hardly go, and as we traveled along told him that I would still live in hopes of getting through to our lines and to friends. He allowed me to walk a little in his rear, and still sobbing and pleading for him to let me go. I had my mind made up to get his gun out of his left hand as he seemed to be trailing it along and to brain him and get away and leave his carcass on the Chestnut Ridge to feed the fowls, or to be found by some other home guards. Now, as I was contemplating this and still pleading for him to let me go, having already attempted to reach his gun, I spoke of my poor old mother, who was waiting at her sad fireside, after losing one of her boys in the Battle of the Wilderness, and whose bones were lying in the Alexandria cemetery, and who died before he was sixteen years old. When I spoke of this and my poor suffering mother at home it seemed to break him up and he turned around just as I was about to make the final attempt to snatch his gun. He looked very pale, and, sobbing, told me that he had a good mother once who used to pray for her wayward boy, but she was gone now. He said: “If you will promise not to tell who you are or where you came from we will go down to that house in the valley and get something to eat and you can go,” and then it was that my heart was lifted, for I could see that he meant what he said. Still I continued to be very careful not to trust him too far. Well, we went to the house and found two nice looking women there, one weaving the sheep’s gray cloth, and they asked me very kindly where I came from. I told them that I was only a refugee. That was all my guide allowed me to tell. Now the food that was set on the table for me to eat was something immense. The good hostess sat on the table one full old-fashioned gallon crock of milk and a nice dish of butter, a bowl of nice apple sauce, a plate of biscuits and a loaf of corn bread. Oh, how, I thought of my own home as I sat eating. It seemed that I never would get through. They all sat and gazed at me while I ate, and after eating nearly all that there was on the table—at least nearly a whole gallon of milk, and most all that I have mentioned—the rebel came to me and placed his hand on my shoulder and told me that he reckoned I had better stop eating if I did not want to kill myself. The two ladies of the house looked sadly after me when I started off, and as soon as we got out of the house the rebel told me to keep straight east and that I need not be afraid to stop anywhere. I concluded that he wanted some one else to take me, but did not go a mile before turning to the northwest, the same direction I had traveled all the way when the stars were my only guide.