They rode back to the Inn. A negro woman was churning in the yard beneath the cool trees. Loss of blood made Jackson thirsty. “Can you give me a dipper of buttermilk?” he asked her. She pushed back with her dasher the forming globules of butter and dipped for the milk. For the first time Jackson unbuttoned his top button and looked at his shirt. It was crimson. The woman glanced up. “My God, marster, are you hurt?” Jackson smiled and drank the milk at a quaff. Then he walked into his room with his surgeon. He was badly wounded. The great ball had been put accurately, but his loose coat had saved his life. The bullet struck his breast bone an inch too far to the left, shattered it, two ribs, ploughed around his ribs and came out at his back. His boot was nearly filled with blood. Later, he sent his own surgeon with a bottle of wine to Dickinson with instructions to do all he could for him. But Dickinson was past help. He lingered all the afternoon in agony, cursing his fate, the ball that killed him and begging for his wife to come. About nine o’clock he suddenly raised up in bed and exclaimed: “Why—why—have—you—put—out—the lights?” But the lights were not out. [Illustration: Photo by Julie Royster, Raleigh, N. C.] “ORTERMOBULL” Say, white folks, wid yo’ stench on steel, Look twell yo’ h’arts am full; No, dis heah ain’t no ortermobeel— It’s jes my ortermobull. —AUNT BETSY. “Lorena,” and How It Came to Be Written BY SUSIE GENTRY Few songs in the world’s history ever had the hold on men’s hearts that “Lorena” did during the war, and for more than a decade after. Even now it has the power to make misty the eye and soften the heart—particularly if sung by “The Southern Girl” of the war time period. It is one of my earliest recollections, as sung by my mother to our little, three-cornered family—she, my father and myself. Father had sent it to her “enduring of the War.” I suppose almost every soldier of the war, Confederate or Federal, who had any sentiment sent his sweetheart a copy of this famous song. How full of pathos are the several verses: “The years creep slowly by, Lorena; The snow is on the grass again, The sun’s low down the sky, Lorena, The frost is where the flowers have been. But the heart throbs on as warmly now As when the summer days were nigh; Oh, the sun can never dip so low Adown affection’s cloudless sky. A hundred months have passed, Lorena, Since last I held thy hand in mine, And felt the pulse beat fast, Lorena, Though mine beat faster far than thine; A hundred months—’twas flowery May, When up that hilly slope we climbed To watch the dying of the day, And hear the distant church bells chimed.