Waterbury evening Democrat., 1906-04-21


 land which he had half unwittingly
 fixed upon as his goal.
 He was well up in the mountains
 now and near the crest of the great range. The valley lay beyond, and he well knew that he would find no food supplies In that region when he should come to cross 1t. Sheridan had done a perfect work of war there, so devas- tating one of the most fruitful regions on all Gods earth that in picturesque words he had said, "The crow that flies over the valley of Virginia must car I ry his rations with him."
 In the high mountains matters were l not much better. There had been no battling up there in the land of the sky, but the scars and the desolation of war were manifest even upon noun tain sides and mountain tops For four years the men who dwelt i in the rude log cabins of that frost bit l ten and sterile region had been serv- 1 ing as volunteers in the army, fighting | for a cause which was none of theirs and which they did not at all under l stand or try to understand. They fought upon instinct alone. It had all ways been the custom of the mountain 1 dwellers to shoulder their guns and go ] into the thick of every fray which l seemed to them in any way to threaten their native land. They went blindly. they fought desperately, and they en- l dured manfully. Ignorant, illiterate, abjectly poor, inured to hardship through generations, they asked no questions the answers to which they could not understand. It was enough for them to know that their native land was invaded by an armed foe. When 1, ever that occurred they were ready to meet force with force and to do their i humble mightiest to drive that foe away or to destroy him without asking even who he was.
 During the absence of four years their homes had fallen into fearful desolation. Those homes were log cab ins, clinked and daubed, mostly having earthen floors and chimneys built of sticks thickly plastered with mud. But, humble as they were. they were homes, and they held the wives and children whom these men loved.
 The little mountain homesteads had been spared devastation. But in war it is not "the enemy" alone who lays waste Such little cribs and granaries and smokehouses as these poor noun tain .dwellers owned had been despoll- ed of their stores to feed tbe armies in the field. Their boys, even those. as young as fourteen, had been drawn into the army. Their hogs, their sheep, the few milk cows they possessed, had been taken away from them. Their scanty oxen had been converted into army beef, and those of them who owned horse or a mule had been compelled to surrender the animal for military use, receiving in return only Confederate treasury notes, now worth no more than so much of waste paper.
 Nevertheless Guilfcrd Duncan per fectly understood that he must look to the impoverished people of the high mountains for food supply in this his sore extremity. Therefore, instead of crossing the range by way of any of the main travelled passes, he pushed his grass refreshed steed straight up Mount Pleasant to its topmost heights.
 There. about noon. he came upon a lonely cabin whose owner had reached home from the war only day or two earlier.
 There was an air of desolation and decay about the place; but, knowing the ways of the mountaineers, the young man did not despair of securing some food there, for even when the mountaineer is most prosperous his fences are apt to be down, his roof out of repair and all his surroundings to wear the look of abandonment and despair.
 Duncan began by asking for dinner for himself and horse, and the re- sponse was what he expected in that land of poverty stricken but always generous hospitality.
 "Aln't got much to offer you, cap'n,- eiid tLe owner. but sicn as'it is you re keicome."
 Meanwhile he had given the horse dozen ears of corn, saying:
 Reckon ''twon't hurt him. He don't ] look s if he'd been a-feedin' any too | hearty. an reckon dozen ears won't | founder him."
 For dinner there were a scanty piece | of bacon, boiled with wild mustard | plants for greens, and some pones of l corn bread.
 To Guilford Duncan in his starving I condition this seemed a veritable feast | The eating of 1t so far refreshed him that he cheerfully answered all the questions put to him by his shirt sleeved host.
 It is a tradition in Virginia that no body can ask so many questions as Yankee. and yet there was never people SO insistently given to asking questions of a purely and impertinent- ly personal character as were the vir. ginians Of anything less than the high CT and gentler class. They question ed guest not so much because of any Idle curiosity concerning his affairs as because of a friendly desire to mani fest interest in him and in what might concern him.
 "What mout your name be. cap'nT- the host began as they sat at dinner.
 'My name Is GuilfOrd Duncan re piled the young man. But I am no; s captain now. I'm only a very poot