a bad
thing bad, and who said so first?"

"That's what I'd like to know myself, Tom," Ned gravely answered.

"An' ye don't know?"

"I certainly do not."

"I don't see why any man that can spell like you don't know everything."

He paused, picked up a pebble and threw it at a comrade's foot and
laughed to see him jump as from a Minie ball.

"You know, Ned," he went on slowly, "what I think is the prettiest piece
of poetry?"

"No--what?"

"Hit's this:

"'The men of high condition
That rule affairs of State;
Their purpose is ambition,
Their practice only hate.'"

"Pretty good, Tom," was the quick reply, "but I think I can beat it with
something more hopeful. I got it in Sunday School out in Missouri:

"'The sword and spear, of needless worth,
Shall prune the tree and plough the earth;
And Peace shall smile from shore to shore
And Nations learn to war no more.'"

The country boy's eyes gleamed with eager approval. He had fought for
nearly two years and the glory of war was beginning to lose its glamour.

"Say that again, Ned," he pleaded. "Say it again! That's the prettiest
thing I ever heard in my life!"

He was silent a moment:

"Yes, I used to think it would be glorious to hear the thunder of guns
and the shriek of shells. I've changed my mind. When I hear one of 'em
comin' now, I begin to sing to myself the old-fashioned tune I used to
hear in the revivals:

"'Hark from the tomb a doleful sound!
'My thoughts in dreadful subjects roll damnation and the dead----'

"I've an idea we're going to sing some o' them old songs on this field
pretty soon."

Again Ned thought of John and offered a silent prayer that he might not
be in those blue lines that were going to charge into the jaws which
Death had opened for them in the valley below.

John Vaughan in his tent beyond the Rappahannock was wasting no energy
worrying about the coming battle. Death had ceased to be a matter of
personal concern. He had seen so many dead and wounded men as he had
ridden over battlefields he had come to take them as a matter of course.
He was going into action now for the first time in the ranks as a
private soldier and he would see things happen at closer range--that was
all. He wished to see them that way. He had reached the point of utter
indifference to personal danger and it brought a new consciousness of
strength that was inspiring. He had stopped dreaming of the happin