my heart, I would never wish to see such things again!

"The old man would never waste a bit of victuals, as you know, Miss
'Rema; and, being acquaint with Suan's way of watching, he had
slipped all his supper aside from his plate, and put it on a clean
pocket-handkerchief to lock it in the press till his appetite should
serve; and I caught him in the act, and it vexed him. 'Ha'n't you the
manners to knock at the door?' he said; and I said, 'Certainly,' and
went back and done it; and, troubled as he was, he grinned a bit. Then
he bowed his great head, as he always did when he knew he had gone
perhaps a trifle too far with a man in my position. I nodded to forgive
him, and he stood across, and saw that he could do no less than liquor
me, after such behavior. But he only brought out one glass; and I said,
'Come, Colonel, square is square, you know.' 'Excuse of me, Martin,' he
said; 'but no drop of strong drink passes the brim of my mouth till this
gallivanting is done with. I might take too much, as the old men do,
to sink what they don't want to think on.' 'You mean about bully-cock
Firm,' says I; 'rebel Firm--nigger-driver Firm.' 'Hush!' he said; 'no
bad words about it. He has gone by his conscience and his heart. What do
we know of what come inside of him?'

"This was true enough, for I never did make that boy out to my liking:
and the old man now was as stiff as a rock, and pretty nigh as peculiar.
He made me a cocktail of his own patent, to show how firm his hand was;
but the lines of his face was like wainscot mouldings, and the cords of
his arm stood out like cogs. Then he took his long pipe, as he may have
done perhaps every blessed night for the last fifty years; but that
length of time ought to have learned him better than to go for to fill
it upside down. 'Ha, ha!' he said; 'every thing is upside down since I
was a man under heaven--countries and nations and kindreds and duties;
and why not a old tobacco-pipe? That's the way babies blow bubbles with
them. We shall all have to smoke 'em that way if our noble republic is
busted up. Fill yours, and try it, Martin.'

"Instead of enjoying my cocktail, Miss 'Rema, I never was so down at
mouth; for, to my mind, his old heart was broken while he carried on so.
And let every body say what they will, one thing there is no denying of.
Never was seen on this side of the big hills a man fit to walk in the
tracks of Uncle Sam, so large and good-hearted according to his lig