istful groups gathered along the railway line.

"I say, North Cal'ina, you'n's goin' straight through to Yankee land?" a
man in the throng shouts to some one on the train.

"Straight."

"Send us a lock o' Lincoln's hair to poison blind adders, will you?"

"No--promised his scalp to my sweetheart to cover the rocking-chair."

Then, as the laugh that met this sally died away, another humorist
piped, out:

"Tell Uncle Joe Johnston we're just rustin' down here for a fight; ef he
don't hurry up we'll go ahead ourselves. We're drilled down so fine now
that we can't think 'cept by the rule o' tactics."

"Jest you never mind, boys. Uncle Joe'll do enough thinkin' fur ye when
he gets ready to tackle the Yanks."

"Hurrah for Uncle Joe!" And as the cheery cry swelled farther and
farther, the train drew out, everybody looking from the windows as the
patient soldiery straggled back campward.

"Your soldiers seem very gay, Vincent. One would think that war, the
dreadful uncertainty of their movements, absence of friends, and lack of
good food would sadden them," Mrs. Sprague said wistfully at one of the
stations when raillery like this had been even more pointed and
boisterous.

"A wise commander will do all he can to keep his men gay; if they were
not jovial they'd go mad. Think of it! Day after day, week after week,
who knows but year after year, the wearisome monotony of camp and march!
Where the men are educated, or at least readers, they make better
soldiers, because they brood less. Brooding saps the best fiber of the
army. Your Northern men ought to have an advantage there, for education
is more general with you than it is with us. It is not bravery that
makes a man eager for the campaign, it is unrest. As a rule, the best
soldiers in action are those who have a mortal dread of battle."

"That surprises me."

"It is true. I always distrust men that clamor to be led on; they are
the first to break when the brush comes. Jack will tell you that, for we
are agreed on it."

"Jack himself was eager for battle," Mrs. Sprague said, sighing.

"No, Jack was eager for the field. When the battle comes he meets it
coolly, but he has no hunger for it, nor have I. General Johnston is as
brave a man as ever headed an army, yet he has often told us that his
blood freezes when the guns open. I'm sure no one would ever suspect it,
for he is as calm and confident as if he were in a quadrille when he
rides to the field."

"We in