"Oh, that's it, is it?" said the major. "Well, it's easy enough to tell you that. First as to how you are to find them--this applies to huckleberries and daisies and fire-engines and everything else, just as well as it does to peaches, so you'd better listen. It's a very valuable thing to know. "The way to find a pickled peach, A cow, or piece of pumpkin pie, A simple lesson is to teach, As can be seen with half an eye. Look up the road and down the road, Look North and South and East and West. Let not a single episode Come in betwixt you and your quest. Search morning, night, and afternoon, From Monday until Saturday; By light of sun and that of moon, Nor mind the troubles in your way. And keep this up until you get The thing that you are looking for, And then, of course, you need not fret About the matter any more." "You are a great help," said Jimmieboy. "Don't mention it, my dear boy," replied the major, so pleased that he smiled and cracked some of the red enamel on his lips. "I like to be useful. It's almost as good as being youthful. In fact, to people who lisp and pronounce their esses as though they were teeaitches, it's quite the same. It was very easy to tell you how to find a pickled peach, but it's much harder to tell you where. In fact, I don't know that I can tell you where, but if I were not compelled to ignore the truth I should inform you at once that I haven't the slightest idea. But, of course, I can tell you where you might find them if they were there--which, of course, they aren't. For instance: "Pickled peaches might be found In the gold mines underground; Pickled peaches might be seen Rolling down the Bowling Green; Pickled peaches might spring up In a bed of custard cup; Pickled peaches might sprout forth From an ice-cake in the North; I have seen them in the South In a pickaninny's mouth; I have seen them in the West Hid inside a cowboy's vest; I have seen them in the East At a small boy's birthday feast; Maybe, too, a few you'd see In the land of the Chinee; And this statement broad I'll dare: You might find them anywhere." "Thank you," said Jimmieboy. "I feel easier now that I know all this. I don't know what I should have done if I hadn't met you, major." "It's very unkind of you to say so," said the major, very much pleased by Jimmieboy's appreciation. "Of course you know what I mean." "Yes," answered Jimmieboy, "I do. Now I'll tell you what I think. I think pickled peaches come in cans and bottles." "Bottles and cans, Bottles and cans, When a man marries it ruins his plans," quoted the major. "I got married once," he added, "but I became a bachelor again right off. My wife wrote better poetry than I could, and I couldn't stand that, you know. That's how I came to be a soldier."