pon manhood of the youths who were
fortunate enough to enjoy it. There smoking was admissible, there the
guns were kept in the corner, and there the dogs were allowed to
sleep at the feet of their young masters, or in bed with them, if they
preferred it.

In one of the rooms in this building the boys went to school whilst
small, and another they looked forward to having as their own when
they should be old enough to be elevated to the coveted dignity of
sleeping in the Office. Hugh already slept there, and gave himself
airs in proportion; but Hugh they regarded as a very aged person; not
as old, it was true, as their cousins who came down from college at
Christmas, and who, at the first outbreak of war, all rushed into the
army; but each of these was in the boys' eyes a Methuselah. Hugh had
his own horse and the double-barrelled gun, and when a fellow got
those there was little material difference between him and other men,
even if he did have to go to the academy,--which was really something
like going to school.

The boys were Frank and Willy; Frank being the eldest. They went by
several names on the place. Their mother called them her "little men,"
with much pride; Uncle Balla spoke of them as "them chillern," which
generally implied something of reproach; and Lucy Ann, who had been
taken into the house to "run after" them when they were little boys,
always coupled their names as "Frank 'n' Willy." Peter and Cole did
the same when their mistress was not by.

When there first began to be talk at Oakland about the war, the boys
thought it would be a dreadful thing; their principal ideas about war
being formed from an intimate acquaintance with the Bible and its
accounts of the wars of the Children of Israel, in which men, women
and children were invariably put to the sword. This gave a vivid
conception of its horrors.

One evening, in the midst of a discussion about the approaching
crisis, Willy astonished the company, who were discussing the merits
of probable leaders of the Union armies, by suddenly announcing that
he'd "bet they didn't have any general who could beat Joab."

Up to the time of the war, the boys had led a very uneventful, but a
very pleasant life. They used to go hunting with Hugh, their older
brother, when he would let them go, and after the cows with Peter and
Cole. Old Balla, the driver, was their boon comrade and adviser, and
taught them to make whips, and traps for hares and birds, as he ha