was a little mean when he
woke up and rubbed his eyes, and said:

"Now, you are sure you have got it in the right place this time, for if
that bridge has strayed away onto anybody's plantation this time, you
die."

The army crossed all right, and I had the proud pleasure of standing by
the bridge until the last man was across, when I rode up to my regiment
and reported to the colonel, pretty tired.{*} He was superintending the
laying of a pontoon bridge across a large river, a few miles from my
bridge, and he said:

"George, the general was pretty hot last night, but he was to blame
about the mistake in the location, and he says he is going to try and
get you a commission as lieutenant."

* A few weeks ago I met a member of my old regiment, who is
traveling through the South as agent for a beer bottling
establishment in the North. He was with me when we built the
corduroy bridge twenty-two years ago. As we were talking
over old-times he asked me if I remembered that bridge we
built one day in Alabama, in the wrong place, and moved it
during the night. I told him I wished I had as many dollars
as I remembered that bridge. "Well," said my comrade, "on
my last trip through Alabama I crossed that bridge, and paid
two bits for the privilege of crossing. A man has
established a toll-gate at the bridge, and they say he has
made a fortune. I asked him how much his bridge cost him,
and he said it didn't cost him a cent, as the Yankees built
it during the war. He said they cut the timber on his land,
and when he got out of the Confederate army he was busted,
and he claimed the bridge, and got a charter to keep a toll-
gate." My comrade added that the bridge was as sound as it
was when it was built. He said he asked the toll-gate keeper
if he knew the bridge was first built a mile away, and he
said he knew the timber was cut up there, and he wondered
what the confounded Yankees went away off there to cut the
timber for, when they could get it right on the bank. Then
my comrade told the toll-gate keeper that he helped build
the bridge, the rebel thanked him, and wanted to pay back
the two bits. Some day I am going down to Alabama and cross
on that bridge again, the bridge that almost caused me to
commit suicide, and if that old rebel-for he must be an old
rebel now--charges me two bits