Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1898-11-04
THE LECTHE BRAviST'
Henry shelton.
:. by the Author.1

mstriuus citizens.
-Four times year the school children
came together on the steps of the church
to see the colonel, the major and the cap
tain ride solemnly out of town on their
long tailed horses, with their pension
vouchers buttoned securely under their
medals over their scars, and then the
boys, fired by military ardor, commonly
ran in a body to the little red cannon
house at the end of the village street,
where they jostled and shouldered each
other at the keyhole and caught such
glimpses as they could of the grim old
Union gun in the shadowy interior. 1t
was all that had been left of the cap
tain's battery, and everybody knew how
the captain had stuck by that gun. Aft.
er the war was over the people at Wash
ington had given him the gun for his
own. The captain carried the key in his
pocket, and on holidays if the boys had
been good, he unlocked the doors and
took them in to see his pet.
Every body knew that the colonel had
lost his leg at Chancellorsville, that the
major 5 eye had been shot out at Cedar
Mountain and that the captain had
worn an empty sleeve since the battle of
Gettysburg.
The three had gone away in the same
company, of which the colonel was
captain, and they had come back hors
de combat at various times during the
progress of the war, just as Providence
and the disabling wound had decreed
Major Peck, who had been the first to
return, had taken his fathers place as
landlord of the village tavern, which
was temperance house, hung up his
sword i'll the Office and turned his mys-
terious glass eye ON the travelling pub.
lie, which was very small public in.
deed
Next in turn came Colonel Rose on
his crutches just in time to limp into
the vacant postoffice, where, under
president after president, he had sorted
the letters, and nobody had dreamed of
turning him out.
Captain Bissell. who had come last,
had been promptly made sexton of the
little Episcopal church where the
colonel read the sermon every Sunday
morning and had been promoted at once
to the equally honorable duty of reading
the prayers.
Three more gentle, simple minded,
easy going citizens than the colonel, the
major and the captain were not to be
found in all the town. They were mod
estly conscious that they had only done
their duty, and the major, who was by
nature q timid man, concealed in his
breast a profound secret which was
known only to the colonel.
Nothing, however, in the minds of
the villagers any more than in the minds
of the boys could divest the three Grip
Piled soldiers of the smell of powder and
the din of battle. From the first they
had been regarded as heroes of eXtraor-
binary courage, and like sensible men
they accepted the honors and the offices
which everybody said they had earned.
Soon after the colonel came into the
postotiice he had been elected by an
overwhelming majority to be supervisor
Of the township and the major natural
ly came to be perpetual justice of the
peace, because the long ballroom in the
tavern was the only suitable place in
which to hold court Then as the two
positions held by the captain were with
out pay or perquisites of any kind the
voice of the villagers as one man, wom-
an and child demanded that he should
teach the village school, and a well dis
ciplined school it was, where no winter
boy ever rose in his might to try con-
illusions with the master.
All these events followed each other
in the most natural way at Round Hill,
and then came the liberal pensions, to-
gether with periodical allowances for a
leg, an arm and an eye, and the money
flowed into the circulation of the viii
lage, and the three officers were more
firmly in the saddle than ever, so that
when the captain rang the church bell
at O'Clock in the evening it had all
the military authority of tattoo, and the
lights soon faded out of the cham Der
windows as if the town had been under
martial law. The people dreamed and
snored and slept as securely in their
beds as if the colonel had been sitting
on his horse all night at one end of the
street and the major at the other, with
the captain standing at the trail of his
gun in the starlight down by the can
non house. Round Hill was such mil
itary town that the people never shook
hands. They stood at attention and sa-
luted each other just as the captain
saluted the colonel. When they turned
about, they always turned to the right,
like the major by putting the right foot
behind the left and coming round ON
their heels.
The colonel, the major and the cap
tain had it all their own way and were
loved and respected and obeyed until
they grew old and died and were buried
in the side hill churohyard. The colonel
had the right of the line, and the three
were dressed on each other and faced to
the front ready for the last roll call,
and now that they were gone the people
were prouder than ever of their record.
They had been such heroes, each in his
own way, that no one could say which
had been the bravest
A few of the older men in the village
remembered when the three officers had
been boys in the Round Hill school to-
gether and how they had hunted for
pennies under the tavern steps in their
time and swung ON the boot of the four
horse stage and laughed out loud in
school at the sound Of the drivers horn
and how they had fought their small
battles never dreaming that when they
grew up they should take part in the