in a most wonderful
manner the strains of "Dixie," changing impartially to "Yankee Doodle,"
shifting back to "The Bonnie Blue Flag," and then, with the same lack of
prejudice, careering into "Marching Through Georgia."

The horses and mules that they were now leading felt the uplifting
influence, raised their heads and marched forward more sturdily.

"What makes you so happy?" asked Will.

"The kindness o' natur' what gave me that kind o' a disposition,"
replied the Little Giant, "an' added to it the feelin' that all the time
I'm drawin' closer to my gold. What did you say my share would be, young
William, a matter o' a million or a half million?"

"A quarter of a million."

"Seems to me it wuz a half million, but somehow it grows ez we go
'long. When you git rich, even in the mind, you keep on gittin' richer."

Then he began to whistle a gallant battle stave with extraordinary
richness and variety of tone, and when he had finished Will asked:

"What was that song, Tom? It's a new one to me."

"It's new to most people," replied the Little Giant, "but it's old jest
the same. It wuz writ 'way back in the last war with England, an' I'll
quote you the first two verses, words an' grammar both correct:

"Britannia's gallant streamers
Float proudly o'er the tide,
And fairly wave Columbia's stripes
In battle side by side,
And ne'er did bolder seamen meet
Where ocean surges pour
O'er the tide now they ride
While the bell'wing thunders roar
While the cannon's fire is flashing fast
And the bell'wing thunders roar.

"When Yankee meets the Briton
Whose blood congenial flows,
By Heaven created to be friends
By fortune reckoned foes:
Hard then must be the battle fray
E'er well the fight is o'er,
Now they ride, side by side,
While the bell'wing thunders roar,
While the cannon's fire is flashing fast
And the bell'wing thunders roar.

"That's a lot more verses, young William, an' it's all 'bout them great
naval duels o' the war o' 1812, an' you'll notice that whoever writ 'em
had no ill feelin' in his natur', an' give heaps o' credit to the
British. It does seem that we an' the British ought to be friends, bein'
so close kin, actin' so much alike, an' havin' institutions just the
same, 'cept that whar they hev a king we hev a president. Yet here we
are quarrelin' with 'em a lot, though not more than they quarrel with
us."

"The trouble