being a newspaper man, I looked at the leading editorial,
which was headed, "The Lord will provide." I never took much stock
in regular stereotyped editorials, but when I turned my eye from the
editorial to the basket, I realized than an editorial in a religious
newspaper, was liable to contain much truth, for the basket was filled
with as fine a lunch as a man ever saw. It seemed that the people came
quite a long distance to church, and brought their dinner, remaining to
the afternoon services. O, but I was hungry. I looked in several other
carriages, and found baskets in each. Every man in my party was as
hungry as a she wolf, and I knew they would not leave a mouthful if
they once got to going on the lunches, and as it wasn't the policy of my
government to take the bread from the mouths of Sunday-school children,
I decided to divide the lunches. So I appointed Jim and an Irishman to
help me, and we opened all the baskets and took half. Jim came to one
basket with two loaves of bread and two bottles of wine, and he stopped.

He said, "Pard, that lay-out in the big basket, with the silver pitcher,
is for the communion. I'm a bold buccaneer of the Spanish main, but I'll
be cussed if I touch that."

The Irishman said no power on earth could get him to touch it, and
he crossed himself reverently, and we left the communion lay-out, and
passed the half we had taken from the baskets around among the boys, and
they eat as though a special providence had provided them with appetites
and means of satisfying them. After enjoying the meal the boys said we
ought to return thanks for the good things the pious people had provided
for us, so I went to the door of the church, opened it, and faced the
congregation. There were old and young, and some of them looked mad,
and I didn't blame them. In a few well chosen remarks I addressed
the minister, telling him I regretted the circumstances, but it was
necessary to do what we had done. We had tried to do it as pleasantly as
possible, but no doubt it seemed hard to them. I said we had got to go
to Montgomery, and that if any of them who had lost their horses, would
come there within a few days, I had no doubt the proper authorities
would return them their horses, but that they must stand the loss of a
half of their lunch, as we had divided it up as square as we knew how.
One young Confederate soldier, with an empty sleeve, who had come to
church with his mother, and who could, no doubt, r