d loved the very thought of the guardhouse.

Headquarters was an old corner house that had flung open its doors to
General Jackson with an almost tremulous eagerness. A flag waved before
the door, and there was a knot beneath of couriers and orderlies, with
staff officers coming and going. Opposite was a store, closed of course
upon Sunday, but boasting a deep porch with benches, to say nothing of
convenient kegs and boxes. Here the village youth and age alike found
business to detain them. The grey-headed exchanged remarks. "Sleep? No,
I couldn't sleep! Might as well see what's to be seen! I ain't got long
to see anything, and so I told Susan. When's he coming out?--Once't when
I was a little shaver like Bob, sitting on the scales there, I went with
my father in the stage-coach to Fredericksburg, I remember just as
well--and I was sitting before the tavern on a man's knee,--old man
'twas, for he said he had fought the Indians,--and somebody came riding
down the street, with two or three others. I jus' remember a blue coat
and a cocked hat and that his hair was powdered--and the man put me down
and got up, and everybody else before the tavern got up--and somebody
holloaed out 'Hurrah for General Washington--'"

There was a stir about the opposite door. An aide came out, mounted and
rode off toward the bridge. An orderly brought a horse from the
neighbouring stable. "That's his! That's General Jackson's!--Don't look
like the war horse in Job, does he now?--Looks like a doctor's
horse--Little Sorrel's his name." The small boy surged forward. "He's
coming out!"--"How do you know him?"--"G' way! You always know generals
when you see them! Great, big men, all trimmed up with gold. Besides, I
saw him last night."--"You didn't!"--"Yes, I did! Saw his shadow on the
curtain."--"How did you know 'twas his?"--"My mother said, 'Look, John,
and don't never forget. That's Stonewall Jackson.' And it was a big
shadow walking up and down, and it raised its hand--"

The church bell rang. A chaplain came out of the house. He had a Bible
in his hand, and he beamed on all around. "There's the first bell,
gentlemen--the bell, children! Church in a church, just like before we
went to fighting! Trust you'll all come, gentlemen, and you, too, boys!
The general hopes you'll all come."

Within headquarters, in a large bare room, Jackson was having his
customary morning half-hour with his heads of departments--an invariably
recurring period in