It was one of the great crowds of Carlow's history. They had known since
morning that he was coming home, and the gentlemen of the Reception
Committee had some busy hours; but long before the train arrived,
everything was ready. Homer Tibbs had done his work well at Beaver, and
the gray-haired veterans of a battery Carlow had sent out in '61 had
placed their worn old gun in position to fire salutes. At one-o'clock,
immediately after the nomination had been made unanimous, the Harkless
Clubs of Carlow, Amo, and Gaines, secretly organized during the quiet
agitation preceding the convention, formed on parade in the court-house
yard, and, with the Plattville Band at their head, paraded the streets to
the station, to make sure of being on hand when the train arrived--it was
due in a couple of hours. There they were joined by an increasing number
of glad enthusiasts, all noisy, exhilarated, red-faced with shouting, and
patriotically happy. As Mr. Bence, himself the spoiled child of another
county, generously said, in a speech, which (with no outrageous pressure)
he was induced to make during the long wait: "The favorite son of Carlow
is returning to his Lares and Penates like another Cincinnatus accepting
the call of the people; and, for the first time in sixteen years, Carlow
shall have a representative to bear the banner of this district and the
flaming torch of Progress sweeping on to Washington and triumph like a
speedy galleon of old. And his friends are here to take his hand and do
him homage, and the number of his friends is as the number given in the
last census of the population of the counties of this district!"

And, indeed, in this estimate the speaker seemed guilty of no great
exaggeration. A never intermittent procession of pedestrians and vehicles
made its way to the station; and every wagon, buckboard, buggy, and
cut-under had its flags or bunting, or streamer of ribbons tied to the
whip. The excitement increased as the time grew shorter; those on foot