the leafless trees in the park sat an old man, gray-haired and poorly clad. His eyes were fixed on the ground, and he was thinking of many sorrowful things. Suddenly he heard a little clear voice saying, “Didn’t they give you any flowers?”
He looked up and saw a little wee girl standing before him, with her hands full of flowers. She had a round, rosy face and round blue eyes, and a little round rosebud of a mouth; and she was looking at him very seriously indeed. “Didn’t they give you any flowers?” she repeated.
“No, dear,” said the old man, gently; “nobody gave me any flowers. Where did you get your pretty posies?”