vacation."

"I s'pose 'taint quite right, lookin' at it in some ways," said the old gunner apologetically. "But I spent four years south workin' for our Uncle Samuel, an' it doos seem's if I might rest here one winter at his expense, 'specially sence I'm a sort o' namesake o' his. Besides, 'taint like it might be 'f I was drawin' a penshin, neither, for I never tried t' git one, though there's plenty o' men takin' dollars out o' th' treas'ry that aint got no better claim than I have."

"You're decorated, I see," said I, nodding towards the medal upon his breast. "Isn't that the 'Medal of Honor' that is awarded only by vote of Congress?"

"Yis, that's jest what it is," replied the sergeant, unpinning it and handing it over for my inspection. "Guess 'taint worth much; it's nothin' but copper. Seems's if the gov'ment don't calc'late t' spend much on them sort o' fixin's. I got it 'bout three years ago."

"'To Sergeant Samuel Farwell,'" I read aloud, "'October 29th, 1864.' Do you mean to say, sergeant, that you waited twenty-four years to obtain recognition of your bravery?"

"Wal, there warn't no one t' blame 'cept me," remarked my New Englander, taking the medal from the colonel, to whom I had passed it, and fastening it again in its place upon the breast of his blouse. "Ye have t' apply for them things yourself, an' git all sorts o' document'ry evidence t' back ye up. It makes consid'able bother, fust an' last, an' I'll be darned 'f I'd go through all th' fuss agin for a peck on 'em."

"Tell us about it," said the colonel, who seemed amused at the light in which Farwell regarded his decoration. "What did you get it for?"

"What did I git it for?" repeated the old gunner, with a twinkle in his gray eye and a twitching of the muscles at the corner of his mouth which warned us that he meditated some outbreak of Yankee wit. "What for? Oh, 'cause—what with Odd Fellers, an' hose companies, an' Sons o' Vet'rans—there wasn't many people in town that didn't have a medal o' some description, an' I got this one so 's t' be able t' shine with th' rest on 'em."

"Pshaw! I don't mean that," said the colonel, with a laugh in which I joined, "What did you do to get it?"

"Why, I thought I'd told ye," said the old fellow, with the twinkle still visible in his eye. "I applied for it, an' put in my documents t' prove I warn't lyin'—an' ol' Cap'n Burdett helped me consid'able by speakin' t' our member o' Congress 'bout it."

"No, no, no!" said the colonel, laughing again, "that's not what I want, either. That medal of yours is awarded only for distinguished bravery; now, what was the service that made you eligible to receive it?"

"What did th' gov'nment give it t' me for? ye mean," said the sergeant, allowing himself a smile at the fun he had had with us. "Wal, 'taint goin' t' sound like much, but I'd jus' 's lives tell ye. Hello!" he interjected, "this cigar seems t' be unravellin'."

"Throw it away, then," said the colonel. "Here's another."

"Oh, no! wouldn't do that, would ye?" said the old soldier. "'Twould seem kind o' wasteful, wouldn't it? I kin tinker this one so's it'll be all right. Jes' watch me"—and with this he applied his tongue to the loosened and uncoiling wrapper, and then smoothed the well-moistened leaf securely into place, remarking, "There! she smokes as good 's new—an' there's five cents saved."

"Just about," said I, grinning, for an occasional whiff of the smoke had come my way. "How did you know?"

"Oh, I kin tell a good cigar, every time," remarked the veteran, liberating a prodigious puff of smoke and sniffing at it with the air of an expert judge of tobacco. "Smokin' a pipe so much haint hurt my taste for cigars a mite."

"Glad you like them," said the colonel, turning upon me an ominous frown which checked any inclination I might have had to go more deeply into the subject. "Now, about that medal?"

"Oh, yis, 'bout th' medal," said Farwell, with just one look at his cigar to see how his repairs held out. "Wal, ye mus'n't think I'm boastin'—'cause I aint. What I done warn't no more than I've seen done time an' time agin—an' you, too, 'f you was four years with th' —th Massachusetts—an' I never'd have thought twice 'bout it 'f Cap'n Burdett hadn't kep' urgin' me on t' apply for th' medal. Pooh! 'taint nothin' but a trinket, anyway, an' it's no earthly use t' me nor anyone."

"Don't apologize. Go ahead with the story," I put in, recognizing the chance of an interesting half hour. "You didn't volunteer to tell us, you know. We asked you."

"Yes, go ahead," said the colonel, lighting a cigar, which, by the way, he took from his leather case, and not from the paper of weeds he had brought from the hotel. "I should say that things had come to a funny pass when one of the old 19th's boys is bashful about yarning to another."

"Lord! ye don't need t' think that," said the veteran. "I ain't bashful 'bout tellin' ye. All I was 'fraid of was that p'raps ye'd think I set myself up for bein' extra courageous—which I don't. Wal, here's all th' story there is to 't:

"We was down here in Virginia, at a place we called Three Mile Creek—'twouldn't be many hundred miles from here, 'f a crow was t' fly it. Like enough you was there?"

"Yes, I ought to remember it," said the colonel, "we lost some men there. Go on, sergeant."

"Lost some men, hey?" said Farwell, clasping his hands behind his head, and comfortably stretching his legs out upon the gravelled path. "Wal, I guess ye'll be interested in what I'm goin' t' tell ye, 'f that's so. I da'say," he continued, "ye kin remember that there was some shots fired, an' that our skirmishers come back so sudden that they forgot t' bring along a few that warn't able t' walk. In fac', they run back, an' we in th' batt'ry thought it an almighty poor showin' on th' part o' th' infantry. But p'raps we wasn't in no position t' jedge."

"It was that sudden volley from the woods that sent the boys back in disorder," said the colonel shortly. "The skirmish line was made up of seven companies of the —th; my company was one of the three in reserve."

"Why didn't they wait t' see what hit 'em?" asked the sergeant in a tone which showed traces of contempt. "D' ye think 'twas th' right thing t' skedaddle away 'thout bringin' in th' wounded?"

"No, I don't," said the colonel, flushing a little, "and it wasn't like the 'Old Regiment' to do it. But the boys were pretty well worn out and broken down by the marching and fighting we'd had, and the attack was so sudden and unexpected that it rattled them for a time. You must admit, sergeant, that we had as good a reputation as any regiment in the 19th Corps."

"Wal, that's so," said the old fellow, brushing an ash stain from his blouse, "an' I s'pose we noticed th' break more 'cause we warn't used t' lookin' for sich displays on your part. Now, we was posted up on a little knoll, ye remember, well over towards th' right; an' when th' Rebs showed up in th' open—for t' foller up you infantry fellers—we jes' dropped a round 'r two o' shell down that way, sort o' hintin' to 'em t' go back where they'd come from."

"So that was your battery, was it?" asked Colonel Elliott. "From the way the guns were served I always thought it was a regular battery."

"Sho! we'd been in service 'most three year then," said the veteran gunner, quickly resenting this reflection upon the efficiency of his