from a still higher eminence, a number of guns were throwing shells over our lines into those of the rebels, who were replying in like fashion. The earth was covered with the early green leaflets, twigs, and branches, mowed by bullets which flew in constant flight overhead. The whoop and scream of shells and the howl of solid shot made a chorus wild as the orchestra of hell, and now and again the increasing fire of small arms added the whir and whistle of their balls to the tumultuous din of war.

A half hour later an order to advance to the top of the slope carried them forward under fire. Francis watched his men anxiously as they fell into line on the summit of the hillock, aware that some of them had seen but little service. Meanwhile a fragment of a brigade passed by them, having fallen back in order to renew its ammunition. The infantry men chaffed the dismounted troopers as they passed.

แ

Steady!" said Francis, with his ever-ready smile,-"steady!" and Blake moved along the line, talking to the men, and keenly observant. Still the leaves and branches dropped as from unseen scythes in air, and about them the bullets flew, now with a dull thud on the trees and now with a duller sound on limb or trunk of man. A half-dozen men dropped in as many minutes, and, as usual, the soldiers began to tend into groups, with some instinctive sense of obtaining protection by neighborhood to their fellows.

"Steady!" said Francis; "mark time! Now, again! That's better! The signs of nervous excitement were visible enough: one man incessantly wiped his gun-barrel, another buttoned and unbuttoned his coat, a third stood, pale and tremulous, looking hastily to left and right, whilst a tall soldier attracted the attention of Blake by talking volubly. "Now, steady!" said Blake, facing them and marking time as he stepped backward. "So! That will do. Now forward-double quick!" They passed the torn abatis and slashes which before dawn lay in front of the rebel lines and now within our own, and in a few moments were at the front, behind the breastworks to the left of the murderous

Angle." Kneeling in double rows, they took the places left vacant by a part of a regiment sent back in turn to replenish its cartridge belts. The "Hot Corner" to the right and the adjoining lines, which Lee had lost at dawn, had been furiously contested in repeated charges all that long day of May. But now for a brief season there was a respite. The firing ceased a few moments after they reached their station, and Blake had leisure to observe the effect of the most ferocious struggle of the war. The lines were straight to left and right, but to the westward of where he stood was the "Hot Corner," better known as "the Angle." Its open side looked towards the rebel lines. Originally a well-built breastwork, it had been continually strengthened as chance allowed, and was now a mass of earth, tree-trunks, and rails. The woods were dense

on each side, and in them during the brief pauses in this awful day the combatants of either side lay close to the disputed barrier. Blake walked down the lines to the left, crouching low to avoid a shot. Before him lay a broad clearing, and twelve hundred yards distant a thick wood, which sheltered the rebel lines and ran towards and up to the bloody angle. The smoke lifted slowly, as if reluctantly unveiling the countless wounded and dead in the open. The dusk was gradually deepening. For an hour or two there had been no serious assault; yet those who had met the gallant Confederates knew but too well their habit of a final and desperate onset just before nightfall. Officers came and went, ammunition was distributed, tired men rose from brief repose, new brigades came up, and a relative stillness of grim expectation fell on the close-set lines behind the torn field-works. Then there was stir and movement in among the distant woods. Forms of men dimly seen filled the dark interspaces of the far-away forests across the clearing, and swarmed out of them until long gray lines, one behind another, in close formation, told to those who watched them what was coming.

Standing behind Francis's men, glass in hand, Blake awaited the onset. His friend passed him, smiling as ever. The gray lines grew nearer, advancing slowly; the officers well in front, marking time, then pausing and at last falling into and behind the moving mass. Then they came faster. Just in front of Blake a single officer, in a gray shirt and without a coat, kept his place before his men. The long gray line, five hundred yards distant, broke with wild yells into a rush; a fury of musketry burst forth at the angle to the left in the denser woods; officers cried out, "Keep cool! Steady! Hold your fire!"

Blake dropped his glass. Francis cried out to him, "Get down, you fool!" As he crouched he saw the now irregular line, and even the set, grim faces of the men,-earth has seen no braver.

Then the fury of fire and smoke began,—an inconceivable tumult of shouts, cries, oaths, the ping-ping of minie and musket-shot, and a darkness of gray death-mists flashing venomous tongues of fire. Through torn smoke-veils Blake saw the near faces, black and furious. Of the awful struggle, as men were shot, stabbed, pulled over as prisoners to either side, beaten down with clubbed muskets, he knew little that he could recall a day after. There was a pause, confusion, wild shouts, hurrahs, to left and right, a sense of having won, he knew not how or why, and he found himself leaping down from the top of the breastwork with an amazed sense of victory, in his left hand an empty revolver, still smoking, in his right a broken musket. He drew a long breath, and, perfectly exhausted, looked about him. He was unhurt. Around him were prisoners, dead and wounded soldiers, men afoot tottering, men on the ground convulsed, and a mere mob of smoke-begrimed

soldiers, with alert officers swiftly moving to and fro, swearing, and howling orders in an effort to get their people together.

The smoke lifted or blew away, and Blake stared half dazed at the broken columns melted to a mob on the plain, some staggering, some crawling away wounded, some in broken groups, the greater mass huddled together and making for the sheltering forest.

The fight was over; but not a hundred yards distant the colonel who had led the immediate attack was seen in the dusky twilight walking calmly and scornfully away. As he became visible, shots went by him. Then a soldierly emotion touched some heart as brave as his own; an officer leaped on to the breastwork and called out, "Damn it, don't fire! Three cheers for the Reb!" A wild hurrah rose from the Northern line. Whether the officer concerned understood it or not were hard to say, but he wheeled suddenly, faced our breastworks, saluted formally as if on parade, and again turning, renewed his walk, while cheer on cheer thundered along our lines.

Blake raised his field-glass and watched him. Suddenly he saw him sway, recover himself, and then, doubling up, drop on the ground.

"My God, how pitiful!" exclaimed the New England man.

It was now getting darker; but Blake noted well where he fell. Victory is only less confusing than defeat. Threading his way through the thickly-lying dead and wounded gray and blue,-for thrice the Confederates had been within the captured lines,-he moved slowly along among perplexing masses of intertangled brigades and regiments in search of his friend. At last, returning, he found Francis. They shook hands warmly. Both felt the immense sense of relief which the close of a battle brings to the bravest.

Murat Halstead.

BORN in Paddy's Run, Butler Co., Ohio, 1829.

TO THE YOUNG MAN AT THE DOOR.

[Address on "The Maxims, Markets, and Missions of the Press," delivered before the Wisconsin Press Association, 23 January, 1889.]

WE

E need to guard against ways of exclusiveness-against the assumption that for some mysterious reason the press has rights that the people have not; that there are privileges of the press in which the masses and the classes do not participate. The claim of privilege is a serious error. One neither gains nor loses rights in a profession. We

have the same authority to speak as editors that we have as citizens. If we use a longer "pole to knock the persimmons," because we have a larger constituency for our conversational ability, that doesn't affect rights. It simply increases responsibility. One can say of a meritorious man or enterprise, or of a rascally schemer or scheme, as an editor the same that he could say as a citizen, a tax-payer, a lawyer, minister, farmer, or blacksmith. It conduces to the better understanding of our business to know that we are like other folks, and not set apart, baptized, anointed, or otherwise sanctified, for an appointed and exclusive and unique service.

It is in our line of occupation to buy white paper, impress ink upon it in such form as may be expressive of the news and our views, and agreeable to our friends or disagreeable to our foes, and sell the sheet, when the paper becomes, by the inking thereof, that peculiar manufac tured product, a newspaper, for a margin of profit. We should not go about magnifying our office. We are as gifted and good as anybody, so far as our natural rights are concerned, and are better or worse according to our behavior. It is our position to stand on the common ground with the people, and publish the news, and tell the truth about it as well as we can; and we shall, through influences certain in their operation, find the places wherein we belong. No one can escape the logic of his labor.

Communications from young gentlemen in, or fresh from college, or active in other shops, who propose to go into journalism or newspaperdom, and want to know how to do it, are a common experience, for there is a popular fascination about our employment. There is nothing one could know-neither faculty to perform nor ability to endure-perfection of recollection, thoroughness in history, capacity to apply the lessons of philosophy, comprehension of the law, or cultiavted intuition of the Gospel that would not be of service going into newspaperdom. But it is beyond me to prescribe a course of study. It is easier, when you have the knack, to do than to tell.

When the Young Man comes to say that he would be willing to undertake to run a newspaper,—and we know that Young Man as soon as we see his anxious face at the door, and sympathize with him, for we may remember to have been at the door instead of the desk, and willing to undertake the task of the gentleman who sat at the desk and asked what was wanted—when perhaps the youth at the door had in his pocket an essay on the Mound-builders that he believed was the news of the day— and we don't like to speak unkindly to the Young Man. But there are so many of him. He is so numerous that he is monotonous, and it is not always fair to utter the commonplaces of encouragement. It is well to ask the Young Man, who is willing to come in and do things, what he has done (and often he hasn't done anything but have his being).

What is it that he knows how to do better than any one else can do it? If there be anything, the question settles itself, for one who knows how to do right well something that is to do, has a trade. The world is under his feet, and its hardness is firm footing. We must ask what the Young Man wants to do; and he comes back with the awful vagueness that he is willing to do anything; and that always means nothing at all. It is the intensity of the current of electricity that makes the carbon incandescent and illuminating. The vital flame is the mystery that is immortal in the soul and in the universe.

Who can tell the Young Man how to grasp the magic clew of the globe that spins with us? There is no turnpike or railroad that leads into journalism. There are no vacancies for didactic amateurs. Nobody is wanted. And yet we are always looking out for Somebody, and once in awhile he comes. He does not ask for a place, but takes that which is his. Do not say to the Young Man, there are no possibilities. There certainly are more than ever before. Young Man, if you want to get into journalism, break in. Don't ask how. It is the finding of it out that will educate you to do the essential thing. The Young Man must enter the newspaper office by main strength and awkwardness, and make a place for himself.

The machines upon which we impress the sheets we produce for the market--and we all know how costly they are in their infinite variety of improvements, for the earnings of the editor are swept away by the incessant, insatiable requirements of the press-maker-this facile mechanism is not more changeable than The Press itself, in its larger senseand the one thing needful, first and last, is Man. With all the changes, the intelligence of the printer and the personal force of the editor are indispensable.

Charles Dudley Warner.

BORN in Plainfield, Mass., 1829.

WHAT I KNOW ABOUT GARDENING.

[My Summer in a Garden. 1870.-Seventh Edition. 1888.]

HOEING AS A LUXURY.

Y mind has been turned to the subject of fruit and shade trees in a garden. There are those who say that trees shade the garden too much, and interfere with the growth of the vegetables. There may