ONE: And louder than the bolts of heaven,New emotions filled Si's and Shorty's breasts. They had been away from their regiment so long that they were acutely homesick to be back to it. Such is the magic of military discipline and association that their regimental flag had become the center of their universe, and the real people of their world the men who gathered around it. Everything and everybody else was subsidiary to that thing of wonderful sacredness"the regiment." They felt like wanderers who had been away for years, and were now returning to their proper home, friends, associations and vocation. Once more under the Flag life would become again what it should be, with proper objects of daily interest and the satisfactory performance of every-day duties. They really belonged in the regiment, and everywhere else were interlopers, sojourners, strangers in a strange land. They now sat together and talked of the regiment as they had formerly sat around the campfire with the other boys and talked of their far-away homes, their fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters and sweethearts.
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