Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-10-02

reared in q period when men didn't have
the time to be bored, and so they never
achieved the habit. There wasn't q par
ticle of manifest rld-weariness on view
from one end Of the line to the other.
They were here because they we're here;
the game looked good to them. and they
were playing 1t. That was their attitude.
There were several fife and drum corps
of old boys How the drummers did
whack the old snare drums. how the fifers
did shrill their fine, blood-thrilling, minor.
old fifey tunes. Somehow it set the blood
to tingling. All of the rains. and SHOWS.
and eclipses. and tariffs, and pomps, and
parades that have happened since the
clipper old drummers and filters drummed
and flied as mere beardless lads a-tramp-
ing off to the big war-and here they
were, still in tune with life still looking
forward, still pounding and shrilling the
fine old airs, on warmish autumn days
alongside sea which many of them had
never clapped eye on before; 1t was a
thought to make life seem heap less
brief. a heap less transitory. than 1t had
seemed before.
1t was odd to think of the sights those
old eyes had seen; the changes In SO
simple thing, for instance, as the
fashions.
their followers stepped kimberly along l
had a mental picture of how they mad
stepped along in the day OF their ard ss",
youth on their way 70 the great conflict.
and or now pretty girls Ill nOOpShHee-ii
hoopskirts.-had stepped from the Dor
dering crowds to bid them a. final good
bye; girls with funny little ringlets dan
Cling alongside their ears, and with poke
bonnets, and all that sort OF mid-victor-
ian thing. that looks SO quaint in repro
duction nowadays
49,
Well. ! had scarcely formed this picture
in my mind when, looking up the street, l
saw a bunch Of girls in hobble skirts.
trippins-and tripping Is about the word
for it-down the pavement, in order to get
a better view of the parade. What con-
trast-hoopskirts and hobble skirts! NO
wonder that q lot of the grizzled old
boys. as I noticed, sort o. grinned ana
Glanced at each other out of the corners
of their eyes, when they saw this bevy OF
,hobble-skirted girls coming down the
street. 1 lust know the old fellows were
thinking about how differently the girls
If their blithe youth were skirted! No
other thought possibly could have been
in their minds.
The old soldiers from the District OF
Columbia made a fine showing In the
bie parade. 1 think they were the nat
test lot in the line. with the exception
$3.50
York battalion was just about the sport
lest old boys anybody ever did see! The
New York old boys wore close-fitting
black frock coats, white spats-get that
and all the other haberdashery accouter-
ments and fitting Of dead-game old gen.
tlemen, and they swished their natty
walking sticks as If they'd been royal
marines out a-holidaying with. the idol
atrous girls! The gnarledest, beardedest,
stockiest and ruggedest looking men,
though, were from the middle western
states. The delegation from Michigan
looked like men fit to go out and go
through the whole war performance all
over again.
/ met up with lot of prominent G.
A r. men whom I hadn't clapped an
eve on since attending an encampment
for a newspaper about fifteen years ago.
Few of them looked a day older than
they'd looked fifteen years ago-Gen.
Riack. for one. a good many of them
had black and brown hair. just as they'd
rad fifteen years agO-and It wasn't the
black or brown of hair dye. either!
THE medical gentlemen who formulate
our modern hygienic systems must be
right. Of course. but somehow it seems
70 me that, whatever the youth-conserv-
Ing scheme OF these old men Of the civil
Mar may be, they are Fighter.
CLARENCE L. CULLEN.