woman seems very handsome when one is afield; and the
contact of rough soldiers, gives him a partiality for females. It must
have required some courage to remain upon the farm; but she hoped
thereby to save the property from spoliation. I played a game of whist
with the sister-in-law, arguing all the while; and at nine o'clock the
servant produced some hard cider, shellbarks, and apples. We drank a
cheery toast: "an early peace and old fellowship!"--to which the wife
added a sentiment of "always welcome," and the baby laughed at her knee.
How brightly glowed the fire! I wanted to linger for a week, a month, a
year,--as I do now, thinking it all over,--and when I strolled to the
porch,--hearing the pigeons cooing at the barn; the water streaming down
the dam; the melancholy monotony of the pine boughs;--there only lacked
the humming mill-wheel, and the strong grip of the miller's hand, to
fill the void corner of one's happy heart.

But this was a time of war, when dreams are rudely broken, and mine
could not last. The next day some great wheels beat down the bridge, and
the teams clogged the road for miles; the waiting teamsters saw the
miller's sheep, and the geese, chickens, and pigs, rashly exposed
themselves in the barnyard; these were killed and eaten, the mill
stripped of flour and meal, and the garden despoiled of its vegetables.
A quartermaster's horse foundered, and he demanded the miller's, giving
therefor a receipt, but specifying upon the same the owner's relation to
the Rebellion; and, to crown all, a group of stragglers, butchered the
cows, and heaped the beef in their wagons to feed their regimental
friends. When I presented myself, late in the afternoon, the yard and
porches were filled with soldiers; the wife sat within, her head thrown
upon the window, her bright hair unbound, and her eyes red with weeping.
The baby had cried itself to sleep, the sister-in-law took snuff
fiercely, at the fire; the black girl cowered in a corner.

"There is not bread in the house for my children," she said; "but I did
not think they could make me shed a tear."

If there were Spartan women, as the story-books say, I wonder if their
blood died with them! I hardly think so.

If I learned anything from my quiet study of this and subsequent
campaigns, it was the heartlessness of war. War brutalizes! The most
pitiful become pitiless afield, and those who are not callous, must do
cruel duties. If the quartermaster had not se