Thoreau writes in his journal:
I hear the sound of the fife and drum the other side of the village, and am reminded that it is May Training. Some thirty young men are marching in the streets in two straight sections, with each a very heavy and warm cap for the season on his head and a bright red stripe down the edge of his pantaloons, and at their head march two with white stripes down their pants, one beating a drum, the other blowing a fife.
