We were within sixty yards of the crater. Each one of our mortars was belching from three to five shells a minute into that hole; but Si Tucker’s enthusiasm was not satisfied. Having no personal duty to do at the moment, he began plugging shells with long fuses, lighting them, running with them to the margin of the pit, and tossing them in as hand grenades. He was greeted by a tremendous volley of musketry at each repetition of this performance, but he did it three times before we could stop him. That evening, near the gloaming, he did another thing. The lines had by that time been restored. The men in the crater--those of them who had not been killed--had been driven back to the Federal side. We became aware of the fact that a poor fellow of our own was lying grievously wounded near the Federal side of the fifty yards that separated our works from the enemy’s. He had been lying there through all that long, fierce summer day. The explosion at daylight had cast him there. His groans and his cries for help and for water were piteous in the extreme. We listened to them heartbroken but helpless--all but Si Tucker. Si began stripping off his clothes; we thought he had gone mad. But when we asked him why he was stripping himself, he replied: “Never you mind.” With that, stripped to the skin, he leaped over the works, ducked his head low, and ran through that hailstorm of bullets to where the wounded man lay. Grasping him quickly, he slung him upon his back like a bag of meal, and ran back with all his might. As he crossed the works he fell headlong. The surgeon found three bullets in his body. Nobody in the battery ever remembered after that, that Si Tucker had once been a coward. After all, it is perhaps mainly a question of nerves. WAR AS A THERAPEUTIC AGENT Doctor Towns was a wealthy gentleman in Mississippi. For a good many years he had employed Miss R---- of Massachusetts as governess for his daughters. She had lived all these years as an honored member of his family, with every social opportunity that Mississippi society afforded. At last the two girls outgrew the need of a governess. One of them was sent abroad to study art at Nuremberg. The other got married. Upon the occurrence of this event Doctor Towns went to the young lady, Miss R----, and suggested that as her services had been of incalculable value to his daughters he was anxious to secure for her, now that they no longer needed her, an equally good situation in some other gentleman’s family. He explained that he had already written to a friend in Alabama strongly recommending her, and that his friend desired her to come on at once. Apparently this pleased Miss R---- very greatly. She packed her trunks that night with the aid of the colored maid who had been assigned to her service. She was to leave in the morning.