, he improved it in acquiring all the information
possible.

On Saturdays the young schoolmaster would frequently ride over and
converse with Hall. The strong mind and coarse but cordial manners of
Hall pleased him. He was a specimen of the Southerner possessing
salient points, and was a study for the Down-Easter. Never before had
he met such a specimen, and it was his delight to draw him out, little
deeming he was filling the same office for his friend. They were
mutually agreeable the one to the other, and their association grew
into intimacy. Each to their friends would speak of the other as a
remarkable man. Assuredly they were; for neither had ever met such
specimens as they presented to each other. They sometimes joined in a
squirrel-hunt about the plantation of Hall. The schoolmaster's lameness
compelled him to ride, while Hall preferred to walk. After a fatiguing
tramp upon one occasion, they sat down upon the banks of Cole's Creek,
where Hall listened with great delight to the conversation of his
companion. Suddenly Hall started up, and exclaimed, with more than his
usual warmth:

"You have taught me more than I ever knew before meeting with you; but
I ought not to say what I am going to say. You, sir, were never made
for a schoolmaster. By the eternal God!"--Hall was a Jackson man--"you
know more than any man in the county, and you have got more sense than
any of them, though you are nothing but a boy. Now, sir, go to town and
study law with Bob Walker; he's the smartest of any of them. In two
years you will be ahead of him. If you haven't got the money to pay
your way, I have, and you shall have it."

The term for which he had engaged was now expiring, and, as Hall had
requested, he went into the office of Robert J. and Duncan Walker, and
commenced the study of law.

This Yankee youth was Sargent S. Prentiss. Prentiss remained in the
office of Walker for one year, and was a close student. When admitted
to the Bar, he went to Vicksburg and opened an office. At that time
Vicksburg was a new place, and presented peculiar inducements to young
professional men. The country upon the Yazoo River--and indeed the
entire northern portion of the State--had but recently been quit of its
Indian population, and was rapidly filling up with an active and
enterprising people. The soil was fertile, and the production of
cotton, to which it is so eminently suited, was daily growing in
importance. Vicksburg was the market-p