That cushion of his took my eye at once. It looked as if it came out of a rocking-chair. The covering was of black cloth, worked in a very old-fashioned way, with pinks and tulips. The colors were faded, but it had a homespun, comfortable, countrified look; in fact, the first glance at that queer old cushion assured me that I was going to exactly the right place. Presently we got started, and certainly I never had a better ride, nor one with a pleasanter companion. He asked me all sorts of funny questions about electricity, and oxygen, and flying-machines, and the telegraph, and the moon and stars. “Now you are a learned man, I suppose,” said he; “and I want you to tell me how that golden-rod gets its yellow out of black ground.” I said I was not a learned man at all, and I didn’t believe learned men themselves could tell how it got its yellow, and the asters their purple, and the succory its blue, and the everlasting its white, all out of the same black ground. He said he was pretty sure his wife couldn’t boil up a kettleful and color either of those colors from them. So we went talking on. He asked me where I’d been stopping, and what I did for a living. And I told him what I did for a living, and all about soldier life, and the contrabands, and about my barrel. Our road led through woods part of the way, and I drew in long breaths of woody air. He told me a funny woodchuck story, and had a good deal to say about wood-lots,--how some rich men formerly owned great tracts, but becoming poor were forced to sell; and how, when pines were cut off, oaks grew up in their place. And among other things he told me that a hardhack would turn into a huckleberry-bush. I said that seemed like a miracle. He was going on to tell me about one that he had watched, but just then we turned into a pleasant, shady lane. We hadn’t gone far down this shady lane before we heard a loud screaming behind us, and looking round saw a small boy caught fast in the bushes by the skirt of his frock. “Do you see that little boy?” I asked. “O yes, I see him,” he said, laughing. “Hullo, Tommy! what you staying there for?” The boy kept on crying. “What you waiting for?” he called out again, just as if he couldn’t see that the bushes would not let the child stir. We found out afterwards that little Tommy had hid there to jump out and scare his father, but got caught by the briers. I went to untangle him,--his clothes had several rents,--and was going to put him in the cart; but he would get in “his own self,” he said. Then he stopped crying, and wanted to drive. His father said, “No, not till we get through the bars.” Then Tommy began again. And at last he said, half crying and half talking, “When I’m--the--father, and you ’m--the--ittle Tommy--you can’t--drive--my--horse!” His father laughed and said: “Well, when I’m the little Tommy, I’ll brush the snarls off my face--so, and throw them under the wheels--so, and let ’em get run over!”