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Show 42 WESTERN WILDS. the spring of ' 52 an' concluded to come home. Me an' my partner jest laid down our tools one night right where we worked, an' packed up, an' when the camp was asleep lit out over the hills ' thout sayin' a word to any human bein.' Got home ' round by Panama all right, an' found every thing chipper, an' when I figured up I was just three hundred a head on the three year's trip. Better stayed at home for yold but it saved the boys." " Then you stayed at home and took comfort for the rest of your life, I suppose." There was dead silence. The " old woman " rose and retired to the other cabin ; the youths had long before ascended the ladder which led to their bed in the garret, and my host seemed to have finished. But it was evident there was something more, and it was the most painful part of his story. The old wall- sweep clock struck nine in a loud, aggressive tone, which roused the old man, and he resumed in a dif-ferent manner a mingling of regret and indignation:- " It was a bad thing, a mighty bad thing, for old Tennessee, when the Whig party died. I felt in my bones no good could come of it. But I didn't think it would touch me so close as it did. I knowed trouble would come, but couldn't sec jist how. You know all about that. Our folks was all agin the war from the start. I was down at Manchester the day they hauled down the stars an' stripes, - an' sez I, l Men, you've bit off more'n you can chaw ;' an' they laughed at me. But I knowed them Northern men seed ' em in Californy. Slow, mighty slow, to start a fight, but awful to hold on. " But I sha'u't dwell on this. In less'n three mouths, sir, both my boys was in it. I held up a year or more ; then come both armies swecpin' South, an' what our folks left the Federals took. I thought to make a crop yet, an' fixed up a good deal ; then come both armies back north'rd agin an' swep' me clean. But my old woman an' the girls turned out an' helped, an' in ' 63 we ' scaped a long time. Then they come South agin, an' we give it up. I really believed they'd drive each other back an' for'rd there for years. Next year I got up one mornin', an' there was a letter stuck under the door by some gew-rillers, an' it said both my boys was bad shot, an' in the hospital at Atlanta. I felt death in my bosom right then. But I sha'n't dwell on this. An hour after sundown I was off on the only hoss we had left, an' by daylight I was in the sand- hills along the Tennessee. The country was full o' soldiers, but I got round all of ' em an' to Atlanta. It was no good no good. Men was dyin' all round, an' families broke up an' scattered, an' women an' children naked an' starvin'! What |