This unwonted occurrence burned itself into the daughter's imagination,
and when she came as a bride to the Bascom house she refurnished
the sitting-room as a kind of monument to the departed soldier,
whose sword and musket were now tied to the wall with neatly hemmed bows
of bright red cotton.
The chair cushions were of red-and-white glazed patch,
the turkey wings that served as hearth brushes were hung against
the white-painted chimney-piece with blue skirt braid, and the white
shades were finished with home-made scarlet "tossels."
A little whatnot in one corner was laden with the trophies of battle.
The warrior's brass buttons were strung on a red picture cord and hung
over his daguerreotype on the upper shelf; there was a tarnished
shoulder strap, and a flattened bullet that the captain's jealous
contemporaries swore _he_ never stopped, unless he got it in the rear
when he was flying from the foe. There was also a little tin
canister in which a charge of powder had been sacredly preserved.
The scoffers, again, said that "the cap'n put it in his musket
when he went into the war, and kep' it there till he come out.
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