ard were getting plentifully
anointed with soup. As I fed my big nestling with corresponding
mouthfuls, I asked him how he felt during the battle.

"Well, 'twas my fust, you see, so I aint ashamed to say I was a trifle
flustered in the beginnin', there was such an allfired racket; for ef
there's anything I do spleen agin, it's noise. But when my mate, Eph
Sylvester, caved, with a bullet through his head, I got mad, and
pitched in, licketty cut. Our part of the fight didn't last long; so a
lot of us larked round Fredericksburg, and give some of them houses a
pretty consid'able of a rummage, till we was ordered out of the mess.
Some of our fellows cut like time; but I warn't a-goin' to run for
nobody; and, fust thing I knew, a shell bust, right in front of us, and
I keeled over, feelin' as if I was blowed higher'n a kite. I sung out,
and the boys come back for me, double quick; but the way they chucked
me over them fences was a caution, I tell you. Next day I was most as
black as that darkey yonder, lickin' plates on the sly. This is bully
coffee, ain't it? Give us another pull at it, and I'll be obleeged to
you."

I did; and, as the last gulp subsided, he said, with a rub of his old
handkerchief over eyes as well as mouth:

"Look a here; I've got a pair a earbobs and a handkercher pin I'm a
goin' to give you, if you'll have them; for you're the very moral o'
Lizy Sylvester, poor Eph's wife: that's why I signalled you to come
over here. They aint much, I guess, but they'll do to memorize the rebs
by."

Burrowing under his pillow, he produced a little bundle of what he
called "truck," and gallantly presented me with a pair of earrings,
each representing a cluster of corpulent grapes, and the pin a basket
of astonishing fruit, the whole large and coppery enough for a small
warming-pan. Feeling delicate about depriving him of such valuable
relics, I accepted the earrings alone, and was obliged to depart,
somewhat abruptly, when my friend stuck the warming-pan in the bosom of
his night-gown, viewing it with much complacency, and, perhaps, some
tender memory, in that rough heart of his, for the comrade he had lost.

Observing that the man next him had left his meal untouched, I offered
the same service I had performed for his neighbor, but he shook his
head.

"Thank you, ma'am; I don't think I'll ever eat again, for I'm shot in
the stomach. But I'd like a drink of water, if you aint too busy."

I rushed away, but the