A stalwart, comely, clean-eyed group of American men they were as they stood on parade, clothed for the most part in seemly raiment, chosen with Uncle Silas's quiet taste, except in the case of Mr. Spain, where he had let his experience of the past lead his taste.
"Please, dear God, don't let them ever have to be put into khaki," I prayed with a quick breath, for I knew, though they did not seem to recognize the fact, that this rally of the rural districts in the city hall was a part of the great program of preparedness that America was having forced upon her. I knew that the speech of the governor would be about the State militia and I knew that Evan Baldwin would talk to them about the mobilization of their stocks and crops. Quick tears flooded across my eyes, and I stretched out my hands to them.
"You all look good to me," I faltered in some of Matthew's language, because I couldn't think of anything else to say but the prayer in my heart, and I didn't want to repeat that to them.
"Now, you have all passed your city examinations, so you can get back to work. Remember, that day after to-morrow is the junket, and one day won't be any too much to bank up your fires to run until you come back," said Aunt Mary in the way of dismissal.
"Talk about vanity in women folks? The first peacock hatched out was of the male persuasion," she remarked as we stood at the emporium door and watched the men dispersing, their bundles under their arms, each one making direct for his own front door. "Every woman in Riverfield will have to put down needle and fry-pan and butter-paddle to feed them so plum full of compliments that they'll strut for a week. Bless my heart, honeybunch, we have all got to turn around twice in each track to get ready, and as I'm pretty hefty I must begin right now." With this remark, Aunt Mary departed from the back door to her house on the hill and sent me out the front to Elmnest opposite.
"I thought that there was some reason why Pan and I both chose to wear Roycroft clothes. Mr. and Mrs. Spain are in love after eight children," I remarked to myself happily. "I am in agony in any shoes Pan doesn't make. I wonder if any woman ever before was as much in love with a man about whom she knew so little—and so much as I do about Adam."
"I don't want to know about him—I want to love him," I answered myself as I walked up the long elm avenue. Afterwards I recalled those words to myself, and they were bitter instead of sweet.
CHAPTER X
Friday, the twenty-first of April, I shall always remember as the busiest day of my life, for, as Aunt Mary had said, it takes time to bank fires enough to keep a farm alive a whole half day even if it is not running. I did all my usual work with my small folk, and then I measured and poured out in different receptacles their existence for the last half of the next day. After breakfast on Saturday I finally decided upon Uncle Cradd as the most trustworthy person of the three ancients, one of whom I was obliged to depend upon for substitution. Rufus, I felt sure, would compromise by feeding every ration to the hogs, and I knew that he could persuade father to do likewise, but Uncle Cradd, I felt, would bring moral force to bear upon the situation.