From time to time the tedium was dispelled by varied incidents; many that were entertaining and instructive, some ludicrous, some pathetic, and others profoundly tragic. Agreeable happenings predominated largely during the early stages, and those involving difficulties and of grave import were mainly a part of our experiences toward the close of the long pilgrimage. Such an order of events might be presumed as a natural sequence, as the route led first over a territory not generally difficult to travel, but farther and farther from established civilization, into rougher lands, and toward those regions where outlawry, common to all pioneer conditions, was prevalent. With our company were four or five boys and young men, eighteen to twenty-one years of age, also a kindly and unpretentious but droll young fellow, named John C. Aston, whose age was about twenty-five. This younger element was responsible for most of the occurrences of lighter vein, which became a feature of our daily progress. Aston's intimate friends called him "Jack," and some of the more facetious ones shortened the cognomen "Jack Aston" by dropping the "ton," inconsiderately declaring that the briefer appellation fitted the man, even better than did his coat, which always was loose about the shoulders and too long in the sleeves. But all knew "Jack" to be an excellent fellow. His principal fault, if it could be so termed, was a superabundance of good-nature, a willingness at all times to joke and be joked. He had a fund of stories--in some of which he pictured himself the hero--with which he was wont to relieve the tedium of the evening hours. A violin was among his effects, which he played to accompany his singing of entertaining countryside songs. Most of these were melodious, and highly descriptive. "Jack" had much music in his soul, and sang with good effect. [Illustration: "One melody that he sang from the heart"] There was one melody that he sang oftenest, and sang from the heart--one that was rendered nightly, regardless of any variation in the program; a composition that embraced seventeen verses, each followed by a soothing lullaby refrain; a song which, every time he sang it, carried "Jack" again to his old home in the Sunny South, and seemed to give him surcease from all the ills of life. Of that song a single verse is here reproduced, with deep regret that the other sixteen are lost, with all except a small fraction of the tune. Yet, cold, inanimate music notes on the paper would convey, to one who never heard him sing them, only the skeleton; the life, sympathy and soul of the song would be lacking. We needed no other soporific. Here it is: Oh, the days of bygone joys, They never will come back to me; When I was with the girls and boys, A-courting, down in Tennessee. Ulee, ilee, aloo, ee-- Courting, down in Tennessee.