shining down the chimney on them. When
I'd think of that, I'd say, 'It's all over!' It began to seem to me as
if there was no more Ellen and no more Joe."

She had come, too, into the border region, where the war was breaking
ground, with all its dull, gross reality of horrors, to which the
farther South and North were strangers; the broken talk in the cars was
even more terrifying to her, because half understood,--of quiet farmers
murdered in cold blood, of pillaging and outrage, of anticipated
insurrections among the slaves, and vengeance for their wrongs.

"I thought of the Lord Jesus and Joe, but they did not seem to be alive
here," she said. "I would peep into my basket and look at the Testament
and the spoons and Joe's collars, and that made things seem real to me."
(Ellen's basket, by the way, was but another example of the singular
habit which we find in persons of unsound intellect, the clinging to
some one inanimate object as if it formed a tangible link to hold time
and place together.)

When the train stopped at Littleton, the conductor, an old, gray-headed
man, came up to Ellen as she sat alone.

"Simeon Myers told me your story," he said, gravely. "He crossed the
river to tell me. I'll take the matter in hand myself; I telegraphed
before leaving Benwood, in advance. The Twenty-Fourth Ohio, they say
there, have gone on to camp at Piedmont; but the movements of the troops
are so uncertain, we will wait until the answer comes to my despatch at
the next station. You go to sleep, Ellen."

"Yes, Sir," numbly.

She sat with her hand over her eyes, until the name of the next station
was called, then rose, and remained standing. The old conductor came in.

"Sit down," he said, gently. "Why, you shiver, and are as cold as if
your blood was frozen!"

"My brother, Sir?"

"Tut! tut! Yes! Good news this time, Ellen. The Twenty-Fourth is at
Fetterman,--has stopped there, I don't know why,--and"--pulling out his
watch, but speaking slowly, and controlling her with his eye--"in two
hours we will be there."

At this time (June, 1861) Government, striking at the Rebellion wildly,
as a blind man learning to fence, was throwing bodies of raw,
undisciplined troops into the Border States, wherever there was
foothold, to their certain destruction, though with an ulterior good
effect, as it proved. Camps of these men were stationed along the road
as Ellen passed,--broad-backed and brawny-limbed Iowans and Indianians,