`` Our greatest local event in recent weeks was the route march the county battalion made through the county before it left for overseas . They marched from Charlottetown to Lowbridge , then round the Harbour Head and through the Upper Glen and so down to the St. Mary station . Everybody turned out to see them , except old Aunt Fannie Clow , who is bedridden and Mr. Pryor , who had n't been seen out even in church since the night of the Union Prayer Meeting the previous week . `` It was wonderful and heartbreaking to see that battalion marching past . There were young men and middle-aged men in it . There was Laurie McAllister from over-harbour who is only sixteen but swore he was eighteen , so that he could enlist ; and there was Angus Mackenzie , from the Upper Glen who is fifty-five if he is a day and swore he was forty-four . There were two South African veterans from Lowbridge , and the three eighteen-year-old Baxter triplets from Harbour Head . Everybody cheered as they went by , and they cheered Foster Booth , who is forty , walking side by side with his son Charley who is twenty . Charley 's mother died when he was born , and when Charley enlisted Foster said he 'd never yet let Charley go anywhere he dare n't go himself , and he did n't mean to begin with the Flanders trenches . At the station Dog Monday nearly went out of his head . He tore about and sent messages to Jem by them all . Mr. Meredith read an address and Reta Crawford recited ` The Piper . ' The soldiers cheered her like mad and cried ` We 'll follow -- we 'll follow -- we wo n't break faith , ' and I felt so proud to think that it was my dear brother who had written such a wonderful , heart-stirring thing . And then I looked at the khaki ranks and wondered if those tall fellows in uniform could be the boys I 've laughed with and played with and danced with and teased all my life . Something seems to have touched them and set them apart . They have heard the Piper 's call . `` Fred Arnold was in the battalion and I felt dreadfully about him , for I realized that it was because of me that he was going away with such a sorrowful expression . I could n't help it but I felt as badly as if I could . `` The last evening of his leave Fred came up to Ingleside and told me he loved me and asked me if I would promise to marry him some day , if he ever came back . He was desperately in earnest and I felt more wretched than I ever did in my life .
I could n't promise him that -- why , even if there was no question XXXXX Ken , I do n't care for Fred that way and never could -- but it seemed so cruel and heartless to send him away to the front without any hope of comfort .
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