'I'd like to buy that yaller pup
And take him home with me.'

"But 'no,' says Lige, with proud disdain
And sot down on a log,
'That pup is plural now, you know--
A dog within a dog.'

"'He's twice as strong to fit,' says Lige;
'For if he's killed outside,
I'll turn the critter inside out,
And let _your_ critter slide.'

"'Well,' says the pedler, with a sigh,
'The pup's a trump, I think;
But let us change the subject now;
Say, strannger!--do you drink?'"

But let me not indulge in sentiment, my boy, while it is still before
me to describe the recent successful reconnoissance of the Anatomical
Cavalry, whose horses remind me of the celebrated war-horse described
by Job, inasmuch as it is believed that the far-famed patience of that
scriptural patriarch would have stood a very poor chance with them.

The Grim Old Fighting Cox, the new General of the Mackerel Brigade,
having learned from the New York daily papers, of the week previous,
that a few hundred thousand freshly-drafted Confederacies were massing
themselves on his right, resolved to order a triumphant reconnoissance
by the Anatomical Cavalry and the Orange County Howitzers, for the
purpose of discovering whether the war was actually going on yet. As
the steeds of the cavalry were widely dispersed through the various
gravel meadows around the Mackerel camp, my boy, and had grown somewhat
wild from long disuse, I was somewhat puzzled to know how they could
all be caught quickly enough, and says I to Captain Villiam Brown, who
was to command the combined expedition:

"Tell me, my Pylades, how will you manage to organize the equestrian
bone-works without losing too many hours?"

"Ah!" says Villiam, briskly replacing the cork in his canteen, and
startling his geometrical steed, Euclid, from a soft doze, "we must
make use of our knowledge of natural history, which is the animal
kingdom. Observe the device used in such cases by the scientific United
States of America."

I looked, my boy, and beheld a select company of joyous Mackerels
hoisting a huge board to the top of a lofty pole, which must have been
visible for a mile distant. The board simply bore, in large letters,
the simple words:

"THE OATS HAVE COME."

and scarcely had it reached the top of the pole, when the anatomical
steeds came pouring into the camp with frantic speed, and from every
direction.

"Ah!" says Villiam,