of “the battles and sieges he had passed”; for, you must know, the captain was no “summer soldier and sunshine patriot”: he had burned gunpowder in defence of his beloved country.

At the especial request of Squire Tompkins, the captain narrated the perilous adventures of Newnan’s little band among the Seminoles: how “bold Newnan” and his men lived on alligator-flesh and parched corn and marched barefooted through saw-palmetto; how they met Bowlegs and his warriors near Paine’s Prairie, and what fighting was there. The amusing incident of Bill Cone and the terrapin-shell raised shouts of laughter among the young brood, who had flocked around to hear of the wars. Bill (the “Camden Bard,” peace to his ashes!), as the captain familiarly called him, was sitting one day against the logs of the breastwork, drinking soup out of a terrapin-shell, when a random shot from the enemy broke the shell and spilt his soup, whereupon he raised his head over the breastwork and sung out, “Oh you villain! you couldn’t do that again if you tried forty times.” Then the captain, after repeated importunities, laid down his pipe, cleared his throat, and sung:

After calling out for a chunk of fire and relighting his pipe, he dashed at once over into Alabama, in General Floyd’s army, and fought the battles of Calebee and Otassee over again in detail. The artillery from Baldwin County blazed away, and made the little boys aforesaid think they could hear thunder, almost, and the rifles from Putnam made their patriotic young spirits long to revenge that gallant corps. And the squire was astonished at the narrow escape his friend had of falling into the hands of Weatherford and his savages, when he was miraculously rescued by Timpoochie Barnard, the Uchee chief.

At this stage of affairs, Floyd (not the general, but the ambassador) rode up, with a mysterious look on his countenance. The dancers left off in the middle of a set, and assembled around the messenger, to hear the news of the parson. The old ladies crowded up too, and the captain and the squire were eager to hear. But Floyd felt the importance of his situation, and was in no hurry to divest himself of the momentary dignity.

“Well, as I rode on down to Boggy Gut, I saw—”

“Who care what the devil you saw?” exclaimed the impatient captain. “Tell us if the parson is coming first, and you may take all night to tell the balance, if you like, afterwards.”

“I saw—” continued Floyd pertinaciously.

“Well, my dear, what did you see?” asked Mrs. Peablossom.

“I saw that some one had tooken away some of the rails on the cross-way, or they had washed away, or somehow—”

“Did anybody ever hear the like?” said the captain.

“And so I got down,” continued Floyd, “and hunted some more, and fixed over the boggy place—”

Here Polly laid her hand on his arm and requested, with a beseeching look, to know if the parson was on the way.

“I’ll tell you all about it presently, Polly. And when I got to the run of the creek, then—”

“Oh, the devil!” ejaculated Captain Peablossom. “Stalled again!”

“Be still, honey; let the child tell it in his own way. He always would have his way, you know, since we had to humour him so when he had the measles,” interposed the old lady.