The Project Gutenberg EBook of Harper's Round Table, July 2, 1895, by Various

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Title: Harper's Round Table, July 2, 1895

Author: Various

Release Date: July 1, 2010 [EBook #33046]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARPER'S ROUND TABLE, JULY 2, 1895 ***

Produced by Annie McGuire

[Illustration: HARPER'S ROUND TABLE]

Copyright, 1895, by HARPER & BROTHERS. All Rights Reserved.

* * * * *

PUBLISHED WEEKLY. NEW YORK, TUESDAY, JULY 2, 1895. FIVE CENTS A COPY.

VOL. XVI.--NO. 818. TWO DOLLARS A YEAR.

* * * * *

[Illustration]

A MISPLACED "FOURTH."

BY JAMES BARNES.

The male population of Middleton, Ohio, in the early summer of 186-
appeared to consist altogether of old men and boys. True, a few young
men, most of them dressed in blue coats with brass buttons, were to be
seen on the streets, but nearly all of them carried their arms in
slings, and one tall lad of twenty, who had once been the best runner in
the village, hobbled along on crutches, with an empty trouser leg pinned
up at the knee.

One bright morning three Middleton boys were sitting astride the top
rail of a zigzag fence that ran along a hillside at the edge of a
thicket of underbrush. A long Kentucky rifle lay across a near-by log.
One of the boys held in his hand a glass bottle slopped with a bit of
rag. Another had on a leather belt with "U.S." on the brass
plate--upside down. The third boy was digging at the rail with a dull
jackknife.

"I came near to running away and goin' as a drummer-boy," said the
youngster with the belt, "but they wouldn't take me on account of my
age. I'll be old enough this fall," he added. "Then you'll see."

"Your mother wouldn't let you go, Skinny," said the boy with the bottle.
"She told Grandad that two was enough."

"Father'd let me go if he warn't with Sherman," said Skinny, "and
brother Bill said I drummed good enough."

"My father wants me to stay home and look after ma," the second boy
sighed. There had been no news of his father for six months, now.

"I've got a letter from Alfred, written jes