His mind slipped back two months. He saw himself In the cool room at Weatherby’s Retreat Where all the girls were sewing the new star In the new flag for the first volunteers. He hadn’t thought of fighting much before, He was too easy-going. If Virginia Wanted secession, that was her affair. It seemed too bad to break the Union up After some seventy years of housekeeping. But he could understand the way you’d feel If you were thin and angry at the Yanks. He knew a lot of Yankees that he liked, But then he liked most people, on the whole Although most girls and women made him shy. He loved the look of them and the way they walked, He loved their voices and their little sweet mouths, But something always seemed to hold him back, When he was near them. He was too fat, too friendly, Too comfortable for dreams, too easy-shy. The porcelain dolls stood on the mantelpiece, Waiting such slim and arrant cavaliers As porcelain dolls must have to make them proud, They had no mercy for fat Cupidons,