such old plugs around him, and that they were always his
wife's favorites when the old man wanted to get one off his hands.
However, Dick and I became great friends. I fixed up the old "gig," and it
answered my purpose. I got there with it.

It became a customary daily routine for me to harness this poor animal,
start at sundown and drive all night. Where? Why to Augusta to try and get
mustered in, but I would always ride back broken hearted and disappointed,
my ardor, however, not dampened a bit. I became a guy to my brothers and
neighbors. My father and step-sister indulged me in my fancy, helping me
all they could--father by furnishing me with money, and step-sister by
putting up little lunches for my pilgrimages during the night. They
thought me partially insane, and judged it would be best to let me have my
own idea, with the hope that it would soon wear off. But it didn't. I
would not give up. The Yankee yearning for fight had possession of me, and
I could neither eat, sleep nor work. I was bound to be a soldier. I
prayed for it, and I sometimes thought, my prayers were answered; that the
war should last 'till I was big enough to be one--for it did.

I had enlisted four times in different towns, and each time I went before
a mustering officer, I was rejected. "Too small" I was every time
pronounced, but I was not discouraged or dismayed--the indomitable pluck
and energy of those downeast boys pervaded my system. I was bound to get
there, for what I didn't know, I did not care or didn't stop to think. I
only thought of the glory of being a soldier, little realizing what an
absurd-looking one I would make; but the ambition was there, the pluck was
there, and the patriotism of a man entered the breast of the wild dreamy
boy. I wanted to go to the front--and I went.

After several unsuccessful attempts to be mustered into the service at
Augusta, which was twenty-five miles from our little farm, I thought I
would enlist from the town of Freedom and thereby get before a different
mustering officer who was located in Belfast. I had grown, I thought, in
the past six weeks, and before a new officer, I thought my chances of
being accepted would improve; so on a bright morning in September I
mounted my "gig," behind my little old gray horse, who seemed to say, as
he turned his head to look at me when I jumped on to the seat, "What a
fool you are, making me haul you all that distance, when you know they
won't have you!" but