The Plymouth tribune. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1901-1911, 1907-09-12

of it, for l had to wash my clothes and
rend them for an hour before / could
put them on; then / had to put them
on dripping wet
But that sweet Virginia girl l had
INDUCED in fond vision of another
meeting and a better acquaintance ON
my way home.
/ heard her brother twice call her Mar
gurete,
sweet.
1 loved her though I'd met her newt
before
She talked Sc sweet to me from her
cottage door.
Once since / saw her vision at me poking.
While in that nasty pool sat soaking;
And now ever since that most unlucky
slide,
Ny love for her has been subdued by my
pride;
And though 1 believed she loved and
pitied me,
l had not the courage to pass that way
and see.
American Tribune.
A Boys First Battle.
The first battle is thrilling event d
every soldier; but when one goes to IL
in the darkness of night, In heavy for.
est, and with so notable band of ran
gers as Mosby's men, and wher one =
but 16 years old, it must come very nesr
the sublime-or the ridiculous
l shall never forget that grim and
stealthy march, says John II. Aexan-
der, in his account of such an event
Creeping along through the deepest hob
lows and the darkest shades; never q
sound save the smothered tread Of thu
men, or the scream of a bird scared
from its roost, or the rustling through
the bushes Of some beast reused from
its lair; moving away in one direction
and then In another to avoid vedettea
which the colonel had located, we kept
on, slowly but surely approaching our
prey.
had beguiled me irto a half{reaming
state, when suddenly 1 was aroused by
the coughing Of horse. and saw dark
mass looming up in the center Of .
small clearing. 1t was Yankee picket
post. Just then one of the men trod
on stick, and as it cracked beneath
his foot a voice cried out, who comes
there?" and almost simultaneously the
sentinel fired his gun.
Charge 'em, men!" cried Colonel
Mosby, and there were shots and yells
and running men and snorting horses
and the odor of much brimstone-and
that's pretty much all know about the
fight
Out of a hazy uncertainty whether I
was on my head or my heels there
comes to me the recollection that
started in with the others, that I struck
my head against tree and knocked my
hat off, that 1 stopped absurdly to pick
1t up. and that when / had found II and
started on again, a few scattering shots
were winding up the affair. And then
realized what a record had made 1t
would never do to say that had passed
through my first fight without firing a
shot, so directing my pistol to where I
thought the enemy ought to be, hred
the last shot Of the occasion.
| The surprise had been so complete
that there was no opportunity for re-
sistance. Our men were in among the
PROSTATE forms before the Yankees
were fairly awake, and assisted some
of them to unrcll from their blankets
None of them escaped except the sentI-
mel, who must have dashed away the in
slant MS gun went of. r
We supposed there had been no cas-
ualties on our side until Welt Hatcher
reported that he had come through the
fight all right, because there wasn't
any," but while he was standing on the
bank, after everything was all over,
ssome greenhorn behind him had let on
a gun and shot him In the heel"
On that subject / kept very still.