Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/78

 up on the base of the monument, and showed you the bronze fighters, and at last, took you down into the crypt, on the brow of the little down that overlooks the cemetery.

There at last Colonel McKenzie stood beside the sarcophagus and after a while the custodian came to the end of his rigmarole, and, by some mercy, was still. And I stood aside and looked at the old Confederate officer, standing there in that cool entrance, beside the very tomb of Lincoln. He stood with his arms folded on his breast, his tall form slightly bent, his big hat in his hand, and his white head bowed; he stood there a long time, in the perfect silence of that June morning, with thoughts, I suppose, that might have made an epic.

When at last he turned away and went around to the front of the monument, and we were about to enter our carriage, he turned, and still uncovered, over the little gate in the low fence that enclosed the spot, he paused and gave his hand to the old custodian, and said:

"Colonel, I wish to express to you my appreciation of the privilege I have had this morning of paying my respects at the shrine of the greatest American that ever lived."

He said it solemnly and sincerely, and then, still holding the delighted old fellow's hand, he went on in profound gravity:

"And I cannot go away without expressing my sense of satisfaction in the eloquent oration you have delivered on this occasion. I was particularly im