Connecticut western news., 1884-01-02
THE EDITORS CONSCIENCE.
A War Story Told by Western Editor
From Peck's Sun.1

From Peck's Sum-
 To-day letter came from the business office to the editorial desk, and when the editor opened it and saw the date-line ''Troy, Alabama" his heart smote him, and he reached for his check-book, in- stinctively. Then he stopped and read the letter, and breathed freer when he found that 1t was only a letter from boy who wanted the editors autograph. What could have caused the editors heart to jump up into his mouth when he opened that letter from Troy? What made him reach for his check-book? Reader, young reader particularly, the editor once stole horse at Troy, Ala bama. Do not hold up your hands in horror, at the deed, and say you have always mistrusted that the bald-headed man, with the pleasant face, was horse thief in disguise, for you have never thought any such thing. Besides, man was not considered horse thief in those days who took another mans horse. It was in 1864, and cavalry regiment to which the editor belonged made raid through that portion of Alabama, and one afternoon stopped at the beautiful little village of Troy. There was thin, pale, nervous, red-headed soldier in the regiment who had been riding hard hearted, deceptive, diabolical, disgusting mule for 8 week, mule that didn't care whether school kept or not, mule that would not keep up with the procession, and tried hard to lag behind so the rebels would capture the red. headed sol dier. To keep up with the regiment 1t was necessary to wear out pair of spurs, a clapboard, two fence rails and the rider, every blessed day, on the mule, and much of the hatred of mules which the present editor has was born of that experience. That evening the sol dier gave of his rations to a little colored boy who looked smart, and told him to always be good boy, and learn to read, and be kind to his old master, and he would be all right, when the colored boy told where there was a fine horse in pasture 8 few miles away, "turrer bred" he said. There is no person ex- cept one who has ridden mule week who can appreciate @ story about 8 fine horse belonging to the enemy. The mule was saddled, and soon the soldier and the colored boy, and another soldier and another colored boy, were trying to catch that horse. O, he was a beauty. As he galloped across the pasture and neighed and snorted and put on scallops, he looked like picture.
 It was not long before the red-headed soldiers saddle was on the fine horse. and the procession rode up by the plant CTS house. An, there was the rub. The old mother and father of the boy who owned the fine horse, who was in the confederate army, sat on the veranda. They had seen the soldiers go through the granary, the smoke house, and everything where they could get any thing to eat, and the old people had not murmured. They sat there smoking corn-cob pipes, acting as though in war times they must submit to war measures. But when the red-headed soldier rode by on the beautiful horse, his canteen and sabre rattling, and the horse looking so proud, as though he had been left out of the war, and was now going in fresh to put @ stop to it, the old folks saw the animal, the old lady said, "Oh, pa, the Yankees have found Bulbs horse," and then they both burst out crying.
 "Bub," the brave young confederate,
 was away with his regiment, and poor old pa and ma had to sit there and see his horse go off with the Yankees The slim soldier had heart concealed about
 his person even then, and he thought of
 his old father and mother in Wisconsin,
 and he had half mind to take the horse
 back, notwithstanding the fact that an-
 other soldier would take him ill holy
 minute, but just then the bugle sounded
 for the assembly," the soldiers yelled
 and spurred their horses toward camp,
 and the new horse began to prance and
 wanted to go along so bad, that the slim
 SOlIlleI le6 u1u W6nG, auu @ D6autltul
 race it was. For nearly two years after
 that horse was the constant companion
 of the slim soldier, who rode him about
 ten thousand miles more or less, but
 there was hardly day of all those
 long marches that he did not think of
 the poor old father and mother of the soldier boy who owned the horse, and of their tears when they saw the noble ami
 nal go down the lane carrying a Yan- kee, when they would have been so de-
 lighted to have seen their own gray coated soldier on his back. And so it
 was, when we opened the letter from the
 boy who wanted our autograph, who was probably unborn when the horse was taken, we came so near putting the auto
 graph on check and sending it to the old people who smoked the cob pipes
 nineteen years ago and wept over the
 horse.
 l THE deeper you hide anything the |, | a0o1,o.. ~~1x1 A,,1