day, as
Sam gathered from their conversation.

"I don't suppose that the war has caused much excitement at Slowburgh?"
asked Sam at last, introducing the subject uppermost in his mind.

"It ain't jest what it was when I went to the war," said the old man;
"but there is a deal o' talk about it, and all the young men are
wanting to go."

"Are they?" cried Sam, in delight. "And did you serve in the war? How
very interesting! Did you offer your life for your country without hope
of reward?"

"That's just what I did, young man, and if you doubt it, here's my
pension that I drew to-day in town, twelve dollars a month, and they've
paid it now these thirty-four years."

"That's a pretty soft thing," said the commercial man. "Better'n
selling fountain-pens in the backwoods."

"A soft thing!" cried the old man, "I ought to have twice as much.
There's Abe Tucker gets fifteen dollars because he caught cold on
picket duty, and I get a beggarly twelve."

"Were you severely wounded?" asked Sam.

"Well, no-o-o, not exactly, tho I might just as well 'a' been. I was
down bad with the measles. This is an ongrateful country. Here it is
only thirty-five years after the war, and they're only paying a hundred
and forty millions a year to only a million pensioners. It's a beggarly
shame!"

"Were there that many men in the war?" asked the traveler.

"Pretty near it, I reckon. But p'r'aps in thirty-five years there'd be
a natural increase. Think of it, a million men throwing away their
lives for a nothing like that! I jest tell our young fellers that
they'd better stay at home. Why, we've had to fight for what we've got.
You wouldn't think it, but we've had to pass around the hat, and shove
it hard under the nose of Congress, too, just as if we were beggars and
frauds, and as if we hadn't sacrificed everything for our country!"

"It's an outrage," cried Sam sympathetically. "But I hope you won't
keep the young men from going. I'm going soon, and perhaps the country
will be more generous in future."

"Take my advice, young man, and whenever anything happens to you while
you're away, take down the names of the witnesses and keep their
affidavits. Then you'll be all ready to get your pension as soon as you
come back. It took me three years to straighten out mine. Then I got
the back pay, of course, but I ought to have had it before. I've got a
claim in now for eight dollars more a month runnin