ets of official position, to be returned to the ranks, but I had to
take the bitter with the sweet, and a soldier must not kick. I had never
laid down to sleep before without dropping off into the land of dreams
right away, but now, though I was tired enough, my eyes were wide open
and I felt strange. At times I would be so hot that I would throw the
blanket off, and then I would be so cold that it seemed as though I
would freeze. I had taken a severe cold which had settled everywhere,
and there was not a bone in my body but what ached; my lungs seemed of
no use; I could not take a long breath without a hacking cough, and
I felt as though I should die. It was then that I thought of the warm
little room at home and the ginger tea, and the soaking of my feet in
mustard water and wrapping my body in a soft flannel blanket, and the
kindly faces of my parents, my sister, my wife--everybody that had been
kind to me. I would close my eyes and imagine I could see them all,
and open my eyes and see my cold little tent and shiver as I thought of
being sick away from home. I laid for an hour wishing I was home again;
and while alone there I made up my mind I would write home and warn all
the boys I knew against enlisting. The thought that I should die there
alone was too much, and I was about to yell for help when my tent mate,
who had been on a scout, came in. He was a big green Yankee, who had a
heart in him as big as a water pail, but he wasn't much, of a nurse.
He came in nearly frozen, threw his saddle down in a corner, took out a
hard tack and began to chew it, occasionally taking a drink of water out
of a canteen. That was his breakfast.

"Well, I've got just about enough of war," said he, as he picked his
teeth with a splinter off his bunk, and filled his pipe and lit it.
"They can't wind up this business any too soon to suit the old man. War
in the summer is a picnic, but in winter it is wearin on the soldier."

Heretofore I had enjoyed tobacco smoke very much, both from my own pipe
and Jim's, but when he blew out the first whiff of smoke it went to
my head and stomach and all up and down me, and I yelled, in a hoarse,
pneumonia sort of voice:

"Jim, for God's sake don't smoke. I am at death's door, and I don't want
to smell of tobacco smoke when St. Peter opens the gate."

"What, pard, you ain't sick," said Jim, putting his pipe outside of the
tent, and coming to me and putting his great big hand on my forehead, as
te