just where to pitch camp to get water and avoid it. One bee meant a bee's nest nearby, and we had wild honey all the time. He knew just where to go and pull a 'possum out of a tree, we had wild turkey, and occasionally a young bear or deer. And work—he was worth any two men I ever had. He developed like a starving crop fertilized and watered. In the clean-cut, powerful, willing, cheerful "axe-man" no one could have recognized the Georgia Cracker I found hauling turpentine sap with a mule eight months before. Well barbered and tailored he would have presented a handsome appearance. I was sorry enough when the time came to part with him.

At that time we were on the bank of the Altamara river. All of the other men had been paid but I kept Howard to pack up. The tent and outfit were to be shipped to Savannah. One day I queried:

"Howard, what are you going to do with your money?" He had asked me to keep his monthly vouchers and give him spending money as needed.

"How much money have I got coming, Mistah Wood?" he asked, coming near where I sat making out my final reports, using the mess table in the center of the big tent for a desk.

"You have more than a thousand dollars," I replied without looking up.

"A thousand dollars—sure enough money?" he exclaimed with delight, yet astonished and a little bit doubtful.

"Yes—you can go to any bank and get it in gold, if you desire."

"Why—a thousand dollars—I never expected to have that much money in my whole life—ah—ah reckon I'll let you keep it fer me, Mistah Wood. I got no use for money now."

"I'm afraid I can't keep it for you, Howard," I replied. "I am going back to Washington, and will enter another branch of the service."

"You can't keep it for me, Mistah Wood?"

"No—that wouldn't do, you must learn to take care of it yourself."

"What can I do with ut?" he finally asked, troubled and thoughtful, as I mentioned going away.

He amused me with his simplicity. Half in jest I said, "Buy up some of this stump land—it will make you rich some day."

"If I had some of this good-for-nothing land what would I do with ut?" he asked, feigning astonishment and going over to the edge of the tent which had been opened all around. Looking out as far as he could see was a scraggly growth of pine among stumps as thick, black and forbidding as midnight in a swamp of croaking frogs.

"This land's no better than the turpentine country—what would such cussed stuff be worth if I had ut?" he asked again. "Why, they ain't a house for miles—all of it is God-fo'saken," he insisted before I could reply.

"Howard, you must use your imagination—those stumps are full of turpentine and rosin, and after you get them out you have river-bottom land that will raise cotton as high as your shoulders for a hundred years—and right out there is deep tide-water, to take it to any part of the world."

"Yes, I know, but how you goin' to get the stumps out?" he asked quickly, still looking out.

"Blow them out with dynamite—pull them out, that's easy."

"Yes—but how am I going to get the turpentine and rosin outen the stumps after I blow 'em up?" he came back at me.

"Boil it out, and then sell the wood or make paper out of it. You ought to be able to work that out," I replied, smiling.

Howard Byng looked out a little longer and without replying resumed packing the dishes and kitchen outfit in a big chest, while I went on with my writing. Finally he came opposite the table and surprised me by saying:

"Do you heah them little frogs yapin'—and do you heah them big bullfrogs bawlin', and do you see them buzzards flyin', and doan you know them stumps is in water where it's full of rattla's? This ain't no good country fur a white man where dey is bullfrogs and little frogs, vermin of all sorts and buzzards, and where you got to eat quinine three times a day."

"Think it over, Howard, it may be better than you imagine."

We finally got a boat as far as Brunswick. Howard insisted on going with me to Savannah where I would turn in my camp outfit. He had never been out of the woods before. His surprise and delight at being in a city for the first time was refreshing. This nineteen-year-old turpentine woods boy had never been farther than a country store, never had seen a locomotive, and to him cities had been mere dreams.

To him the one, and only, three-story block in the place was a skyscraper. He saw big steamers and sailing ships for the first time, and acres of long wharfs loaded with naval stores, sawed timber and cotton he could scarcely believe as real until he actually touched them with his hands.

With my help he bought a good suit of clothes, shoes and hat, the first he ever owned. The barber did the rest and his delight knew no bounds. His raven hair and skin were perfect, and he would have been taken for a college athlete until he talked, his speech being a distinct shock. During these two or three days he seemed transported and almost forgot I was about to leave him.

When the time came his sorrow was distressing. He took no pains to disguise it, and lapsed into the Cracker boy, timid, and out of his element. He breathed hard and struggled.

"Mistah Wood, you leavin' makes me want to run back to the pine woods, and I guess I will," he said, standing on the wharf looking up at my steamer.

"Howard, every man must work out his own problems," said I. "For me to attempt to advise would be to rob you of your own inspiration. You will know what you want to do before long, but don't take too big a jump at once. I believe there is good metal in you which will soon show itself, if you don't force it." I was sorry for the boy and thought for the moment I had made a mistake in bringing him out of the woods. I didn't believe anything could be accidental; his meeting me was not, I felt certain.

"Ain't there somethin' I can do to be with you? You know I'm willin' to do anything," he asked in a distinctly broken voice.

"No, Howard—for two reasons. I am going into another department and am uncertain where they will send me, and such a move, were it possible, might be harmful to you. Go to work at something here, and read—study for five years, then you may be able to go in the big world, and become somebody."

"Do you mean I must go back to the turpentine country?" he asked, with moistening eyes, as though asking that sentence be passed upon him.

"It doesn't matter where you go, Howard, or what you do, honestly, if you will get a lot of books to read and study them. Read the lives of Lincoln and Horace Greeley, who started out of the woods. Books and study are the keys to the great outside world. If you would be more than a laborer with your hands—study, my boy," I advised, putting my hand on his broad shoulders.

"I'm goin' to do it, suh—I'm goin' to do it sho'," he repeated as he followed me to the gangplank.

And there he stood on the end of the wharf until the ship was out of sight, occasionally waving his arms. For a time I was actually disturbed by the pathos of the boy's conduct. I knew that in our country there were still thousands more like him not yet reached by our woeful educational system, especially in some parts of the South.

My work in the Excise Department was new to me and kept me very busy for the next five years. Howard Byng had practically passed out of my mind. One day the chief informed me that there was a lot of "moonshine" whiskey coming down the Altamara River in