Windy McPhersons Son | Page 8

thrusting out his chin. When he got to the front of the hall he took a roll of bills from his pocket and threw it on the platform at the chairman's feet. "From one of the boys of '61," he announced in a loud voice.
The crowd shouted and clapped its hands with delight as Telfer picked up the bills and ran his finger over them. "Seventeen dollars from our hero, the mighty McPherson," he shouted while the bank clerk wrote the name and the amount in the book and the crowd continued to make merry over the title given the drunken soldier by the chairman.
The boy on the window ledge slipped to the floor and stood with burning cheeks behind the mass of men. He knew that at home his mother was doing a family washing for Lesley, the shoe merchant, who had given five dollars to the Fourth-of-July fund, and the resentment he had felt on seeing his father talking to the crowd before the jewelry store blazed up anew.
After the taking of subscriptions, men in various parts of the hall began making suggestions for added features for the great day. To some of the speakers the crowd listened respectfully, at others they hooted. An old man with a grey beard told a long rambling story of a Fourth-of-July celebration of his boyhood. When voices interrupted he protested and shook his fist in the air, pale with indignation.
"Oh, sit down, old daddy," shouted Freedom Smith and a murmur of applause greeted this sensible suggestion.
Another man got up and began to talk. He had an idea. "We will have," he said, "a bugler mounted on a white horse who will ride through the town at dawn blowing the reveille. At midnight he will stand on the steps of the town hall and blow taps to end the day."
The crowd applauded. The idea had caught their fancy and had instantly taken a place in their minds as one of the real events of the day.
Again Windy McPherson emerged from the crowd at the back of the hall. Raising his hand for silence he told the crowd that he was a bugler, that he had been a regimental bugler for two years during the Civil War. He said that he would gladly volunteer for the place.
The crowd shouted and John Telfer waved his hand. "The white horse for you, McPherson," he said.
Sam McPherson wriggled along the wall and out at the now unbolted door. He was filled with astonishment at his father's folly, and was still more astonished at the folly of these other men in accepting his statement and handing over the important place for the big day. He knew that his father must have had some part in the war as he was a member of the G. A. R., but he had no faith at all in the stories he had heard him relate of his experiences in the war. Sometimes he caught himself wondering if there ever had been such a war and thought that it must be a lie like everything else in the life of Windy McPherson. For years he had wondered why some sensible solid person like Valmore or Wildman did not rise, and in a matter-of-fact way tell the world that no such thing as the Civil War had ever been fought, that it was merely a figment in the minds of pompous old men demanding unearned glory of their fellows. Now hurrying along the street with burning cheeks, he decided that after all there must have been such a war. He had had the same feeling about birthplaces and there could be no doubt that people were born. He had heard his father claim as his birthplace Kentucky, Texas, North Carolina, Louisiana and Scotland. The thing had left a kind of defect in his mind. To the end of his life when he heard a man tell the place of his birth he looked up suspiciously, and a shadow of doubt crossed his mind.
From the mass meeting Sam went home to his mother and presented the case bluntly. "The thing will have to be stopped," he declared, standing with blazing eyes before her washtub. "It is too public. He can't blow a bugle; I know he can't. The whole town will have another laugh at our expense."
Jane McPherson listened in silence to the boy's outburst, then, turning, went back to rubbing clothes, avoiding his eyes.
With his hands thrust into his trousers pocket Sam stared sullenly at the ground. A sense of justice told him not to press the matter, but as he walked away from the washtub and out at the kitchen door, he hoped there would be plain talk of the matter at supper time. "The old fool!" he protested, addressing the