e new year came, bringing with it silks and jewels, and the double
wedding. If I write that I am married, I must add that I am still
without a sewing-machine. To me the garden has been better than the
needle.

There is a moral to be drawn from all that I have written, wherein it
may be seen that the field of my choice is wide enough for many others.
If I retire from market as a strawberry-girl, it must not be inferred
that it is because the business has been overdone.

JOHN JORDAN,

FROM THE HEAD OF BAINE.

Among the many brave men who have taken part in this war,--whose dying
embers are now being trodden out by a "poor white man,"--none, perhaps,
have done more service to the country, or won less glory for themselves,
than the "poor whites" who have acted as scouts for the Union armies.
The issue of battles, the result of campaigns, and the possession of
wide districts of country, have often depended on their sagacity, or
been determined by the information they have gathered; and yet they have
seldom been heard of in the newspapers, and may never be read of in
history.

Romantic, thrilling, and sometimes laughable adventures have attended
the operations of the scouts of both sections; but more difficulty and
danger have undoubtedly been encountered by the partisans of the North
than of the South. Operating mostly within the circle of their own
acquaintance, the latter have usually been aided and harbored by the
Southern people, who, generally friendly to Secession, have themselves
often acted as spies, and conveyed dispatches across districts occupied
by our armies, and inaccessible to any but supposed loyal citizens.

The service rendered the South by these volunteer scouts has often been
of the most important character. One stormy night, early in the war, a
young woman set out from a garrisoned town to visit a sick uncle
residing a short distance in the country. The sick uncle, mounting his
horse at midnight, rode twenty miles in the rain to Forrest's
head-quarters. The result was, the important town of Murfreesboro' and a
promising Major-General fell into the hands of the Confederates; and all
because the said Major-General permitted a pretty woman to pass his
lines on "a mission of mercy."

At another time, a Rebel citizen, professing disgust with Secession for
having the weakness to be on "its last legs," took the oath of
allegiance and assumed the Union uniform. Informing himself fully of the
dis