KNOWING how well modesty becomes greatness, I listened with profound attention to the major's story. Every now and then he would relieve my feelings by suggesting that the most interesting part of it was yet to come. We had now pursued our journey some fifteen miles under a burning sun, when we came to a running spring, beside which the major drew up his team, and, dismounting, proceeded to fill his bucket. Having drank of the limpid water from one of his tin cups, and placed the bucket before old Battle, whom he patted with great fondness, the major next proceeded to take care of his disconsolate chickens, which for the last three miles had been keeping up an opera of discordant sounds, to his great annoyance. Uncovering his coop, which he carried at the tail of his wagon, he set two tin cups of water before them, and scattered moistened meal at their feet, enjoining them to hold their peace in the future. And while in the act of doing this, he reminded me that great men were exalted by small things, and however bemeaning the nursing of chickens might be regarded in a military man, there was in it a nobleness the great only could appreciate. The chickens, however, did not seem to appreciate his sacrifice of dignity, for they devoured their food with an increase of music. Having attended to the wants of his live stock, the major frisked round his wagon to see that his wares were all safe, and then commenced singing a song, as if a transport of joy had suddenly come over him. "I tell you what it is, my friend," said he, pausing in the middle of his tune, and drawing his favorite flask from his breast pocket, "the world 'll think none the less of us for traveling thus shabbily. There may be nothing courtly in the profession of tin-peddling, yet it is an honorable enterprise, and has its obstacles as well as other honorable enterprises." I besought him not to make himself uncomfortable on my account; that I was not yet so famous that I could not ride over the country on a tin-wagon, without feeling it a sacrifice of dignity.