oke
with great disgust of an effort which had been made by certain
"Copperheads" of the town to have all the buried Rebels, now scattered
about in the woods and fields, gathered together in a cemetery near that
dedicated to our own dead.

"Yet consider, my friend," I said, "though they were altogether in the
wrong, and their cause was infernal, these, too, were brave men; and
under different circumstances, with no better hearts than they had, they
might have been lying in honored graves up yonder, instead of being
buried in heaps, like dead cattle, down here."

Is there not a better future for these men also? The time will come when
we shall at least cease to hate them.

The cicada was singing, insects were humming in the air, crows were
cawing in the tree-tops, the sunshine slept on the boughs or nestled in
the beds of brown leaves on the ground,--all so pleasant and so pensive,
I could have passed the day there. But John reminded me that night was
approaching, and we returned to Gettysburg.

That evening I walked alone to Cemetery Hill to see the sun set behind
the Blue Ridge. A quiet prevailed there still more profound than during
the day. The stonecutters had finished their day's work and gone home.
The katydids were singing, and the shrill, sad chirp of the crickets
welcomed the cool shades. The sun went down, and the stars came out and
shone upon the graves,--the same stars which were no doubt shining even
then upon many a vacant home and mourning heart left lonely by the
husbands, the fathers, the dear brothers and sons, who fell at
Gettysburg.

The next morning, according to agreement, I went to call on the old
hero. I found him living in the upper part of a little whitewashed
two-story house, on the corner of two streets, west of the town. A
flight of wooden steps outside took me to his door. He was there to
welcome me. John Burns is a stoutish, slightly bent, hale old man, with
a light blue eye, a long, aggressive nose, a firm-set mouth, expressive
of determination of character, and a choleric temperament. His hair,
originally dark brown, is considerably bleached with age; and his beard,
once sandy, covers his face (shaved once or twice a week) with a fine
crop of silver stubble. A short, massy kind of man; about five feet four
or five inches in height, I should judge. He was never measured but once
in his life. That was when he enlisted in the War of 1812. He was then
nineteen years old, and stood five