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A ROADSIDE ENCOUNTER.

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They called him a Yankee," said one of the young

women.

"But you are not a Yankee.”

“I was born in Tennessy, and have lived either in Tennessy or Massissippi all my days. But I never was a secessioner; I went agin the war; and I had two son-in-law's in the Federal army. Both these girls' husbands was fighting the Rebels, and that's what made 'em hate me. They was determined to kill me; and after that last attempt on my life, I refugeed. I went to the Yankees, and did n't come back till the war wound up. There's scoundrels watching for a chance to bushwhack me now.”

"Old Lee'd go up mighty quick, if they wa'n't afeared,” remarked one of the daughters.

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"I'm on hand for 'em," said the old man, and now I understood that wicked sparkle of his eye. Killing is good for 'em. A lead bullet is better for getting rid of 'em than any amount of silver or gold, and a heap cheaper!

Two miles north of Old Lee's I came to the State boundary. While I was still in Mississippi, I saw, just over the line, in Tennessee, a wild figure of a man riding on before me. He was mounted on a raw-boned mule, and wore a flapping gray blanket which gave him a fantastic appearance. The old hero's story had set me thinking of bushwhackers, and I half fancied this solitary horseman or rather mule-man to be one of that amiable gentry. He had pursued me from Corinth, and passed me unwittingly while I was sitting in Old Lee's kitchen. He was riding fast to overtake me. Or perhaps he was only an innocent country fellow returning from town. I switched on, and soon came near enough to notice that the mule's tail was fancifully clipped and trimmed to resemble a rope with a tassel at the end of it; also that the rider's face was mysteriously muffled in a red handkerchief.

I was almost at his side, when hearing voices in the woods behind me, I looked around, and saw two more mounted men coming after us at a swift gallop. The thought flashed through my mind that those were the fellow's accomplices. One to

one had not seemed to me very formidable; but three to one would not be so pleasant. I pressed my iron-gray immediately alongside the tassel-tailed mule, and accosted the rider, determined to learn what manner of man he was before the others arrived. The startled look he gave me, and the blue nose, with its lucid pendent drop, that peered out of the sanguinary handkerchief, showed me that he was as harmless a traveller as myself. He was a lad about eighteen years of age. He had tied up his ears, to defend them from the cold, and the bandage over them had prevented him from hearing my approach until I was close upon him.

"It's a kule day," he remarked, with numb lips, as he reined his mule aside to let me pass at a respectful distance,

for it was evident he regarded me with quite as much distrust as I had him.

At the same time the two other mounted men came rushing upon us, through the half-frozen puddles, with splash and clatter and loud boisterous oaths; and one of them drew from his pocket, and brandished over the tossing mane of his horse, something so like a pistol that I half expected a shot.

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"How are ye?" said he, halting his horse, and spattering me all over with muddy water. Right cold morning! Hello, Zeek!" to the rider of the tassel-tailed mule. "I did n't know ye, with yer face tied up that fashion. Take a drink?" Zeek declined. "Take a drink, stranger?" And he offered me the pistol, which proved to be a flask of whiskey. I declined also. Upon which the fellow held the flask unsteadily to his own lips for some seconds, then passed it to his companion. After drinking freely, they spurred on again, with splash and laughter and oaths, leaving Zeek and me riding alone together.

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"DIDN'T I see your horse tied to Old Lee's gate?" said Zeek. And that led to a discussion of the old hero's character.

"Is he a Union man?”

"I kain't say; but that is the story they tell on him. One of the men he killed was one of our neighbors; a man we used to consider right respectable; but, he tuke to thieving during the wa', and got to be of no account. That was the way with a many I know. You may stop at a house now whur they 'll steal your horse, and like as not rob and murder ye."

Zeek told me he lived on the edge of the battle-field; and I engaged him to guide me to it. He thought I must be going to search for the body of some friend who fell there. When I told him I was from the North, and that my object was simply to visit the battle-field, he looked at me with amaze

ment.

"I should think you'd be afraid to be riding alone in this country! If 't was known you was a Yankee, and had money about you, I allow you 'd get a shot from behind some

bush."

"I think the men who would serve me such a trick are very few."

"Thar was right smart of 'em befo'e the wa' closed. They 'd just go about robbing, — hang an old gray-haired man right up, till he'd tell whur his money was. They called themselves Confederates, but they was just robbers. They've got killed off, or have gone off, or run out, till, as you say, there an't but few left."

With these exceptions, Zeek praised highly the middling class of people who inhabited that region.

"Some countries, a pore man ain't respected no mo’e 'n a dog. "Tan't so hyere. Man may be plumb pore, but if he 's honest, he's thought as much of as anybody. Mo'e'n two thirds of 'em can read and write." Before the war, they used to have what they called "neighborhood schools." The teacher was supported by the pupils, receiving two dollars a month for each: he taught only in winter, and was fortunate if he could secure forty pupils.

Flocks of sparrows flew up from the bushes or hopped along the ground. There were bluebirds also; and I noticed one or two robins. "We never see robins hyere only in winter,"

said Zeek.

Green bunches of mistletoe grew on the leafless brown trees, - a striking feature of Southern woods in winter. "It's a curiosity, the way it grows," said Zeek. "It just grows on the tops of trees, without no rute, nor nothing. It's a rare chance you find it on the hills; it grows mostly on the bottoms whur thar's mo'e moisture in the air." It was a beautiful sight to me, riding under its verdant tufts, sometimes so low on the boughs that, by rising in the stirrups, I could pluck sprigs of it, with their translucent pearly berries, as I passed. But Zeek was wrong in saying it had no root. It is supposed to be propagated by birds wiping their bills upon the limbs of trees, after eating the berries. A stray seed thus deposited germinates, and the penetrating root feeds upon the juices that flow between the bark and the wood of the tree.

We passed but few farm-houses, and those were mostly built of logs. We crossed heavy lines of Beauregard's breastworks; and could have traced the route of the great armies by the bones of horses, horned cattle, and mules we saw whitening in the woods and by the roadside. A crest of hilly fields showed us a magnificent sweep of level wooded country on the west and south, like a brown wavy sea, with tossed tree-tops for breakers.

"Mighty pore soil along hyere," observed Zeek. When I

ACROSS OWL CREEK.

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told him that it was as good as much of the soil of New England, which farmers never thought of cultivating without using manures, he said, "When our land gits as pore as that, we just turn it right out, and cle'r again. We don't allow we can afford to manure. But No'th Carʼlinians come in hyere, and take up the land turned out so, and go to manuring it, and raise right smart truck on it."

As I was inclined to ride faster than Zeek, he looked critically at my horse, and remarked, "I don't reckon you give less 'n a dollar a day for that beast." I said I gave more than that. "I ride my beasts hard enough," he replied, "but I reckon if I paid a dollar a day for one, I'd ride him a heap harder!"

He had been down to the saw-mill, to get pay for a yoke of oxen his father had sold. "I started by sun-up, and got thar agin nine o'clock." It was now afternoon, and he was hungry and cold. He therefore proposed to me to go home with him and get warm, before visiting the battle-field.

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It was after two o'clock when we came to a hilly field covered with rotting clothes.

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Beauregard's troops come plumb up this road, and slept hyere the night befo'e the battle. They left their blankets and knapsacks, and after they got brushed out by the Yankees, the second day, they did n't wait to pick 'em up again.'

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We entered the woods beyond, directing our course towards the western edge of the battle-field; and, after riding some distance, forded Owl Creek, a narrow, but deep and muddy stream. Zeek's home was in view from the farther bank; a log-house, with the usual great opening through the middle situated on the edge of a pleasant oak-grove strewn with rustling leaves, and enclosed, with its yard and out-houses, by a Virginia rail-fence.

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