XVIII
WHAT IS GREATER THAN PATRIOTISM?
JON and me were sitting on the front porch there, in our shirt-sleeves, one night, and Dave and Evelyn were out under the plum trees yonder, when the brass cornet band came along playing, "We Are Coming, Father Abraham, Three Hundred Thousand Strong." And there was a procession, with a banner telling that there was to be a meeting in town that night to raise a company of Union soldiers.
After the band had passed we sat still a long time. Jon was looking straight ahead and we could hear the voices of Dave and Evelyn. Mostly it was only the murmuring of two people in love. But now and then Dave's laugh would break out, and then Evelyn's—different, nicer—would join. At last we could hear Dave singing that:
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