y be prejudiced against war, and in justice to the colonel, it should
be stated that the only military thing about him was his title. He was
a mild-mannered man with a long thin black beard and a slight stoop,
and his experience with fire-arms was confined to the occasional
shooting of depredatory crows, squirrels, and rats with an ancient
fowling-piece. Still there is magic in a name. And who knows but that
the subtle influence of the title of colonel may have unconsciously
guided the searching eyes of the young saleswoman among the Noah's arks
and farmyards to the box of lead soldiers?

The lad for whom the present was intended was a happy farmer's boy, an
only child, for whom the farm was the whole world and who looked upon
the horses and cows as his fellows. His little red head was constantly
to be seen bobbing about in the barnyard among the sheep and calves, or
almost under the horses' feet. The chickens and sparrows and swallows
were his playmates, and they seemed to have no fear of him. The black
colt with its thick legs and ruffled mane ran behind its gray dam to
hide from every one else, but it let Sam pat it without flinching. The
first new-hatched chicken which had been given to him for his very own
turned out to be a rooster, and when he found that it had to be taken
from him and beheaded he was quite inconsolable and refused absolutely
to feast upon his former friend. But with this tenderness of
disposition Sam had inherited another still stronger trait, and this
was a deep respect for authority, and such elements of revolt as
revealed themselves in his grief over his rooster were soon stifled in
his little heart. He bowed submissively before the powers that be. From
the time when he first lisped he had called his parents "Colonel Jinks"
and "Mrs. Jinks." His mother had succeeded with great difficulty in
substituting the term "Ma" for herself, but she could not make him
address his father as anything but "Colonel," and after a time his
father grew to like it. No one knew how Sam had acquired the habit; it
was simply the expression of an inherently respectful nature. He
reverenced his father and loved his father's profession of farmer. His
earliest pleasure was to hold the reins and drive "like Colonel Jinks,"
and his earliest ambition was to become a teamster, that part of the
farm work having peculiar attractions for him.

In the afternoon on which we were introduced to