No lightning-rod adorned its frowning pediment, lank and fatiguing reminder of Ben Franklin,--thrifty printer,--and his kite, such as never was before in air or tree; also of the glib and evanescent vendor whose monopoly of all fascinations was only equaled by his absolute prostration of all moral attributes. That convoluted metallic insufficiency thrust not its aluminum barb above the crest of this domicile, like a reed shaken by the wind, mute witness to each passer of the owner's sweet credulity. Trifling in weight, as was each segment of the Shelter Tent, unappreciable addition to individual burden, and willingly borne for the increased facility and certainty of bivouac, the aggregate relief to the department of transportation was like shriving a bad man's conscience of crime or lifting a fear from a coward's soul. The reduction of regimental trains from thirteen wagons to three was as efficient in ultimate results as the withdrawal of guards from confederate poultry-coops and the obliteration of zouave jackets; possibly more so. The Shelter Tent was the after-glow of an understudy, so to speak, but it was a potent helper in the grand tragedy. It came into war annals greeted with a welcome warm as that vouchsafed on election night to the missing precinct that brings the necessary majority. This welcome was tendered when use brought due appreciation of its value, not earlier. Its original introduction was as sensational as when John Barleycorn comes to town, and brings his blizzard with him. Its first arrival met with jeers; with hot reviling; with barkings imitative of indignant dog, or brayings as of disgusted donkey; with cursings such as tear the curser's lungs to ragged tatters; with mellowing miracles of profanest speech, horizonless trans-continental sentences of words hurled endlong, overthwart, each word a stab or blister; with mutiny and riot ludicrous to recall. But all in vain. Reeking language, that put immortal souls in peril, availed nothing. The Shelter Tent came for use, and it came to stay. Orders were imperative and discipline was supreme. Jeering, barking, braying, cursing, rioting were as futile as the purr of a Vassar kitten at the advent of a long-haired aesthete, wearing an air of discontent and a coat with efflorescent elbows.