“You were hungry, and asked me for food. I have a better reason than that, even. I am but a girl, but I had a little brother younger than I, the idol of our home, who went to war, as a bugler. He was so frail and boyish that they wouldn't enlist him as an able-bodied soldier, but he would go. He was wounded {268}and taken prisoner in the Battle of the Wilderness, carried to Andersonville, where he died. I made a solemn promise to my own heart that never, while life lasted, would a human being ask me for food in vain, even though I took the food from my own lips to give him. I will keep my word. You are welcome to all I have given you. May you never want.” The man looked down at her, and in a choked voice said: “Ma'am, may I take you by the hand?” She held out both hands toward him, and as he grasped them and reverently bent over them, a tear dropped on their whiteness, and he walked quickly away into the silence and darkness of the night. [Illustration: 0277] THE LITTLE BLACK COW. AN INCIDENT OF THE WAR. [Illustration: 9278] T {269}was the autumn of 1864, and the supplies for the boys in blue were being hurried forward. The Government purchased cattle in the North and West, and sent them to its soldiers, for they must be fed or they could not fight. The Southern army had not fared so well--they were destitute of nearly everything. Foraging had been kept up the troops on both sides, until the land was almost devastated. Families were suffering from hunger, for most of the able-bodied men were at the front, and only old men and pretended farmers remained to till the land. These latter belonged to the roving bands of guerrillas who pretended to work the farm lands. Want stared women and children in the face. Little ones who could not understand the dreadful fever of hate and blood that was abroad in the land looked into the faces of their elders, and asked for food. Thomas Grant was a young fellow of nineteen who had seen some service in the Missouri militia, and was full of life and youth. His early days had been spent on a farm in Northern New York, where his reckless courage and fine horsemanship had made him a leader among his boy comrades. When he entered the Government service it was for the purpose of driving cattle to the army for its use.