period, it was as intimate as the disparity of our ages and my engrossing engagements would permit. To me, he appeared to have no indulgences or pastimes, and I never heard him utter an intemperate or profane word. What was conclusive of his good heart, he never forgot his parents. The honors he labored for so laudably, and in the sad end so gallantly gave his life for, he meant for them no less than for himself. "In the hope that it may be no intrusion upon the sacredness of your sorrow, I have ventured to address this tribute to the memory of my young friend, and your brave and early-fallen child. May God give you the consolation that is beyond all earthly power. "Sincerely your friend in common affliction, "A. LINCOLN." How little did that great and generous man think that he, too, would pass into life immortal by the same dreadful rush of an assassin's bullet, which would set a nation into sorrow and mourning. Lincoln loved Ellsworth as he did his own child, and it is a remarkable coincidence that the former should be one of the first and the other one of the last martyrs of the war. W BROTHER AND I. BY MATTHEW H. PETERS. I E were both in the army, brother and I, He with Sterling Price 'neath the Stars and Bars; I was with Rosecrans, bearing on high The banner of Union, the Stripes and Stars- BROTHER AND I. 361 III Both of us fought for what we thought right, Both of us entered the perilous fight And did our duty as patriots do But he wore the gray and I wore the blue. IV Thus full four years of strife, blood and tears The North filled with dread, the South full of fears, The battle-smoke filling the heavens above, + And now that the awful struggle is done, Let the Angel of Peace assert her might, Cementing our hearts and making us one, Where brother slew brother and thought it right. X Let the awful past be buried from sight As our comrades so noble, brave and true Are buried on fields where they made the brave fight, Keeping their virtues alone in view The chivalrous gray and generous blue. A POSSIBILITY. BY CHARLES W. BURPEE. HERE was no alternative. The bleak March winds of inhospitable New England-place of my birth-were at hand. As at hand. As a boy I had laughed at them, but a cough which I had brought back from a Southern swamp, together with a wound in the chest, rather put me at a disadvantage these days. My doctor had been the surgeon of my regiment. When he said a thing he meant it; he would not know how to give a false alarm. And his orders in this instance were peremptory; I could quit that climate or I could get a new physician. Thus it was that I fled from the promised embrace of the cracked, half-frozen, half-mud, March soil of Massachusetts, just after a particularly changeful winter. I fled southward. If half dead I must go, I could at least indulge a fond hope I had entertained when stronger and revisit some of the old familiar spots in Dixie. There were no family ties to hold me I was a-forlorn old bachelor. Perhaps my celibacy was my own fault; it was not my choice. Life once had had its joys for me. Like many other joys we refer to nowadays, however, they were antibellum joys. Fannie Raymond made my college days truly halcyon, until a rival appeared. He was a dashing Virginian; rich, handsome and talented. Furthermore, he was in the class ahead of me, and every college man will understand me when I say I did not want to appear to be getting in his way. When Sumter was first fired on, I chose my course and he chose his. Then I had somewhat the advantage, for her father was active in recruiting the regiment in which I enlisted, while my rival went South to draw his sword. For the rest of my life I have never ceased to regret the method in which I sought to improve that advantage. Her death intervened before the end of the strife, under circumstances peculiarly distressing to me, and with her perished my selfish ambition, all that I had to live for. It was, therefore, with small regard for what the issue might be, that I yielded to the doctor's importunities, and exchanged the land of consumption for the "land of cotton." To the end that my enfeebled constitution might be built up, the life was to be of the roughest. Nor was it against my own desire that I turned my back upon the polite circles of the cities as well as upon the bustling society of the Northern capitalist, and cast my lot among the so-called "white-trash," with a second "John Burleson" for my guide. In passing over a lonely mountain, "whar many a Yankee pris'ner had hid," we came one night to a decent looking cabin, occupied, my Burleson told me, by the "Silent Man." After the open manner of the land, we at once made ourselves the guests of this singular personage. He was a tall, well-formed, manly-appearing fellow, clad, to be sure, in hunter's dress, but by no means of the most ungainly pattern. A heavy, yet well-trimmed beard concealed his features, though it failed to cover a seam on one cheek. Then there was something about the expression of his eyes, together with a graceful carriage, alien to backwoodsmen, which betokened some former acquaintance with refinement. On our entrance, he had thrust a book into one of the several chests in the little room. From the contents of that chest, revealed for the moment, I judged that some of the others might also be lined with books; a small valise is capacious enough for the effects of a common wood-chopper. The reason for his title was soon apparent. Host though he was, he seldom opened his lips; but when he did, he used language unsullied by any dialect. At the same time that he was so unobtrusive-yea, so closely reserved, he had, none the less, a commanding mien, which, while interesting, forbade that one should thrust himself within the sacred circle of his thoughts -an air of regard for others' feelings which exacted respect for his. After the supper of coarse bread and bacon, we stretched ourselves on the ground, around a striking reminder of the old-time camp-fires, and the stereotyped "wal" of the guide was the preliminary of the story. But I perceived in his tone that night, in place of his usual devil-may-care jollity, a touch of sadness, seemingly alien to so rough a nature. His theme was a visit to the North since the end of the war, when he had absurdly thought to abandon his roving life for one of such sober and lucrative industry as he had heard told about. "In the arsenal at Springfield," said he, "I found a 'relic' that I had to lay claim to. It was this way these are the plain facts. I don't often rake 'em up, but 'twas just twenty year ago to-day that I met him. "He came to us a big-shouldered, fine-looking fellow-hands and face as white's a girl's-just outen some college. Box and rastle he would with any one on us, but he wa'n't somehow right used to us rough uns, I reckon, though a brother o' his was one o' our cap'ns-liked to be readin' and alone considerable. I stood next to him in the ranks them first days, though, and him and me seemed ter hitch right ter onct. I own he was a leetle peculiar 'bout some things. Once in a while he'd git a letter, what I called a 'special,' and then we'd see no more o' him for an hour or so. We'd laugh at it in any other feller, but we couldn't call it senterment in Harry-he had so much man, yer know. I allus thought of it that there must ha' been some good reasons for his actions, and I didn't know as how he wasn't obleeged to ask my opinion. I tell ye, boys, I liked him better'n a brother; he had the true ring-Harry had." The fact that the guide was a great, hulking, indifferent, good-natured sort of fellow made our respect all the more profound for the feelings which were now moving him so deeply. Not a sound save the crackling of the hemlock to disturb his low tones, as he continued, his two auditors gazing stolidly into the fire: 0 "To put it short-for all this is nothin' to you 'uns, mayhap-one day he received a right smart package of old letters and a 'special' that he read at a glance, the last the last, boys, that ever come to him. After he thought I was asleep that night, he sat thinkin' a long time. Then, finally, I heard him mutter, for I couldn't go to sleep nohow, I heard Harry mutter: 'Bob, you owe this to the side you chose when the call came, but had I-no, nothin' could have induced me.' With that he got up and paced back and forth, crunchin' the letter in his fist and lookin' like a man goin' into battle. Then he stopped, and claspin' his hands together, he said, sort o' more cheerful like: 'Yes, old chum, you deserve it, too, but '-I could hear him grate his teeth-' may God keep us apart!' "When he next appeared in the ranks his face looked-wal, 'sullen,' the boys called it, but I feared worse. I noticed on one side o' his gun stock was carved 'Fannie,' on the other side was 'Yale, '63,' that he had put thar when he fust picked out the gun-he never told us why, and no one asked him 'bout that any more'n they did 'bout the 'Fannie. " |