I thought of the scenes of my childhood, my school-boy
days. I thought of the time when I left peace and home, for war and
privations. I had Jennie's picture in my pocket Bible, alongside of a
braid of her beautiful hair. And I thought of how good, how pure,
and how beautiful was the woman, who, if I lived, would share my hopes
and struggles, my happiness as well as troubles, and who would be my
darling bride, and happiness would ever be mine. An owl had lit on an
old tree near me and began to "hoo, hoo, hoo are you," and his mate would
answer back from the lugubrious depths of the Chattahoochee swamps.
A shivering owl also sat on the limb of a tree and kept up its dismal
wailings. And ever now and then I could hear the tingle, tingle, tingle
of a cow bell in the distance, and the shrill cry of the whip-poor-will.
The shivering owl and whip-poor-will seemed to be in a sort of talk,
and the jack-o'-lanterns seemed to be playing spirits--when, hush! what
is that? listen! It might have been two o'clock, and I saw, or thought I
saw, the dim outlines of a Yankee soldier, lying on the ground not more
than ten steps from where I stood. I tried to imagine it was a stump
or hallucination of the imagination. I looked at it again.
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