THE COUNTRY BOY 129 



came finally, out of breath, and we were half 

 an hour late, so we went to the church on 

 double quick march, backed up to the church 

 solemnly and started for the graveyard down 

 below town. No. 21 in the old book happened 

 to be our favorite quickstep, so when the 

 leader yelled No. 21, the town members turned 

 to the dirge and the countries turned to the 

 quickstep. We had been playing about half 

 a mile when I noticed there was something 

 wrong; we didn't just seem to swing right. 

 It was hard for some of the old soldiers to 

 keep step. At the graveyard there was a big 

 crowd waiting and me playing the snare 

 drum, which was muffled in black. I could 

 look around, and I saw by the expression of 

 Jake McClaine's face that there was something 

 wrong. We were game, though, and played 

 right up until we surrounded the grave, and 

 stopped. There were two bass players, one 

 from town and one from the hills, and they 

 made a peculiar contrast. Nobody mentioned 

 it, but the joke was out and an old soldier with 

 a wooden leg said to Jake, "No wonder I 

 couldn't keep step, when I used to in the army 



