them, even if this country air has turned their skins black.” At this moment a tiny voice called, “Please help me out.” All the boys started with a rush, each eager to embrace the little step-sister. I was there first, and in an instant, in spite of my dirty appearance, she sprang from the coach right into my arms; my brothers struggled to take her from me, but she tightened her little arms about my neck and clung to me as if I was her only protector. I started and ran with her, my brothers in full chase, down the road, over the stone walls, across the field, around the stumps with my prize, the brothers keeping up the chase till we were all completely tired out, and father compelled us to stop and bring the child to the house. Afterward we took our turns at caressing and admiring her; finally we apologized for our behavior and dirty faces, listened to father’s and mother’s congratulations, concluded father’s choice for a wife was a good one, and that our little step-sister was just exactly as we wanted her to be, and the prospect of a bright, new and happy home seemed to be already realized.

A home is all right
With father and brother,
But darker than night
Without sister and mother.

The war grew more and more serious. Newspapers were eagerly sought; and every word about the struggle was read over and over again. A new call for troops was made, another and still another, and I was all the time fretting and chafing in the corn or potato field, because I was so young and small. I could not work; the fire of patriotism was burning me up. My eldest brother had arrived at the age and required size to fit him for the service; he enlisted and went to the front. This added new fuel to the flame already within me, and one day I threw down the hoe and declared that I would go to the war! I would join my brother at all hazards. My folks laughed at me and tried to dissuade me from so unwise a step, but my mind was made up, and I was bound to enlist. Enlist I did, when I was only fourteen years of age and extremely small for my years, but I thought I would answer for a drummer boy if nothing else. I found that up hill work, however, but I was bound to “get there,” and—I did.

It was easy enough to enlist, but to get mustered into the service was a different thing. I tried for eight long weeks. I enlisted in my own town, but was rejected. I enlisted in an adjoining town—rejected, and so on for weeks and weeks. But I did not give up. I owned at the time a little old gray horse and a two-wheeled jumper or “gig,” which I had bought with my savings from the sale of “hoop poles,” which are small birch and alder trees that grow in the swamps, and used for hoops on lime casks; at this time they were worth a half a cent a piece delivered. I would work cutting these poles at times when I could do nothing else, pack them on my back to the road, pile them up, till I had a quantity to sell. At length I concluded I had enough to buy me a horse and cart; the pile seemed as big as a house to me, but when the man came along to buy them, he counted out six thousand good ones and rejected nine thousand that were bad. “Too small!” he said.

“Too small?” I exclaimed, “why there is hardly any difference in them!” But he was buying, I was selling, and under the influence of a boy’s anxiety, he paid me thirty dollars, which I counted over and over again, and at every count the dollars seemed to murmer, “A horse, a horse!—war! war! to the front! be a soldier!” I could picture nothing but a soldier’s life; I could almost hear the sounds of the drums, and almost see the long rows of blue-coated soldiers marching in glorious array with steady step to the music of the band. “Thirty! thirty!” I would repeat to myself, but finally concluded thirty wouldn’t buy much of a horse, but my heart was set upon it, and nothing remained for me to do but cut more “poles.” One day when I arrived at the road with a bundle of them, a farmer happened to be passing, driving a yoke of oxen as I tumbled my hoop-poles over the fence on to the pile.

“Heow be yer?” Addressing me in a high, nasal twang peculiar to the yeomanry of Maine, and then calling to his oxen without a change of tone, he drawled, “Whoa! back! Whoa you, Turk! Whoa, Bright!” at the same time hitting the oxen over their noses with his goad-stick, and resting on the yoke, he asked, “What yer goin’ ter dew with them poles?”

“Sell them,” I replied.

“What dew yer want for ’em?” taking in the height and width of the pile with a calculating eye.

“Fifty cents a hundred,” I said, with some trepidation.

“Don’t want nothin’, dew yer,” coming over and picking out the smallest pole in the pile; “Pooty durned small, been’t they? What’ll yer take fur the hull lot?”

“Twenty dollars,” I said.

“Twenty dollars! Whew!” Emitting a whistle that would have done credit to a locomotive exhausting steam. “Why, thar been’t more’n a thousan’ thar, be thar?”

“Oh yes, I guess there are over four thousand.”

“Say!” sticking his hands in either breeches pocket and taking me in from head to foot with a comprehensive glance, “What might yer name be?”

“Ulmer,” I said.

“No? You been’t Phil’s son, be yer?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yer don’t tell me! Wall, by gosh! I like Phil, he’s a durned smart ’un. I’ll tell yer what, I’d like ter see him and Jimmie Blaine a settin’ up in them gol-durn presidential cheers; why, by gosh, they’d jist open the hull durned treasury bildin’ an let all ther gor-ramed gold an’ silver role right out inter the streets, by gosh, they would.” Having delivered himself of this panegyric, together with an accumulated quantity of saliva resulting from the constant mastication of a large tobacco quid, he again turned his attention to the pile of poles and said, “How much did yer say fur the lot?”

“Twenty dollars.”

“Twenty!” Drawing the corners of his mouth down and stroking his chin, then turning to me, “Wall, more I look at yer, by gosh, yer do look like Phil. Wall, I’d like purty well ter have them poles, but—,” as if a sudden idea had struck him,—“Don’t want ter trade fur a horse, dew yer?”

“What kind of a horse?”

“Wall, a pooty durned good ’un. I hain’t druve him much lately, but he yused ter go like smoke; he’s a leetle old but, will prick up his ears like a colt when he’s a mind ter.”

“Well, I do want a horse, if I can trade for one,” I said, trying not to show anxiety.

“Say, got time ter get on’ ter the waggin an go over to my farm and see him, take dinner with me? Guess, the old woman’ll have enough for both.”

Being anxious, I accepted the invitation, and was soon on the way. He pestered me with all kinds of questions; asked all about my family affairs and told me all of his and every other family for miles about. Finally we reached his house, one of those old-fashioned farm houses with several old tumble-down sheds and out-buildings attached, near by an old barn that was once painted red, the shingles had rotted and blown off here and there, so you could see daylight from any portion inside. Scattered about were old wagon boxes, odd wheels, old toothless harrows, plows, a wheelbarrow upside down with the wheel gone, part of an old harness lying across it; bits of harness were hanging on pegs in the barn. Geese, turkeys and chickens were numerous and clucked about as if they were really pleased to see us, and in fact, I discounted or anticipated the looks of the house from