s room in the hotel, and sat for hours crushed and discouraged.
Presently he rose, kicked the kinks out of his trousers, and walked out
into the clear sunlight. At the end of the street he stepped from the
side-walk to the sod path and kept walking. He passed an orchard and
plucked a ripe peach from an overhanging bough. A yellow-breasted lark
stood in a stubble-field, chirped two or three times, and soared,
singing, toward the far blue sky. A bare-armed man, with a muley cradle,
was cradling grain, and, far away, he heard the hum of a horse-power
threshing machine. It had been months, it seemed years, since he had
been in the country, felt its cooling breeze, smelled the fresh breath
of the fields, or heard the song of a lark; and it rested and refreshed
him.

When young Jewett returned to the town he was himself again. He had been
guilty of no wrong, but had been about what seemed to him his duty to
his country. Still, he remembered with sadness the sharp rebuke of the
Superintendent, a feeling intensified by the recollection that it was
the same official who had brought him in from Springdale, made a train
despatcher out of him, and promoted him as often as he had earned
promotion. If he had seemed to be acting in bad faith with the officials
of the road, he would make amends. That night he called his company
together, told them that he had been unable to secure a commission,
stated that he had resigned and was going away, and advised them to
disband.

The company forming at Lexington was called "The Farmers," just as the
Bloomington company was known as the "Car-hands." "The Farmers" was
full, the captain said, when Jewett offered his services. At the last
moment one of the boys had "heart failure," and Jewett was taken in his
place. His experience with the disbanded "Car-hands" helped him and his
company immeasurably. It was only a few days after his departure from
Bloomington that he again passed through, a private in "The Farmers."

Once in the South, the Lexington company became a part of the 184th
Illinois Infantry, and almost immediately engaged in fighting. Jewett
panted to be on the firing-line, but that was not to be. The regiment
had just captured an important railway which had to be manned and
operated at once. It was the only means of supplying a whole army corps
with bacon and beans. The colonel of his company was casting about for
railroaders, when he heard of Private Jewett. He was surprised to find