The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1883-06-02

I
your wrists and ankles to the spar
wheel of caisson, and to make
pleasant for you they would hay
turned the wheels so as to put you
heels where your head ought to hav
been.
What did Uncle John do?
He halted and pulled his NOUS
tache.
He patted Pygmalion's neck.
He and the old horse sort of rumi
mated together in such an emergency
Then he called up an orderly an
sent for pair of shoulder-straps
quietly remarking:
81 don't seem to be very wei
known about here"
1t would have done you good. Oh
patriot! You who used to sen,
picked onions and things to the sol
diers; it would have warmed tn
cookies of your heart to have seen TIL
varying expressions of those two
men, Uncle John and the driver,
when they next met. as they did, lin
about an hour after the above de-
scribed interview.
The driver looked at Uncle John,
he also foregathered on the Major
Generals shoulder-straps aud then
came to himself, tumbled to it, as the
late lamented MacauIey puts il.
He was recruit. He did not know
just whom he had designated a lunk-
head, but he plainly saw that his
future might not be bright like and
pleasant.
Did you ever have brick house fall
on you?
That's how that driver felt.
But Uncle Johns face wore the
old erennial smile, and that driver
reached for his canteen with a con.
vulsiYe grasp as Pygmalion shuffied
on.
Do you suppose there was any par.
ticular place that driver would moi
go to if he thought it would please
Uncle John?
Do you wonder they called him
Uncle?
Do you wonder that his men loved
him as only soldiers can love leader
marvelously brave and generous and
kind?
1t was his love for Uncle John tha,
led to my acquaintance with Gravity
Gravity was battery commander
type eofsoldier, to use the erna.uIal
of commerce, that meant business.
Sympathetic reader, do you happer
to remember Marye's Heights, tina
unpleasant slope below Fredericks
burg. where, in the Slaughter Pen
of that frosty morning in the biting
winter time, prodigious incompetent
cy laid its thousands down to rest
Marye's Heights! Where of tha
balmy morning in the next fail
spring Uncle John rode upon ole
Pygmalion
You remember! 1t was in the bill
for the 9th Corps to carry the heights
move out past Salem Church anG
head off. sort of tap in the flank, o.
General Lees army, which was to be
made to fall back from Chancellors.
vile?
Don't you remember the nice little
scheme they planned and fought all
that Winter-with'their lips?
Don't you remember that the un.
accommodating Southerners did moi
fall back to any great extent, but
came forward there at the church
with some considerable velocity?
Don't you remember that up tc
that time you had not seen the i'm.
petuous son of the South fall back
much, excepting when he seemed to
be quite ready to fall back i?
Don't you remember that you did
not then expect him to fall back
And don't you remember that in
those days the program never seemed
to fill 2.
However, as a Celtic friend of mine
was wont to remark, "we will lave
that CO."
Well. Of that spring morning
there at the foot of the hill, that's
where first met Gravity.
AS Gravity remarked. there haG
been quite circus on the banks o
the muddy Rappahannock that morn
ing, and Gravity had taken one of the
leading parts.
l have intimated that he was of thu
artillery.
He went into the performance will
six guns. The demonstratiye South
erners on the heights had, been fiirt
ing with him and had knocked fiv,
of his guns into old junk.
When Pygmalion waddled up tn,
hill Gravity undertook to follow hin
with what he called his noOr ornhoI