orated the barrels with
various grotesque figures, the ungainly fruit of his imagination. This
boy's work with that piece of red chalk had an effect upon the future of
John Appleman.

So things drifted, the whisky in the cave getting a little older, the
friction between John Appleman and his more business-like wife getting
somewhat more vigorous and emitting more domestic sparks, until there
came a change to every one. The farmer, who had read of martial music,
heard with his own ears the roll of the drum and the shrieking,
encouraging call of the fife. War was on, and good men abandoned homes
and families and surroundings because of what we call patriotism and
principle. As for John Appleman, he was among the very first to enlist.
He went into the army blithely. It is to be feared that John Appleman,
like many a worthier man, preferred the various conditions appertaining
to the tented field and the field of battle to that narrower scene of
conflict called the home. Before leaving, however, he crept into the
cave and varnished those two barrels with exceeding thoroughness.

"That will rather modify the process of evaporation. There will be good
whisky there when I come home next year," he said.

John Appleman went to the war with a Michigan regiment, and it is but
justice to him to say that he made an amazingly good soldier. He was
made corporal and sergeant, and later second lieutenant, and filled that
position gallantly until the war ended. That was his record in the great
struggle. Meanwhile his home relations had somewhat changed.

Rather happier in the army than on the farm, John Appleman had felt a
sense of half-gratitude that there had been no objection to his
departure, and for months after he left Michigan he sent most of his
soldier's pay home to his wife. Then came promotion and little attendant
expenses, and he sent less. There came no letter, and after a while he
sent nothing at all. "They have a good farm there which should support
them," so he said to himself; "as for me, I am a poor fellow battling
along down here, and what little I get I need." There ceased to be any
remittances, and there ceased to be any correspondence.

The war ended and John Appleman was free again; but he had a personal
acquaintance with a friend of the Confederate Major John Edwards of
Missouri, the right-hand man of the daring General Joe Shelby. There
were meetings and an exchange of plans and confidences, and the end of
it