The age-herald., 1900-12-05
SKETCHES FROM
 EVERYDAY LIFE

A ~
 A great deal has been said and written about the Confederate yeH.- remarked an ex-soldier at lunch yesterday, 'but do not think the accounts of it's effect on the enemy have been exaggerated. During the war Bill here" indicating a man sitting next to him, and myself were both in the Fifth Alabama Battalion. The battalion was composed of three companies and did not contain over 250 men. At a certain bat tie brigadler general had misunderstood his orders and had failed to takI position in line. which left a wide gap in our forma- tion. A division of the enemy numbering about 5000 men had approached this gap, and finding it undefended were about to take possession and cut our line in two. Our battalion happened to be on one end or this gap which stretched across wood, and our colonel, taking in the situation, formed us in position and ordered a charge l tied Bill to me with a rope to keep him from running away, and when the command was given to charge the whole battalion took long breath and gave a most terrific yell The enemy heard it and heard us tear ing through the woods, and they took to 1 that 250 men can put 5000 to flight in an open field, but the enemy could not see us on account of the trees. They did not know how many we were, and they probably thought the gap had been left open as a trap. All this, together with the nerve shattering effect of our yell, caused them to run. We could always tell during a battle which side was winning from the rI1I.a and we always yelled. A yell is much more nerve-shattering than cheer, and 1 think our victory that day was largely due to it. It was brave attack, our general said"
 'Yes," said Bill, who up to this time had remained silent, eff there is any truth In that rope business you must have tied me il. front of you, for I was wounded twice that day and you were not touched"
 'Yes. and your yell when you were hit in the arm was the worst Confederate yell have ever heard"
 'I make it a rule," said merchant yes terday, never to buy books from book agent. know book agents have to live as well as other fiends and it may be bad rule, but even a bad rule Is better than no rule at all. and have been forced to adopt it in self-defense When want to buy book know what book want and I go to a bookstore and buy It. Why should I buy something because some one else brings it to me and wants to sell it? For long time I treated book-agents po- litely and listened to their tale of woe, although they would not listen to mine. I finally saw that politeness was wasted on most of them and that they were trained and taught to expect a refusal the first time, and that the art of successful book selling was to talk consistently and take no refusal and talk persistently again until the victim in sheer despair of getting rid of them otherwise finally bought the book. I tried all sorts of ways to politely refuse to buy. Finally I adopted the plan of making an appointment with them at the store at an hour when the store would be closed and I would be at home. This would work with some of them, but not all. A few would take the hint and leave me alone, but others who took a pride In their success would come back again. One of my friends told me he adopted the plan of asking the agent where he lived and promising to call on him after business hours, which promise of course he never kept. I tried this, but it also failed with me, so that now I am forced to'be impo- lite and positively refuse to see or talk with them.
 During the years before the instinct to be polite had entirely departed the thing that astonshed me most about book agents was their volubility. Agents of all sorts and conditions with all kinds of books to sell would proceed to get off long spiel about the merits of their particular. book. They would talk in the most glib way, pro- ducing the impression that book-agent was natural born orator. I never knew how it was done until one day happened to be in the office of a friend of mine who was a doctor, when a book agent came in. He had a medical work to sell and I could see as he went along rolling out long medi- cal terms that he was arousing the doc- tors admiration of his knowledge of his subject Suddenly the book-agent stopped. The doctor seemed surprised and asked him one or two questions. The agent could not answer him and grew red with confusion. He started to talk again and again broke down at the same point. He had memorized everything he was saying and had forgotten part of 1t. He knew absolutely nothing about his subject and was speaking by note. I soon found out that this was the case with the great ma- jority of book agents. They are given a book to sell and a spiel about the book to memorize, which they rattle off glbly, and they really know no more about their subjects than their listeners.
 SPITE FENCE WITH WINDOWS.