ed back at the brakeman,--"Well,
who the hell said it wasn't your candy?" and the boys all roared. Many
years later I passed through that town on the cars, and the brakeman
said "My-candy," as of yore. I felt a devilish impulse to make the same
response the soldier did on that October night in 1863, but the war was
over, no comrades were on hand to back me,--so I prudently refrained.
At Sandoval the most of our party transferred to the Ohio and
Mississippi railroad, (as it was called then,) and went to St. Louis,
reaching there on the afternoon of October 27th. Here all except myself
left on the Chicago, Alton and St. Louis railroad, for different points
thereon, and from which they would make their way to their respective
homes. There was no railroad running through Jersey county at this
time, (except a bit of the last named road about a mile in length
across the southeast corner of the county,) and the railroad station
nearest my home was twenty miles away, so I had to resort to some other
mode of travel. I went down to the wharf and boarded a little Illinois
river steamboat,--the Post-Boy, which would start north that night,
paid my fare to Grafton, at the mouth of the Illinois river, arranged
with the clerk to wake me at that place, and then turned in. But the
clerk did not have to bother on my account; I was restless, slept but
little, kept a close lookout, and when the whistle blew for Grafton, I
was up and on deck in about a minute. The boat rounded in at the
landing, and threw out a plank for my benefit,--the lone passenger for
Grafton. Two big, burly deck-hands, rough looking, bearded men, took me
by the arm, one on each side, and carefully and kindly helped me
ashore. I have often thought of that little incident. In those days a
river deck-hand was not a saint, by any means. As a rule, he was a
coarse, turbulent, and very profane man, but these two fellows saw that
I was a little, broken-down boy-soldier, painfully hobbling along on a
stick, and they took hold of me with their strong, brawny hands, and
helped me off the boat with as much kindness and gentleness as if I had
been the finest lady in the land.

I was now only five miles from home, and proposed to make the balance
of my journey on foot. I climbed up to the top of the river bank, and
thence made my way to the main and only street the little town then
possessed, and took "the middle of the road." It was perhaps four or
five o'clock in the morning, a