tering hearts; I was made to know something
of the blight of war--the horror of the battlefield, the waste of
bounty, the ruin of homes.

Then, rising above this, came stories of devotion, of brotherhood, of
service on the long, desolate marches, of courage to the death of those
who fought for a cause. I began to see wherein lay the highest joy of
the soldier, and of how little account he held himself, if the principle
for which he fought could be preserved. I heard for the first time the
wonderful words of Lincoln at Gettysburg, and learned to repeat a part
of them.

I was only eight, it is true, but emotion has no age, and I
understood then as well as I ever could, what heroism and devotion and
self-forgetfulness mean. I understood, too, the meaning of the words
"our country," and my heart warmed to it, as in the older times the
hearts of boys and girls warmed to the name of their king. The new
knowledge was so beautiful that I thought then, and I think now, that
nothing could have served as so fit an accompaniment to it as the
shouting of those pines. They sang like heroes, and in their swaying
gave me fleeting glimpses of the stars, unbelievably brilliant in the
dusky purple sky, and half-obscured now and then by drifting clouds.

By and by we lay down, not far apart, each rolled in an army blanket,
frayed with service. Our feet were to the fire--for it was so that
soldiers lay, my father said--and our heads rested on mounds of
pine-needles.

Sometimes in the night I felt my father's hand resting lightly on my
shoulders to see that I was covered, but in my dreams he ceased to be my
father and became my comrade, and I was a drummer boy,--I had seen the
play, "The Drummer Boy of the Rappahannock,"--marching forward, with set
teeth, in the face of battle.

Whatever could redeem war and make it glorious seemed to flood my soul.
All that was highest, all that was noble in that dreadful conflict came
to me in my sleep--to me, the child who had been born when my father
was at "the front." I had a strange baptism of the spirit. I discovered
sorrow and courage, singing trees and stars. I was never again to think
that the fireside and fireside thoughts made up the whole of life.

My father lies with other soldiers by the Pacific; the forest sings
no more; the old army blankets have disappeared; the memories of the
terrible war are fading,--happily fading,--but they all live again,
sometimes, in my memory, and I am once