“A long time ago. Now, if you are going to interrupt, I will not go on. It happened once upon a time, in the year eighteen hundred and sixty-four. There was a small boy—oh, about nine years old—and his name was Leonard. Of course people did not call him that; everybody has to have some short name. It would never do to call him Lenny, because that sounded girlish, like Jennie, so they called him Mick; you see, he had red hair and freckles just like a little Irishman.”
“Was he?” interrupted Martha Mary.
“Certainly not! He was an American. And he lived on a large farm and didn’t have much to do all day but build forts and shoot peas in a willow gun and fight heaps and heaps of make-believe enemies. His Father was a soldier, gone away to fight the Southerners, and the only reason he wasn’t perfectly happy was because he was not old enough to go to war himself. So he used to make-believe and he beat the Southerners almost every day. One morning he was in the chicken yard, fighting the hens with a wooden sword, and all at once he heard—— Guess what?”
“His Mother calling.”
“No, he heard real music, with fifes and drums and horns playing the most wonderful tune he had ever heard. He jumped up and rushed across the field as quickly as his short legs would carry him, stumbling all the time, because it was the kind of music a person tries to keep in step with. Down to the fence at the edge of the farm he went and way off down the road he saw a cloud of dust, coming nearer all the time, while the music grew louder and louder. It was so exciting that he became all hot and red and he cut his legs all up climbing on to the stone fence. There he sat until the cloud of dust came right across the field and he saw it was thousands and thousands of soldiers. But they weren’t like what he thought they would be; not at all like the way his Father looked when he marched away to war. They had no brass buttons or gold braid and their swords didn’t shine at all. They were all dirty and tired and hungry, but they walked just as lively as though they were on a picnic, and they danced—some of them—and cheered and sang the song that goes ‘while we were marching through Georgia.’”
“I know it,” said Martha Mary.
“I wish you would keep still,” said John. “This is a wonderful story.”
“Mary should know it,” said Father. “It’s a fine song. And so they tramped along, singing as loud as they could, and if you had heard them you wouldn’t have been able to keep still, either. Well, Mick was very much excited. He jumped up and down on the stone wall, waving his hat and almost crying, he was so happy. Then, what do you think? He jumped so much that he tumbled off the wall and right into the road. It hurt awfully, too, but he couldn’t cry, because all the soldiers would see him and he was a soldier’s son. He just lay still and bit his lower lip. Then the most wonderful thing happened. A big man rode along and saw Mick, and he swung his sword above his head so it shone in the sun, even if it was all rusty.
“‘Halt!’ he shouted, and all the soldiers stood still.
“The big man jumped off his horse and picked up Mick and said: