nt question was propounded to him, he ceased from
his whittling labours, and, burying the blade deep between his ivories,
looked out of the window with an authoritative air, apparently
endeavouring, first, to ascertain what depth of snow was on the ground,
and then, by an upward glance, to calculate how much more was likely to
follow. Having duly weighed these points, and having perfected the
channel between his ivories, he sucked the friendly blade, and replied,
with a stoical indifference--which, considering my anxiety, might almost
be styled heartless--"I guess, if it goes on snowing like this, you'll
have no cars here to-morrow at all." Then, craning up to the heavens, as
if seeking for the confirmation of a more terrible prophecy, he added,
"By the looks of it, I think the gem'men may be fixed here for a week."
Having delivered himself of the foregoing consolatory observation, and
duly discharged a shower of Virginia juice on the floor, the military
authority resumed his whittling labours with increased vigour. His
occupation involuntarily carried my mind across the water to a
country-house, where I had so often seen an old blind friend amusing
himself, by tearing up paper into small pieces, to make pillows for the
poor. If the gallant Colonel would only substitute this occupation for
whittling, what good might he not do in Harrisburg!

I am happy to say that my Job's comforter turned out a false prophet;
snow soon gave place to sleet, and sleet to rain, and before midnight
the muck was complete. Next morning, at three, we got into the 'bus, and
soon after four the cars came in, and we found ourselves once more _en
route_ for Pittsburg. I think this was about the most disagreeable day's
journey I ever had. The mixture of human and metallic heat, the chorus
of infantine squallers--who kept responding to one another from all
parts of the car, like so many dogs in an eastern city--and the
intervals filled up by the hissing on the stove of the Virginia juice,
were unpleasant enough; but even the elements combined against us. The
rain and the snow were fighting together, and producing that slushiness
of atmosphere which obscures all scenery; added to which, the
unfortunate foreknowledge that we were doomed to fifteen or sixteen
hours of these combinations of misery, made it indeed a wretched day. My
only resource was to open a window, which the moment I attempted, a
hulking fellow, swaddled up in coats and comforters, an