s and
trimmed off the other side of his head to match--Bob was happy.

=Wedding Bells and a Visit Home=

A few days after this I had the very great pleasure of a little visit to
my home. My sister, to whom I was devotedly attached, was to be married.
The marriage was to take place on a certain Monday. I had applied for a
short leave of absence and thought, if granted, to have it come to me
some days before the date of the wedding, so that I could easily get
home in time. But there was some delay, and the official paper did not
get into my hands until fifteen minutes before one o'clock on
Sunday--the day before the wedding. The last train by which I could
possibly reach home in time was to leave Orange Court House for Richmond
at six o'clock that evening, and the Court House was nineteen miles off.
It seemed pretty desperate, but I was bound to make it. I had had a very
slim breakfast that morning; I swapped my share of dinner that evening
with a fellow for two crackers, which he happened to have, and lit out
for the train.

A word about that trip, as a mark of the times, may be worth while. I
got the furlough at 12.45. I was on the road at one, and I made that
nineteen miles in five hours--some fast travel, that! I got to the depot
about two minutes after six; the train actually started when I was still
ten steps off. I jumped like a kangaroo, but the end of the train had
just passed me when I reached the track. I had to chase the train twenty
steps alongside the track, and at last, getting up with the back
platform of the rear car, I made a big jump, and managed to land. It was
a close shave, but with that nineteen-mile walk behind, and that wedding
in front, I would have caught that train if I had to chase it to
Gordonsville--"What do you take me for that I should let a little thing
like that make me miss the party?"

Well, anyhow, I got on. The cars were crowded--not a vacant seat on the
train. We left Orange Court House at six o'clock P. M.--we reached
Richmond at seven o'clock the next morning--traveled all
night--thirteen hours for the trip, which now takes two and a half
hours--and all that long night, there was not a seat for me to sit
on--except the floor, and that was unsitable. When I got too tired to
stand up any longer, I would climb up and sit on the flat top of the
water cooler, which was up so near the sloping top of the car that I
could not sit up straight. My back would soon get so cramped that I