The bands played,and all the people turned out to receive us.I marched up that Common so proud at the head of my troops,and we turned down into the town hall.Then they seated my soldiers down the center aisle and I sat down on the front seat.A great assembly ofpeople a hundred or two-—came in to fill the town hall,so that they stood up all around.Then the town officers came in and formed a half-circle.The mayor of the town sat in the middle of the platform.He was a man who had never held office before;but he was a good man,and his friends have told me that I might use this without giving them offense.He was a good man,but he thought an office made a man great.He came up and took his seat,adjusted his powerful spectacles,and looked around,when he suddenly spied me sitting there on the front seat.He came right forward on the platform and invited me up to sit with the town officers.No town officer ever took any notice of me before I went to war,except to advise the teacher to thrash me,and now I was invited up on the stand with the town officers.Oh my!the town mayor was then the emperor,the king of our day and our time.As I came up on the platform they gave me a chair about this far,I would say,from the front.
When I had got seated,the chairman of the Selectmen arose and came forward to the table,and we all supposed he would introduce the Congregational minister,who was the only orator in town,and that he would give the oration to the returning soldiers.But,friends,you should have seen the surprise which ran over the audience when they discovered that the old fellow was going to deliver that speech himself.Hehad never made a speech in his life,but he fell into the same error that hundreds of other men have fallen into.It seems so strange that a man won't learn must speak his piece as a boy if he in tends to be an orator when he is grown,but he seems to think all he has to do is to hold an office to be a great orator.
So he came up to the front,and brought with him a speech which he had learned by heart walking up and down the pasture,where he had frightened the cattle.He brought the manuscript with him and spread it out on the table so as to be sure he might see it.He adjusted his spectacles and leaned over it for a moment and marched back on that platform,and then came forward like this-—tramp,tramp,tramp.He must have studied the subject a great deal,when you come to think of it,because he assumed an"elocutionary"attitude.He rested heavily upon his left heel,threw back his shoulders,slightly advanced the right foot,opened the organs of speech,and advanced his right foot at an angle of forty-five.As he stood in that elocutionary attitude,friends,this is just the way that speech went.Some people say to me,"Don't you exaggerate?"That would be impossible.But I am here for the lesson and not for the story,and this is the way it went：
"Fellow-citizens-—"As soon as he hears his voice his fingers began to go like that,his knees began toshake,and then he trembled all over.choked and swallowed and came around to the table to look at the manuscript.Then he gathered himself up with clenched fists and came back："Fellow-citizens,we are Fellow-citizens,we are-—we are-—we are-—we are-—we are-—we are very happy-—we are vere happy-—we are very happy.We are very happy to welcome back to their native town these soldiers who have fought and bled-—and come back again to their native town.We are especially-—we are especially-we are especially.We are especially pleased to see with us to-day this young hero"（that meant me）——"this young hero who in imagination"（friends,remember he said that;if he had not said"in imagination"I would not be egotistic enough to refer to it at all）——"this young hero who in imagination we have seen leading-we have seen leading-—leading.We have seen leading his troops on to the deadly breach.We have seen his shining-—we have seen his shining-his shining-—his shining sword-—flashing.Flashing in the sunlight,as he shouted to his troops,Come on'！"