FORE:Other girls were there with their fathers and mothers who had brothers who had been in the three months' service, or were now in three years regiments, or who had been discharged on account of disability, or who had been in this battle or that, but none of them a brother who had distinguished himself in the terrible battle about which everybody was now talking, who had helped capture a rebel flag, who had been wounded almost to death, who had been reported dead, and who was now coming home, a still living evidence of all this. No boy who had gone from Bean Blossom Creek neighborhood had made the figure in the public eye that Si had, and Maria was not the girl to hide the light of his achievements under a bushel. She was genially fraternal with those girls who had brothers still in the service, affable to those whose brothers had been in, but were now, for any reason, out, but only distantly civil to those whose brothers had not enlisted. Of these last was Arabella Widgeon, whose father had been one of the earliest immigrants to the Wabash, and was somewhat inclined to boast of his Old Virginia family. He owned a larger farm than the Deacon's, and Arabella, who was a large, showy girl, a year or two older than Maria, had been her schoolmate, and, Maria thought, disposed to "put on airs" over her. Arabella's brother Randolph was older than Si, but had chosen to continue his studies at Indianapolis rather than engage in "a war to free the niggers." But Arabella had developed an interest in the war since she had met some engaging young gentlemen who had come through the neighborhood on recruiting duty, and was keeping up a fitful correspondence with two or three of them.He led off with the long march stride of the veteran, and began threading his way through the maze of teams, batteries, herds, and marching men and stragglers with the ease and certainty born of long acquaintance with crowded camps. He dodged around a regiment here, avoided a train there, and slipped through a marching battery at the next place with a swift, unresting progress that quickly took away the boys' wind and made them pant with the exertion of keeping up.
