up and down moodily (only
inmates of the same room are allowed to descend together, so that you
gain no social advantage), when just over my head, from a window on the
first story, there broke out a burst of merriment, and a
half-intelligible trill of baby-language; then a little round pink face,
under a cloud of fair hair, peered out at me through the bars. The utter
incongruity of the whole picture struck me so absurdly, that, I believe,
I did indulge in a dreary laugh. Then the child began to talk again; and
clapped its hands exultingly, as its mother caught an orange I threw up
at her, when the sentinel's back was turned. So a sort of acquaintance
began. Every day for a month, I saw that promising two-year-old (to
whose sex I cannot speak with certainty); and I never heard it fretting
or wailing. Whenever it saw me, it used to break out into a real
uproarious laugh, as if our common imprisonment was the very best joke
that had ever been presented to its infantile mind. I am ashamed to
avow, that my own sense of the ridiculous was by no means so keen. The
mother evidently pined far more than the baby; for her face grew, every
day, more white and worn. What was the offense of either against the
Government, I never heard; for no official or soldier will answer any
question, and discourse between the prisoners is strictly forbidden.
They went South, in the great exodus of the 20th of May. I contrived on
that morning, with much cunning, to cast in six or seven oranges at
their window, which, I hope, solaced those two Gentle Traytours through
the burden and heat of the day.

Till I got too sulky and savage to seek unnecessary intercourse with any
one, I found occasional amusement in chaffing the sentinels. The orders
against conversation with these were not rigidly enforced. Finding that
they rose very freely to the bait of a strained ironical politeness, I
used to beg them to tell off by sections, the victims of their red right
hands--chickens and ducks not being counted; also, I was fain to learn,
how many rebel standards and pieces of cannon each man had captured and
retained? If they took no credit for any such feats, I would by no means
believe them, imputing the denial solely to the modesty inseparable from
true courage.

Descending into the yard, one day, I found the sentry--an overgrown lad,
with broad, crimson, beardless cheeks--in a perfect paroxysm of
excitement, using great freedom of gesticulation and blasph