were agreed upon. A formal meeting was agreed
upon for next day. Major Nichols thus de-
scribes this interview:

589

fore these improvements were made. My little school-room, however, is almost unaltered. I uncommon thing to see in villages nowadayssuppose school-houses such as mine are quite an think I should not like to have it improved. even villages so small as Dale Manor is-but I We have done very well here for these twenty years, and I hope the old schoolmaster will not be disturbed nor his nest broken for a little longer. I am nigh seventy now, and it is not to be supposed that I shall occupy the space within these four walls much longer. After I am laid in my quiet grave it will be time enough for the trustees to tear the old stone-house down, and erect a brick one with green blinds and a patent iron chimney. But now all is as of yore, and I love every crack in the worn floor and every knot-hole in the old wooden shutters; so that I am afraid it would break my heart if my schoolhouse were to be destroyed. his olive groves so well as I love the old schoolPlato loved not

"On the 18th, with a proper degree of ceremony, the two Generals again met. at the hour of noon, Sherman and Johnston, Precisely with their staffs, rode to the top of the eminence opposite to the little farm-house already referred to, and the brilliantly-costumed crowd of staff officers, in full uniform, paused for a moment, as their chiefs rode forward into the open space, lifting their hats courteously, and then, grasp ing each other by the hand, Sherman and Johnston dismounted and passed into the house. In a few moments one of the rebel officers dashed off down the road in the direction of the escort which had accompanied General Johnston, and in a short time a tall gentleman rode up, and, hurrying through the crowd of officers, quickly entered the house where the two Generals were in conference. Almost every person present recognized in the new-comer John C. Breckin-house under the elms. ridge, the Confederate Secretary of War."

At this meeting the terms of the capitulation were arranged which virtually brought the Great March to an end. It had accomplished all, and more than all, that had been proposed by SherWe do not here propose to touch upon the difficulties which grew out of the terms there agreed upon. The country has now fairly made up its mind upon that matter, and the decision which has been reached will not be reversed.

man.

sturdy legs, just as it has always stood. There stands the old black-board on its two many successive growths of urchins have scratchHow ed their unhappy heads before that old blackboard! sum in rule of three, and it has laughed with It has groaned with many a tedious many a grotesque image done by some incipient Rembrandt at recess. holm; I always shall remember how he used to There was George TrenWe have attempted in this paper only to re- over his caricatures. George is now a great make my sides ache with suppressed laughter produce some of the prominent characteristics artist, and makes pictures for Harper's Weekly, of the Great March. To have even attempted for which he receives substantial remuneration, to present its military character, or to speak fit- I am informed. There, too, are the same old tingly of the officers and men who made up the brown wooden benches, and they bear testimony army which accomplished it would have com- enough to the bent for sculpture possessed by a pelled us to have quoted half of the volume in great number of my youthful geniuses, from which Major Nichols has told "The Story of whom no Praxiteles or Phidias has yet appearthe Great March." It was our purpose to have ed, to my knowledge; though Silas Fosdickintroduced a few of the many sketches which who, as you know, invented a reaping-machine the writer has given of the character and con-used to be one of the worst whittlers in school. duct of those once slaves, now freedmen- I glance out the window, and behold the plain whose destiny and that of the "poor whites" of board fence against whose smooth-rubbed sides the South is likely to be the great social prob- many a well-aimed marble has been jerked by lem of the present and next generation. But young fingers. And the yard with its fringe of we have overpassed the space allotted to us, scant grass against the fence, and the rest of its and can only recommend the complete "Story space worn smooth as a ball-room floor by the of the Great March" to the careful considera- tread of little bare feet. Here and there you tion of all those with whom our opinion may can see a well-rounded hole, done on a wet day have weight. by some barefoot urchin's heel, moulding a receptacle for the marble in knuckle-down. Behind the door, in the entry, on a stool not too ones, you may see the veteran water-pail, with high for the little boys nor too low for the big its rusty tin dish, into which many a thirsty youngster has thrust his warm, red face, drinkrolling his eyes around on the impatient waiters ing slowly and breathing audibly in the cup, and for their turn. nails where the boys and girls hang their headIn the entry, too, is the row of gear, and the row of shelves where they keep their dinner-baskets. And here, in the middle of the school-room, is the rusty old stove, around which the red-fingered children cluster in win

I

ONE OF MY SCHOLARS.

AM the old schoolmaster that has taught the district-school in the little stone schoolhouse under the elms in Gray Street, in our village, for now twenty years. the school-room, at my table, engaged upon this I am sitting in production of the pen. The village has grown a little, but not much, in these twenty years. There have been some great changes during this time even with us. The railroad has come, and the telegraph has been put up, and we are nearer to the city by a whole day than we were be

ter, and which always stands undisturbed all various ways. He had a habit of gathering tosummer long, for the boys to sharpen their slate-gether bits of old iron, copper, and brass which pencils on, and for me to empty the dust-pan other people threw away, or gave him, or sold into when I sweep out in the morning. And him for a trifle; and every few months he would here am I, the master, as unchanged as all the gather his hoard together and drag it to the rest—with my careful, old-fashioned ways, my store in his go-cart for a grand clearing-out sale. well-kept slippers, and my smooth ruler; which The money went right into mother's pocket allatter instrument is, in my hands, merely the ways. In the winter he would smoke the neighemblem of authority-the sceptre, so to speak- bors' pork-hams in a little smoke-house that he and not the instrument of torture which, I re- built himself. This brought in many a clean gret to say, it is in the hands of some school- sixpence. Then, in the summer-time, he used masters. Twenty years have I taught school to drive up cows for different families in the vilin this house, and during that long period I lage, from the Beech Woods pasture. He had have never lifted my hand to inflict a blow upon as many as ten under his care sometimes, and a child that God made; no, never once. I he got sixpence a week from each person whose can punish the worst-dispositioned child that cow he drove, and a shilling from Dr. Bell, who breathes, and never once stoop to adopt the lives over the river. As early as four o'clock of modes of torture that brutalize, lower self-re- a June morning, when I have been taking my spect, and injure more than they improve. customary walk, I have seen Johnny Curtis letSchoolmaster Baldwin never struck a child, and ting down the bars of the Beech Woods pasture, you can not perhaps conceive what pleasure to let his cows out, to be driven up to milk at there is in the remembrance, as I look about their different owners' houses, and back again here on the well-thumbed books, and broken to pasture before Johnny got his breakfast. slates, and bits of muggy sponge-all eloquent How the little fellow managed to get the cows as trivial things are-till my old eyes grow dim together from all parts of that great pasture, a with memories of the boys that have been to portion of which was covered with a deep wood, school to me. might have been a mystery to the unsophisticated. But the cows were always either at the bars or within hail. The ground under that solitary old acorn-tree near the bars was as bare as my school-yard, where the cows had lain, chewing their cuds and waiting for Johnny and when they were not there he would mount into the tree and cry, "Bos! Come, bos! Come, bos!" and the cows would trot up to him with full udders swinging.

Mrs. Curtis's boy, when he was one of my scholars, had that seat in the corner where the girls' row meets the boys' row. Johnny had that place for the whole six years that he went to school to me. He was a right down good boy. Yes, he was a thoroughly good boy; and as I muse upon his sad fate I do not wonder at the reverence and love in which all Dale Manor now holds his memory. It is his story which I am now about to relate.

66

So Johnny was a great help to his poor, worse than widowed mother. At the same time his school was not neglected. He was as regular in attendance as the master himself. Johnny was not a boy to shine much, and in composition and declamation he was very backward. He was best at mathematics. He was smaller even than his age would warrant, and generally wore a quiet, half-dreamy air that did not promise very great things for his future. One would have thought, who did not know Johnny, that he had no energy at all; but his deeds told another story. His mother knew better, I can assure you.

Johnny Curtis lived with his mother in Gray Street, near the old Beech Woods, which shadowed the southern edge of the town. His father was a drunkard. He spent all his life in hanging about grog-shops, where he earned, or was treated to, enough whisky to keep him always just so boozy-sleepy enough to enjoy his pig-life behind the stove, and wakeful enough to saw a bit of wood, or bring a pail of water, or come up and drink." He seldom came home, even to his meals, and when he did he would slink into a corner and say nothing. He never brought a cent of money into the house. Johnny was more of a man by far than he was -more of a father to Bessie and Ellen, the two little girls his sisters. It is a natural thought enough that such a father was not likely to make a very good son out of Johnny; but I have often observed that drunkards who are utterly shiftless seldom have drunken sons; the good mo-to that test often. I do not remember having ther counteracts all the evil example of the father. And when a drunkard's son does follow in his father's tracks, there you may generally see proved the mother's woeful lack. Mrs. Curtis was a God-loving woman-industrious, modest, low-voiced, smooth-tempered. She supported her little ones by her needle. But after he was ten Johnny never was an expense to his mother. He earned a good deal of money in

I was sorry, in view of all Johnny's good qualities, that he had the reputation of being a coward among his fellows. He was so meek that it was next to an impossibility to put an affront upon him. To tell the truth, however, he was too well liked by his comrades to be put

known of but one instance of the sort. There was a black-eyed, long-haired, foreign boy who came to Dale Manor to live one summer when Johnny was about twelve years old. I don't know really of what country he was; his name was Mark Löwenstein-a German name, but I think he had more Italian than German blood in him. His father kept a livery stable at the hotel, and sent his boy to my school. He af

fronted Johnny very saucily one day-called him man. a vile name, and dared him to fight. just turned his back and walked away, and Johnny Mark Löwenstein followed him and struck him an ugly blow in the face with the back of his hard hand. I had seen the whole transaction, and I took Mark into custody. I do believe Johnny felt worse about that than he did at being struck. I shall never forget the scene presented by those two boys as they stood before me then; for, later events in which they have been actors have made them more than heroes of romance. Johnny, with his soft blue eyes and sturdy little figure, wiping the blood from his face with his red silk handkerchief; Mark with his sullen black eye, and tall, lithe form, waiting his sentence.

591

In those ten years what life lies wrapped! der is all there, and I know well how beautiful The love-life of Johnny Curtis and Mary Ostranit was. I had watched those children as if they were my own; I am a childless widower. Many a long Saturday afternoon had that happy pair seen, in their favorite haunt, the old Beech Woods, during those ten years, gathering yellow mandrakes and brown beech-nuts; swinging in the big swing; kicking through the deep autumn leaves that filled the hollows, talking and looking love, and feeling it. Oh, those old woods! How many merry picnic parties I have seen there-bevies of white-aproned girlswarm-faced, hilarious boys, prone to "show off" the leafy avenues ringing with their shouts and laughter! Mary Ostrander was a recog.

"I am as much to blame as he is, Mr. Bald-nized romp till at least her eighteenth birthwin," said Johnny. You should have seen the astonished gaze young Löwenstein shot from his black eyes at this!

"You to blame!" said I; "What did you do, John ?"

"I turned my back on him, Sir. good right not to like it."

He had a

day; your grand city society, which I am told is very well-behaved, would have been quite horjoyousness as naturally and as healthfully as a rified to see Mary "carry on;" she bubbled with living spring of pure, pure water. she was tired nothing would rest her like going And when manner, heartily pleased, and putting her hand over where Johnny was, looking on in his quiet in his for a moment, with a great sigh of content.

Mark Löwenstein put his fists into his eyes and began to cry at that. I understood his feelings. I never chill repentance in a boy with icy justice; I put Mark's hand in Johnny's and sent them off together. A minute after I small man-about five feet only-but plump litThey were early betrothed. Johnny was a looked out a window and saw Mark in a corner tle Mary's curly head came just so high as his of the fence emptying his pockets of their total manly breast when they stood together. If contents into Johnny's. Johnny blushed and hero were a more novel hero he should be taller, said, "I don't want 'em, Mark;" but Mark in-young ladies, for your pleasure, and strikingly If my sisted doggedly, and so knife, marbles, peg-top, handsome; but Johnny never grew tall, though whistle, and potato pop-gun all went into John-handsome he always was, with that best beauty ny Curtis's possession. After that such fast which is the glow in the face of a pure, true soul. friends as those boys were! And I never had a better-behaved boy in my school than Mark Löwenstein became.

world.

But the small-pox, which raged so badly in 1856,
Mrs. Curtis shed some natural tears.
made a dreadful mark. It took, among others,
Mrs. Curtis's two little girls, and it left its shot-
marks on the mother's face also.
James Ostrander, and left Mary without a fa-
It took Mr.
ther.

Mr. Curtis, the drunkard, had screamed and In these ten years there also had been deaths. Mary Ostrander occupied that seat next to one day, leaving Johnny no more fatherless than danced his life out in a fit of delirium tremens Johnny's, where the girls' row and the boys' he had always been. This death was not a matrow meet. She was a laughing little brown-ter of importance to any one left behind in the eyed beauty, as full of fun as an elf out of school, but in school Johnny's perfect match in good behavior. The worst thing I ever knew Mary to do was to give Johnny Curtis a handful of beech-nuts one day in school-hours, which Johnny receiving tremblingly-for he knew he ought not to do so, but how could he refuse her? -spilled partly on the floor. It was inevitable, for the sake of discipline, that the offense should change of all. Dale Manor raised a whole comIn 1861 came the war, and made the greatest be punished. Mary was the tempter, and on pany, and a hundred young men was a great her should have fallen the punishment, but I number to be taken from our village at once, saw in that boy's eyes that I should break his you may be sure; though some of the number heart if I touched Mary. Hence, Johnny stood were farmers' boys, and not exactly taken out for half an hour perched on my chair with a of the village. It seemed as if the whole pophandful of beech-nuts in each outstretched palm.ulation of Dale Manor was at the railroad dépôt He was only ten years old then. fourteen years ago, and before Mark Löwen-ed. There was much talking in groups. About That was on the morning when our soldier-boys departstein's coming.

This is enough of that period. You are somewhat acquainted with my hero by this time. (I don't use the term hero in a story-telling sense; this is history; I mean A HERO.)

den loves came out in that hour. No maiden,
every soldier was the centre of one such. Hid-
no matter how coy, could hide her true feel-
ings from her lover at such a parting. Tears,
and smiles struggling against tears, were every

Ten years passed away and Johnny was a where.

Mark Löwenstein, I remember, was in a very moody frame of mind, arising, as I have since learned, from the fact that Sarah Buswell, the hotel-keeper's daughter, had refused to promise to marry him when he offered her his hand the night before, to be "seized and possessed" when he should return from the war. Mark looked as if he had not a friend on earth. By-and-by I saw Sarah go up to him and shake hands with him. Mark was very cool, and brushed his long black hair behind his ears so proudly that Sarah began to cry. Mark looked on in astonishment, and then bent over and whispered a word in the little body's ear, and the little body nodded her head with much energy, so that a bright light chased away Mark's shadows, and after that till the minute of parting he was another man.

Lieutenant Johnny Curtis was in high spirits. His face shone with light, and he chatted as gayly with Mary and his mother and a circle of others as if he were merely going out for a holiday. What has come over the boy? thought some, he was usually so quiet. They remembered the scene afterward, when his fate was known, almost with awe.

Too soon for the groups of talkers the engine came dragging its long train from behind Swallow Hill, gay with flags, and with more companies of soldiers leaning out the windows, clustering on the platforms, standing upon the very tops of the cars. They poured out like a swarm of gay-colored bees as soon as the train stopped, shaking hands and laughing and exchanging salutations with their Dale Manor acquaintances--for these soldiers were from Rich Harbor, and Charlotte, and Bowenville, and all the places in our immediate vicinity. Ten minutes later and the train was off. My old head almost whirled in the unwonted bustle and confusion. I just saw Johnny Curtis strain his mother to his heart, imprint a kiss on Mary's ripe lips and another on Mrs. Ostrander's cheek; and then he was waving his cap to us from the rear platform of the last car as the train glided away, with the band playing the "Star-spangled Banner," leaving me nursing my right hand with my left, for it was aching to the elbow with the shaking it had undergone. There were more than a score of my former scholars in that company, and Johnny was but one of them. The strongest grip my hand got was from Mark Löwenstein, whose face was one glow of joy; and he certainly must have pumped some of it into my heart, for I think that hour was the proudest and happiest in my whole life, with all its sadness.

The events of the past four years have been like a dream to some. As for me, my old eyes have followed this war along through one representative-Johnny Curtis. He has typified all things to me. All those great battles before Richmond are to me Johnny Curtis's daily life. He was in them all, and I saw all his letters home. Winter and summer Mary Ostrander brought them to me. Here, in my school-room, I sat when she brought me the news of his first battle, and how for his bravery Colonel Wood took him by the hand with thanks. How proud Mary was with that! I remember I drew a map of the "situation" on the blackboard, and Mary was full of buoyant enthusiasm over it, and made me promise not to rub it out till she could bring his mother to see it. I remember, too, the summer morning when I was walking in the Beech Woods pasture, and a little boynot Johnny now-came to let down the old bars for the cows to come out; and the emerald sward was every where flecked with daisies and butter-cups, and the still air was made stiller by the hollow rattle of an occasional cow-bell. I heard a cheery voice cry, "Mr. Baldwin!" and looking up saw Mary tripping toward me with a white letter fluttering high in her hand. That was the letter that told how Johnny fared at Antietam, and how he washed off the blood and dust afterward, and had not a scratch; and Mary laughed a little bubbling laugh that came from deep down in her heart. Just such another morning it was when came the picture of Gettysburg. From early dawn till late in the afternoon, through the furious conflict, we saw Johnny struggling with Lee's blood-drunk rebels; and we saw him when he took into his lap the head of poor Captain Berry, who fell on that field.

At last the change came.

In that dreadful battle of the Wilderness Johnny was taken prisoner, with about a dozen others of the Dale Manor company. Soon after we heard from him through an exchanged prisoner from Richmond, who brought us a letter from Mark Löwenstein.

"Why should Mark write instead of Johnny?"

In this question read the emotions of our hearts, which found expression in no other words than these, but could not have been painted in volumes.

The prisoners had been taken to the Libby prison in Richmond. Out of the thirteen Dale Manor men every one save Johnny fell sick and I don't suppose city people can realize at all was placed in the hospital. (When the prisonwhat a gap was made in our village by the hun-ers first arrived there they were stripped of the dred men that train bore away to the war, not one of them to return till the war was over, as it proved. The crowd of women, children, and elderly men strayed away homeward with strange, half-sad faces, where that warm light glowed too, which faded out only slowly, slowly in the coming days, as enthusiasm settled into routine and common duty and the heroism of waiting.

most of their clothing, and any valuables they had. Johnny possessed a cornelian ring that once was Mary's, and this he secreted in his mouth while being stripped, and afterward buried it in the ground secretly, pointing out the spot to Mark Löwenstein only.) Mark aft erward became convalescent, and found that Johnny had disappeared-no one knew whith

er.

And this was what he wrote to Mrs. Cur