The Soldier of the Valley | Page 5

very loud, glaring at Mr.
Holmes.
"Oh, yes," Henry returned in a casual tone.
He thumped the floor again, and when the tittering had subsided, and
only the snuffling of Cevery Pulsifer broke the silence, he said: "In
jestice to Mr. Thomas, I am requested to explain that the address was
originally intended to be got off at the railroad. It was forgot by
accident, and him not havin' time to change it, he asks us to make
believe we are standin' alongside of the track at Pleasantville just as the
train comes in."
Isaac Bolum had fixed himself comfortably on two legs of his chair,
with the projecting soles of his boots caught behind the rung. Feet and

chair-legs came to the floor with a crash, and half rising from the seat,
one hand extended in appeal, the other at his right ear, forming a
trumpet, he shouted: "Mr. Chairman! Mr. Chairman!"
"This ain't a liter'ry meetin', Mr. Bolum. The floor is Mr. Thomas's, I
believe," said Henry with dignity.
"But I didn't catch the name of the station you said we was to imagine."
"I said Pleasantville," cried Henry angrily.
"I apologize," returned Isaac. "I thought you said Meadowville, and
never havin' been there, I didn't see how I could imagine the station."
"It seems to me, Isaac Bolum," retorted Henry with dignified asperity,
"that with your imagination you could conjure up a whole railroad
system, includin' the freight-yard. But Mr. Thomas has the floor."
"See here, Henery Holmes," cried Isaac, "it's all right for us old folks,
but there's the children. How can they imagine Pleasantville station
when some of 'em ain't yet seen a train?"
This routed even Henry Holmes. At the store he would never have
given in, but he was not accustomed to hearing so loud a murmur of
approval greet the opposition. He realized that he had been placed in a
false position by the importunities of Mr. Thomas, and to him he now
left the brunt of the trouble by stepping out of the illumined circle and
losing himself in the company.
The fire-swept zone had no terrors for Perry. With one hand thrust
between the first and second buttons of his coat, and the other raised in
that gesture with which the orator stills the sea of discontent, he
stepped forward, and turning slowly about, brought his eyes to bear on
the contumacious Bolum. He indicated the target. Every optic gun in
the room was levelled at it. The upraised hand, the potent silence, the
solemn gaze of a hundred eyes was too much for the old man to bear.
Slowly he swung back on two legs of his chair, caught the rungs again
with the projecting soles, turned his eyes to the ceiling, closed them,

and set himself to imagining the station at Pleasantville. The rout was
complete.
Perry wheeled and faced me. The hand was lowered slowly; four
fingers disappeared and one long one, one quivering one, remained, a
whip with which to chastise the prisoner at the bar.
"Mark Hope," he began, in a deep, rich, resonant voice, "we welcome
you home. We have come down from the valley, fourteen mile through
the blazin' noonday sun, fourteen mile over wind-swept roads, that you,
when agin you step on the soil of our beloved county, may step into
lovin' hands, outstretched to meet you and bid you welcome. Welcome
home--thrice welcome--agin I say, welcome!"
[Illustration: "Welcome home--thrice welcome!"]
Both of the orator's hands swung upward and outward, and he looked
intently at the ceiling. He seemed prepared to catch me as I leaped from
a second-story window. The pause as he stood there braced to receive
the body of the returning soldier as it hurtled at him, gave Isaac Bolum
an opportunity to be magnanimous. He clapped his hands and cheered.
In an instant his shrill cry was drowned in a burst of applause full of
spirit and heart, closing with a flourish of wails from Cevery Pulsifer
and the latest of the Kallabergers. Perry's arms fell gracefully to his
side and he inclined his head and half closed his eyes in
acknowledgment. Then turning to Isaac, measuring every word, in a
voice clear and cutting, his long forefinger shaking, he cried: "From the
bloody battlefields of Cuby, from her tropic camps where you suffered
and bled, you come home to us to-day. You have fought in the cause of
liberty. To your country you have give a limb--you----"
Poor Bolum! Awakened from the gentle doze into which he had fallen
the instant Cevery Pulsifer relieved him of the duty of leading the
applause, he brought his chair down on all four legs, and slapped both
knees violently. Satisfied that they were still there, he looked up at the
orator.
"You