COMMUNITY AND COUNTRY

Happy are all free peoples too strong to be dispossessed;

But blessed are those among nations who dare to be strong for the rest!

– ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

THE MAN WITH HIS HAT IN HIS HAND

BY CLARK HOWELL

This is a story of the Great War. To train the volunteer and drafted soldiers, our government established cantonments in many places. One of these, Camp Gordon, was near Atlanta, and it was in that camp that the incident related occurred. It is a fine illustration of the spirit that makes our democracy possible.

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HE Twenty-ninth Regiment of United States Volunteers was quartered at Atlanta. They had received orders for their departure. The troops were formed in full regimental parade in the presence of thousands of 5 spectators, among whom were anxious and weeping mothers, loving sisters and sweethearts, and a vast multitude of others who had gone to look, possibly for the last time, upon departing friends.

Of the enlisted men a great percentage were from Georgia, 10 most of them from simple farmhouses and the quiet and unpretentious hearthstones which abound in the rural communities. A few had seen service in Cuba, but most of them had volunteered as raw recruits from the farm. There were sturdy and rugged mountaineers from the Blue Ridge 15 counties strong, steady, and intrepid, with the simplicity characteristic of the mountain fastnesses from which they came. There were boys from the wire grass-plain, unassuming, and unaffected, their eyes lighted with the fire of determination and their hearts beating in unison with 20 the loyalty of their purpose. The men moved like machines. The regiment of raw recruits had become in a

few months a command of trained and disciplined soldiers. The very air was fraught with the impressive significance of the scene, which had its counterpart in many of the states where patriots enlisted faster than the muster roll was called.

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Leaning against a tree was a white-haired mountaineer who looked with intent eyes and with an expression of the keenest sympathy upon the movements of the men in uniform. His gaze was riveted on the regiment, and the frequent applause of the visiting multitude fell apparently 10 unheard on his ears. The regiment had finished its evolutions; the commissioned officers had lined themselves to make their regulation march to the front for their report and dismissal. The bugler had sounded the signal; the artillery had belched its adieu as the king of day withdrew beyond 15 the hills; the halyard had been grasped, and the flag slowly fell, saluting the retiring sun. As the flag started its descent the scene was characterized by a solemnity that seemed sacred in its intensity. From the regimental band there floated The Star-Spangled Banner. Instinctively 20 and apparently unconsciously, the old man by the tree removed his hat from his head and held it in his hand in reverential recognition until the flag had been furled and the last strain of the national anthem had been lost in the resonant tramp of the troops as they left the field.

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What a picture that was the man with his hat in his hand, as he stood uncovered during that impressive ceremony! I moved involuntarily toward him, and impressed with his reverential attitude, I asked him where he was from. "I am," said he, "from Pickens County"; and in 30 casual conversation it developed that this raw mountaineer had come to Atlanta to say farewell to an only son who

THE MAN WITH HIS HAT IN HIS HAND 375 stood in line before him and upon whom his tear-bedimmed eyes might then be resting for the last time. The silent exhibition of patriotism and loyalty had been prompted by a soul as rugged but as placid as the great blue moun5 tains which gave it birth and by an inspiration kindled from the very bosom of nature itself.

There was the connecting link between the hearthstone and the capitol. There was the citizen who, representing the only real, substantial element of the nation's reserve 10 strength - "the citizen standing in the doorway of the home, contented on his threshold" - had answered his

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country's call the man of whom Henry Grady so eloquently said: "He shall save the Republic when the drum tap is futile and the barracks are exhausted." There was that in the spontaneous action of the man that spoke of hardships to be endured and dangers to be dared for country's sake; there was that in his reverential attitude that said, even though the libation of his heart's blood should be required in far-off lands, his life would be laid down as lightly as his hat was lifted to his country's call. Denied by age the privilege of sharing the hardships and the dangers of the comrades of his boy, no rule could regulate his patriotic ardor, no limitation could restrain the instincts of his homage.

1. Why was "The Man" present when the soldiers were preparing to break camp? What was there about him that attracted Mr. Howell's attention?

2. Read the lines of the story upon which the picture on page 372 is based. Is the picture a fair illustration of the scene as you imagine it ?

3. Select another title for the story that will also refer to "The Man." What do you think of the present title?

4. Read the last paragraph aloud and tell what it means to you.