aiting, and
realized the right one in action for herself. The girl revived without
being either restored, or reconstructed.

And thus, my boy, I sometimes think, that, whilst noisy old political
grannies are quarrelling as to whether the Union shall be Restored, or
Reconstructed, the fainting young Union will suddenly revive of itself.
At any rate, it bids fair to have plenty of time to do so.

In a recent letter I noted the return of the main body of the
invincible and time-honored Mackerel Brigade to what may be termed the
place of its military birth; but I did not, nor can I, describe justly
the many touching incidents of the retrogression. Once more, my boy,
does this standard national martial organization find itself on the
right side of Awlkuyet River, and many a sensitive Mackerel, as he
gazes through his tear-dimmed spectacles upon the surrounding scenery
of his youth, fancies himself a boy again, and newly experiences in all
his muscles that tingling sensation which, in the full-blooded lad,
equally follows a public compliment and a private flogging. As the gory
and venerable Brigade wound slowly back into the well-known fields
rendered historically famous for making Washington safe, one very
ancient Mackerel grounded his musket by the roadside, took off his
spectacles, looked with deep emotion upon the scenes of his early
years, and says he to another Mackerel:--

"Thank Heaven! we have at last reached the end of the war."

The other Mackerel paused in his work of cracking an army biscuit
between two rocks, and says he: "Which end do you mean, Sammy?"

"Why," says Sammy, "the end we commenced at."

Could it be possible, my boy, that there was a serious and profound
truth in that unconsidered Mackerel remark? If so, we are indeed
approaching the beginning of the war, and there is rather less of Mars
than of Grand-Ma's in the management of the Virginia campaign.

But why should my pen linger upon this monotonous theme, when the grim
Fort Piano on Duck Lake, and the ancient city of Paris on the nether
shore thereof, are being besieged on all sides by the Mackerel
iron-plated patent squadron under the hoary Rear Admiral Head, and the
Mackerel contingent and Orange County Howitzers under Captains Samyule
Sa-mith and Villiam Brown. Several times, my boy, has Fort Piano been
entirely destroyed and taken by all our excellent and reliable morning
journals, the columns of American newspapers being led on to
vict