attle-fields. Him, therefore, I sent
to engage, with his horse and buggy, for the following day.

Breakfast was scarcely over the next morning, when, as I chanced to look
from my hotel window, I saw a thin-faced countryman drive up to the door
in an old one-horse wagon with two seats and a box half filled with
corn-stalks. I was admiring the anatomy of the horse, every prominent
bone of which could be counted through his skin, when I heard the man
inquiring for me. It was Elijah, with his "horse and buggy."

I was inclined to criticize the establishment, which was not altogether
what I had been led to expect.

"I allow he a'n't a fust-class hoss," said Elijah. "Only give three
dollars for him. Feed is skurce and high. But let him rest this winter,
and git some meal in him, and he'll make a plough crack next spring."

"What are you going to do with those corn-stalks?"

"Fodder for the hoss. They're all the fodder he'll git till night; for
we're go'n' into a country whar thar's noth'n' mo' for an animal to eat
than thar is on the palm of my hand."

I took a seat beside him, and made use of the stalks by placing a couple
of bundles between my back and the sharp board which travellers were
expected to lean against. Elijah cracked his whip, the horse frisked his
tail, and struck into a cow-trot which pleased him.

"You see, he'll snake us over the ground right peart!"

He proceeded to tantalize me by telling what a mule he had, and what a
little mare he had, at home.

"She certainly goes over the ground! I believe she can run ekal to
anything in this country for about a mile. But she's got a set of legs
under her jest like a sheep's legs."

He could not say enough in praise of the mule.

"Paid eight hundred dollars for him in Confederate money. He earned a
living for the whole family last winter. I used to go reg'lar up to
Chancellorsville and the Wilderness, buy up a box of clothing, and go
down in Essex and trade it off for corn."

"What sort of clothing?"

"Soldiers' clothes, from the battle-fields. Some was flung away, and
some, I suppose, was stripped off the dead. Any number of families jest
lived on what they got from the Union armies in that way. They'd pick up
what garments they could lay hands on, wash 'em up, and sell 'em. I'd
take a blanket, and git half a bushel of meal for it down in Essex. Then
I'd bring the meal back, and git may-be two blankets, or a blanket and a
coat, for it. All with that l