hile bullets were hailing and light
field-pieces were cracking. At length it grew quiet.

The owner of a handsome store on the principal street, over which was a
large sign, "Men's and Boys' Clothes," peeping out, saw a Confederate
major ride up to the door, which had been hastily fastened when the
fight began, and rap on it with the handle of his sword. There was
something in the rap that was imperative, and the owner hastily opened
the door. The officer entered.

"Good evening." He looked all about him. "Ah!" He picked up a little
uniform suit of blue cloth with brass buttons.

"You have no gray ones?" he asked with a smile.

"No, sir. No use for 'em."

"What is the price of this?"

"Ten dollars," stammered the shopkeeper. "But you can have it for
nothing if you will keep your men from troubling me."

To his astonishment, the Confederate officer put his hand in his pocket
and laid a ten-dollar gold piece on the counter.

"Now show me where there is a toy-shop."

There was one only a few doors off, and the shopkeeper was most eager
to show it. But the officer said he could find it. He went out.

The Major found and selected a boy's sword handsomely ornamented, and
the most beautiful doll, over whose eyes stole the whitest of roseleaf
eyelids, and which could talk as dolls talk, and do other wonderful
things. He astonished this shopkeeper also by laying down another
gold-piece. This left him but two or three more of the proceeds of his
year's pay, and these he soon handed over a counter to a jeweller, who
gave him a small package in exchange. He smiled and chatted so
pleasantly with the men that when he left the shopkeepers all had new
ideas of at least one "Rebel" officer.

All during the remainder of the campaign Colonel Stafford carried a
package carefully sealed and strapped on behind his saddle. His care
of it and his secrecy about it were the subjects of many jests among
his friends in the brigade, and when in an engagement his horse was
shot, and the Colonel, under a hot fire, stopped and calmly unbuckled
his bundle, and during the rest of the fight carried it in his hand,
there was a clamor afterward that he should disclose the contents.
Even an offer to sing them a song would not appease his friends, though
the Colonel had the best voice in the brigade. They must know his
secret.

The brigade officers were gathered around a camp-fire that night on the
edge of the bloody field. A F