curve. It could have been but an instant, yet it seemed an age.
I cried out, or thought I cried out: "My God! will he never stop going
up?" He passed close to the branch of a tree. I remember a feeling of
delight as I thought he would clutch it and save himself. I speculated
on the possibility of it sustaining his weight. He passed above it, and
from my point of view was sharply outlined against the blue. At this
distance of many years I can distinctly recall that image of a man in
the sky, its head erect, its feet close together, its hands--I do not
see its hands. All at once, with astonishing suddenness and rapidity, it
turns clear over and pitches downward. There is another cry from the
crowd, which has rushed instinctively forward. The man has become merely
a whirling object, mostly legs. Then there is an indescribable sound--
the sound of an impact that shakes the earth, and these men, familiar
with death in its most awful aspects, turn sick. Many walk unsteadily
away from the spot; others support themselves against the trunks of
trees or sit at the roots. Death has taken an unfair advantage; he has
struck with an unfamiliar weapon; he has executed a new and disquieting
stratagem. We did not know that he had so ghastly resources,
possibilities of terror so dismal.

Thurston's body lay on its back. One leg, bent beneath, was broken above
the knee and the bone driven into the earth. The abdomen had burst; the
bowels protruded. The neck was broken.

The arms were folded tightly across the breast.

THE MOCKING-BIRD

The time, a pleasant Sunday afternoon in the early autumn of 1861. The
place, a forest's heart in the mountain region of southwestern Virginia.
Private Grayrock of the Federal Army is discovered seated comfortably at
the root of a great pine tree, against which he leans, his legs extended
straight along the ground, his rifle lying across his thighs, his hands
(clasped in order that they may not fall away to his sides) resting upon
the barrel of the weapon. The contact of the back of his head with the
tree has pushed his cap downward over his eyes, almost concealing them;
one seeing him would say that he slept.

Private Grayrock did not sleep; to have done so would have imperiled the
interests of the United States, for he was a long way outside the lines
and subject to capture or death at the hands of the enemy. Moreover, he
was in a frame of mind unfavorable to repose. The cause of his
perturbat