s like army slippers, and a
ponderous nose, was Columbus, Cato, or Cockelorum Tibby, the tragedian,
was more than I could tell. Several robust ladies attracted me; but
which was America and which Pocahontas was a mystery; for all affected
much looseness of costume, dishevelment of hair, swords, arrows,
lances, scales, and other ornaments quite passe with damsels of our
day, whose effigies should go down to posterity armed with fans,
crochet needles, riding whips, and parasols, with here and there one
holding pen or pencil, rolling-pin or broom. The statue of Liberty I
recognized at once, for it had no pedestal as yet, but stood flat in
the mud, with Young America most symbolically making dirt pies, and
chip forts, in its shadow. But high above the squabbling little throng
and their petty plans, the sun shone full on Liberty's broad forehead,
and, in her hand, some summer bird had built its nest. I accepted the
good omen then, and, on the first of January, the Emancipation Act gave
the statue a nobler and more enduring pedestal than any marble or
granite ever carved and quarried by human bands.

One trip to Georgetown Heights, where cedars sighed overhead, dead
leaves rustled underfoot, pleasant paths led up and down, and a brook
wound like a silver snake by the blackened ruins of some French
Minister's house, through the poor gardens of the black washerwomen who
congregated there, and, passing the cemetery with a murmurous lullaby,
rolled away to pay its little tribute to the river. This breezy run was
the last I took; for, on the morrow, came rain and wind: and
confinement soon proved a powerful reinforcement to the enemy, who was
quietly preparing to spring a mine, and blow me five hundred miles from
the position I had taken in what I called my Chickahominy Swamp.

Shut up in my room, with no voice, spirits, or books, that week was not
a holiday, by any means. Finding meals a humbug, I stopped away
altogether, trusting that if this sparrow was of any worth, the Lord
would not let it fall to the ground. Like a flock of friendly ravens,
my sister nurses fed me, not only with food for the body, but kind
words for the mind; and soon, from being half starved, I found myself
so beteaed and betoasted, petted and served, that I was quite "in the
lap of luxury," in spite of cough, headache, a painful consciousness of
my pleura, and a realizing sense of bones in the human frame. From the
pleasant house on the hill, the home in