MAGGIE'S HUSBAND.

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burnt; so that it was just one common. Thar was nobody left. You never see such desolation. Then the armies moved off, leaving a rich pasture. I had my cattle pastured thar all that summer."

Mrs. proposed that the children should sing for me a little piece called "The Drummer Boy of Shiloh." Her husband favored the suggestion, saying it was "a right nice composed little song."

"I've plumb forgotten it," said Zeek. And the little girls, who blushingly undertook it after much solicitation, could remember only a few lines here and there, greatly to the parents' chagrin.

Mrs. was at times very thoughtful; and she told me a newly married elder daughter had that day left home with her husband.

"We'll go by their house in the morning, and I'll show it to you," said Zeek.

I congratulated the parents on having their child settled so near them; yet Mrs. could scarcely speak of the separation without rising tears. All were eloquent in their praises of the young husband. He was doing right well, when the war, the cruel, wasteful war, swept him in, and he fought for the slave despotism four years, without a dollar of pay. That left him plumb flat. But he was a right smart worker. He was a splendid hand to make rails. He could write also. After the surrender, he just let in to work, and made a crop; and after the crop was laid by, (i. e., when the corn was hoed for the last time,) he pitched into writing. He employed himself as a teacher of that art. He had already taught nine schools, of ten successive lessons each, at two dollars a scholar. He had had as many as sixty pupils of an evening. I sympathized sincerely with the satisfaction they all felt in having their Maggie married to so smart a man. Indeed, I was beginning greatly to like this little family, and to feel a personal interest in all their affairs. It delights me now to recall that December evening, spent in the red firelight of that humble farm-house; and if I record their peculiarities of speech and

manners, it is because they were characteristic and pleasing.

At eight o'clock, Zeek, weary with his long ride that day, said, "I believe I''ll lie down," and, without further ceremony, took off his clothes and got into one of the beds in the room. Mrs. thought I also must be tired, and said I could go to bed when I pleased. Thinking it possible I might be assigned to the same apartment, I concluded to sit up until the audience became somewhat smaller. The girls presently went up-stairs, lighted to their beds by the fire, which shone up the stairway and through the cracks in the chamber floor. I took courage then to say that I was ready to retire; and, to my gratification, saw a candle lighted to show me to my chamber, though I marvelled where that could be, for I supposed I had seen every room in the house, except the loft to which the girls had gone, when I had seen the sitting-room and kitchen. Mr. took me first out-doors, to a stoop on the side of the house opposite the great opening. Thence a door opened into a little framed box of a room built up against the loghouse, as an addition. There was scarcely space to turn in it. The walls consisted of the naked, rough boards. There was not even a latch to the door, which opened into the universal night, and which the wind kept pushing in. Mr. -————— advised me to place the chair against it, which I did. I set the candle in the chair, and blew it out after I had got into bed. Then looking up, I saw with calm joy a star through the roof. It was interesting to know that this was the bridal chamber.

The bed was deep and comfortable, and I did not suffer from cold, although I could feel the fingers of the wind toying with my hair. The night was full of noises, like the reports of pistols. It was the old house cracking its joints.

DEPARTURE.

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CHAPTER XLV.

THE FIELD OF SHILOH.

DAYLIGHT next morning shone in through the chinks of the bridal chamber (for window it had none), and I awoke refreshed, after sound sleep. The dawn was enlivened by pleasing old-time sounds, the farmer chopping wood at the door, crowing cocks, gossiping geese, and the new-made fire snapping and crackling in the next room.

The morning was very cold. The earth was covered with white frost, like snow. We had breakfast at the usual hour. "Farmers commonly get their breakfases by sun-up," said mine host. At table (both doors open, and everybody shivering) Mrs. remarked that if it was any colder in my country she would not like to live there. I said to her,

"We should call this cold weather, though we have some much colder. But, allow me to tell you, I have suffered more from the cold since I have been in Tennessee, than I have for ten years in the North. There, when we go out of doors in winter, we go clad to meet the inclemencies of the season; and we know how to make ourselves comfortable in our houses. Here your houses are open. The wind comes in through the cracks, and you do not even think of shutting the doors. My people at home would think they would perish, if they had to breakfast with the wind blowing on them, as you have it blowing on you here." In short, I said so much that I got one of the doors closed, which I considered a great triumph.

Zeek brought our animals to the gate; and I called for my bill. Mr. said it appeared like he ought not to charge me anything; he had been very glad of my company. As I

insisted on discharging my indebtedness, he named a sum so modest that I smiled. "You have n't heard of the rage for high prices, nor learned the art of fleecing the Yankees." I gave him twice the sum, but it was with difficulty I could prevail upon him to accept it, for he said it would trouble his conscience. A simple, thoroughly good and upright man,would there were more like him!

I mounted my horse at the gate, and in company with Zeek and his mule, set out for the battle-field. We struck Owl Creek, but instead of crossing immediately, followed a cattlepath along its bank. On our right were woods, their tops just flushing with the new-risen sun; on our left, corn-fields, in some of which the corn had not yet been gathered, while in others I noticed winter wheat, (ploughed in between the rows of stalks, still standing,) covering the ground with its green mat, now hoary with frost. Fording the creek at a safe place, and pushing in an easterly direction through the woods, we came to an army road, made by Wallace's division moving on towards Corinth, after the battle.

It was a pleasant, still morning, such as always brings to the susceptible spirit a sense of exhilaration. Leisurely we rode among the wooded hills, which I could scarcely believe were ever shaken by the roar of battle. Only the blue jay and the woodpecker made the brown vistas of the trees echo with their drumming and screaming, where had been heard the shriek and whiz of missiles and bullets tapping the trunks.

A little back from the cleared fields we came to a nice-looking new log-hut. It had no window, and but one door. This was closed; by which token Zeek knew the folks were away. This was the abode of his sister and her interesting husband; this the bridal home. Something tender and grateful swelled up in my heart as I looked at the little windowless log-cabin, and thought of the divine gift of love, and of happiness, which dwells in humble places as well as in the highest.

Quitting Wallace's road at its junction with a neighborhood road, we struck another cow-path, which led in a northeasterly direction through the woods. We soon came upon evidences

of a vast encampment. Here our right wing had intrenched. itself after the battle. In this place I may remark that the astonishing fact about this field is, that our army did not intrench itself before the battle. Three weeks it lay at Shiloh, menaced by the enemy; Grant himself pronounced an attack probable, and the sagacious Sherman expected it; yet when it came, it proved a perfect surprise; it found our lines badly arranged, weak, and undefended by a single breastwork.

Beyond was a magnificent field, swept of its fences, but stuck all over with abandoned tent-supports, showing where our finally victorious legions had lain. "This field was just like a city after the fight," said Zeek. I noticed that the trees in the surrounding groves were killed. skinned 'em for bark to lay on," Zeek explained.

"The Yankees

Crossing Shiloh Branch, -a sluggish little stream, with low, flat shores, covered with yellow sedge and sentinelled by solemn dead trees, we ascended a woody hill, along the crest of which a row of graves showed where Hildebrand's picket line was attacked, on that disastrous Sunday morning. Each soldier had been buried where he fell. The boughs, so fresh and green that April morning, waving over their heads in the sweet light of dawn, though dismantled now by the blasts of winter, had still a tranquil beauty of their own, gilded and sparkling with sunshine and frost. Fires in the woods had burned the bottoms of the head-boards. I stopped at one grave within a rude log-rail enclosure. "In memory of L. G. Miller," said the tablet; but the remainder of the inscription had been obliterated by fire. I counted eighteen graves in this little row. We rode on to Shiloh Church, formerly a mere log-cabin in the woods, and by no means the neat white-steepled structure on some village green, which the name of country church sug gests to the imagination. There Beauregard had his headquarters after Sunday's battle. It was afterwards torn down for its timbers, and now nothing remained of it but half-burnt logs and rubbish.

Below the hill, a few rods showed me some Rebel graves.

south of the church, Zeek There many a poor fellow's