the little things of life, happening all over the world and caught in ink for trotwood’s monthly.

he was a fine-looking old gentleman, well-dressed and had the air of a well-to-do business man. a silver-white mustache set off his cheery-looking, full, round face, and something in his eyes told me he wasn’t at all struck on formality and would not mind talking to a stranger, to pass away an hour or two in a sleeping-car.

an unfinished race.

i noticed, too, that his left sleeve had no arm in it, and then that he had on a g. a. r. button.

“that old fellow is all right,” i said to myself, “and i’ll bet he left that arm down in tennessee. there are a dozen good yarns tucked away under that derby hat that have never yet seen the color of white paper, and i am going to get one of them. i should say that he fought from shiloh to chickamauga and from chattanooga to nashville, and made a good one, too, or else he wouldn’t have left that arm in the enemy’s country.” “he fought the war out,” i said, after i had studied his countenance more closely and noticed the big bump of benignity that made up his back head and ended in kind, mild countenance; “and after it was over he let it stay over, forgot all its meanness, inhumanity and cussedness generally, came on up here to indiana and went into business, attended strictly to it, and is now a well-to-do business man.”

satisfied that my diagnosis was correct, i went over, and taking a seat by him, began to slyly get in my net for the fish i knew was there.

“from middle tennessee, you say?” he said after awhile. “well, i guess i know every foot of it, nearly.” he laughed. “under a little black locust tree near murfreesboro is what is left of this,” he said, as he touched his empty coat sleeve. “i have often wanted to go back there and see some of those pretty farms and good horses and bluegrass hills when i didn’t have any guard duty to do and wasn’t looking for an enemy, but friends.”

i cordially invited him to come, and mentioned how many of the veterans come down every now and then to go over the battlefields of the south.

“is that long, wooden, covered bridge still spanning duck river at columbia?” he asked quickly, as if suddenly remembering all about it. “that old bridge has got a history,” he continued. “i was with buell when we got orders that we were to unite our army with grant’s somewhere in the neighborhood of pittsburg landing, on the tennessee. when we reached columbia the river was up and the bridge was partially destroyed, and all the flooring burned. i was one of the engineers and had to repair the bridge. word had come that we were needed badly, and we worked day and night. then word came that we were needed worse, and by hard dint i got the army over, and on we rushed for pittsburg landing. we got there almost too late. grant’s army was nearly ruined. johnston had driven it from shiloh church to the river bank, a distance of five or six miles, and only our arrival that night, bringing in the thirty or thirty-five thousand of buell’s army, saved grant. on what small things do great destinies hang!” he mused. “a loss of a day at columbia would have changed the history of this country, and general grant, instead of having been president, would have been one more of our unsuccessful generals.

“but the funniest experience i had in tennessee was at a little place in marshall county, almost at the extreme edge of our army’s position. it was after the battle of shiloh, when the main army was at nashville and our outposts went as far south as pulaski. do you all still raise pacing horses down there?”

i looked around to see if anybody was near enough to understand the humor of such a question, but seeing none, and no sign of a joke on the old gentleman’s face, i kept my face straight as i answered him that we still raised a few.

“i was always fond of a good saddle horse,” he went on, “and many of the boys in our company of cavalry were of the same way of thinking. in fact, we had picked up a whole company of them down there, and i’m afraid we did not take the trouble to issue any government warrants for them either,” he laughed. “so when we went into camp in this village of marshall county we had a company of as fine horses as any cavalry company ever bestrode. time went a little heavy on our hands, until one day some of the boys got up a bet on the speed of their respective horses, and a quarter race was run that evening at which the entire company turned out. it was won by a little roan horse that could pace nearly as fast as he could run, which was saying a good deal, for he could run for a quarter of a mile about as fast as anything i ever saw on four legs. well, he won, and two days afterward beat two others, and a week after that beat everything they could rake and scrape up against him. all this was hugely interesting and immensely exciting, and as none of us had ever heard anything of the presence of the rebel cavalry leader and reckless raider, general forrest, and never dreamed of the danger we were in, i am sorry to say that we were more interested in horse-racing just then than anything else. the owner of the horse called the little roan pacer and runner “mack,” in honor of general macpherson, who commanded some of us at shiloh. well, after mack had beaten everything running, it was announced in camp one day that mack’s match at pacing had been captured a few days before, and a big pacing race was to come off that evening to decide it. i had never seen a pacing race under saddle, and with all the others i went out to see it. you can imagine what asses we were when we left everything in camp, even our side arms, in care of a few sentinels and camp followers, and all of us adjourned to an old field about a quarter of a mile to see the sport. the track was a half-mile, laid off on a nice country road, the judges standing at the end of the half mile and the start was at the beginning. it is needless to say that every man in the company was at the end of the track where the judges were. the horses were nearly equal favorites, and we soon had to appoint a man to hold the bets. he had his hands full, for every man in the company had something upon the race, and the goose hung high—and we were the goose,” he laughed.

“there were to be three heats. an indiana man rode mack, and an ohio man rode the other horse. down the lane they came on the first heat, and all of us strained our necks to see who led. in forty yards of the wire, so to speak, mack lost his head, concluded he was born for running and not for pacing, broke out and ran away from his man. the judges gave the heat to the other horse. this made mack’s friends mad, and after a good deal of palavering the heat was declared off and everything started over. in this heat mack got down to business and beat the other horse by the nose. but in the next heat the other horse turned the tables on mack and beat him a good length. i’ve seen a good many harness races in my day since then,” continued the old soldier, “but i never saw one that interested me as much as that. everything was excitement, and the boys were betting everything they had, from hardtacks to dollars. when they turned up the road to come down for the third heat, we could easily see them from where we were, as the beginning of the track was slightly elevated. they turned ’round to come, when all at once i saw both horses stop, their riders looking intently toward the camp, which was behind us and could be seen by them from their slight elevation. in another instant they started, but not our way. they gave one wild shout, bolted the fence on the side of the road and lit out across the fields, according to our notion, like two fools. before we had time to imagine what was up, we heard some shouts and shots in camp, some wild galloping and yells our way, and we turned ’round only to rush into the arms of a detachment, some five-hundred strong, of forrest’s cavalry. if there ever were a cheap set, we were the boys. we made no bones of surrendering, for we hadn’t a dog’s show and were glad to get off with our clothes.

“‘what in h—— are you yanks doin’ down here, anyway?’ asked their leader, a big fellow with a colonel’s gray uniform on. when the situation was explained to him he laughed like a big schoolboy. ‘where is the stakeholder?’ he asked. when this gentleman was pointed out he hollered out: ‘fetch them stakes over here, sonny, and tell the judges all bets are declared off on this race’! and the way the johnnies laughed racked us more than being captured.

“we soon learned the secret of the thing. forrest had made one of his characteristic raids around nashville, captured and burned our stores at gallatin and murfreesboro, and was sweeping on towards bragg’s army at tullahoma. in his sweep he simply scooped us up while we were down in the woods of marshall county, running a pumpkin fair, a goose show and a pacing meeting. but he was in a big hurry himself, for nearly all of buell’s cavalry were after him. he had no time to do anything but take all we had, including our horses, the gate receipts and the book money and parole us and push on. but he never got mack and the other horse, and to this day i have always wished that he had waited five minutes longer. i’d give ten dollars now,” he added, “to know whether mack or the other horse would have won that last heat. but we never knew, for we were soon forced to the front again; forgot all about our paroles, for we never did think we were fairly captured, and i never saw mack or his rider again. i stayed the war out, but i never went to see any more pacing races in the enemy’s country,” he laughed.

“well, come down this fall and see some in the country of friends,” i said. we shook hands and parted.

trotwood.

the poem below goes the rounds of the press every year signed with the name of gen. albert pike. in fact, such is the general belief, and all the books in which i have seen this poem printed fall into this error.

the old canoe.

but though general pike wrote some very beautiful poems, he did not write this one. we have his own admission made to senator carmack, the distinguished senior senator from tennessee. like many other good poems, it was, perhaps, the only one some poet wrote, and, never thinking it would be immortal, or that it had any special merit, failed to sign his name to it.

it is a little curious how this poem became identified with general pike. but we learn how it was from an old citizen of columbia, tenn., who knew general pike when he was a young man and lived here. pike practiced law there when he first started out in life, but met with poor success. becoming despondent, he one night paid his hotel bill, went to the river’s edge, got into an old canoe, and drifted down to williamsport, where he took the stage for nashville. from there he went west, where he became a successful lawyer and politician, and afterwards wrote a volume of poetry. those poems in which he allowed himself to be natural, such as “every year” and others, are very beautiful. but in his most pretentious poem he seems to imitate keats and shelley, and so lost his own individuality.

after many years pike came back to columbia, a celebrated man. he was an ardent whig, and made a big speech in support of his principles. to offset his influence some ardent democrat composed a doggerel called “the old canoe,” in which it was plainly intimated that pike had left here years before between two suns, and had not been too particular about taking some one else’s canoe to get away in. this doggerel was sung around the streets until general pike and his friends were exasperated beyond measure, ending in the sensitive poet’s leaving the town. of course, it was all a lie, and the old canoe was probably the property of no man, but it seems that then, as now, nothing was too mean for one political party to say of another. this beautiful poem, “the old canoe,” coming out about that time, was attributed to general pike, and its authorship has never before, perhaps, been publicly corrected. it is found in the schoolbooks, and in books on elocution, as being by general pike, but senator carmack is our authority that general pike himself told him he did not write it.

where the rocks are gray and the shore is steep,

and the waters below look dark and deep,

where the rugged pine, in its lonely pride,

leans gloomily over the murky tide,

where the reeds and rushes are long and rank,

and the moss grows thick on the winding bank,

where the shadow is heavy the whole day through,

there lies at its moorings the old canoe.

the useless paddles are idly dropped,

like a seabird’s wings that the storm has lopped,

and crossed on the railing one o’er one

like the folded hands when the work is done.

while busily back and forth between

the spider stretches his silvery sheen

and the solemn owl, with his dull “too-hoo”

settles down on the side of the old canoe.

the stern half-sunk in the slimy wave

rots slowly away in its living grave,

and the green moss creeps o’er its dull decay,

hiding its moldering dust away.

like the hand that plants o’er the tomb a flower

or the ivy that mantles the falling tower;

while many a blossom of loveliest hue

springs up o’er the stern of the old canoe.

the current-less waters are dead and still,

but the light wind plays with the boat at will;

and lazily in and out again

it floats the length of the rusty chain.

like the weary march of the hands of time,

that meet and part at the noontide chime;

and the shore is kissed at each turning anew,

by the dripping bow of the old canoe.

oh, many a time, with a careless hand,

i have pushed it away from the pebbly strand,

and paddled it down where the stream runs quick,

where the whirls are wild and the eddies are thick,

and laughed as i leaned o’er the rocking side,

and looked below in the broken tide,

to see that the faces and boats were two,

that were mirrored back from the old canoe.

but now, as i lean o’er the crumbling side,

and look below in the sluggish tide,

the face that i see there is graver grown,

and the laugh that i hear has a soberer tone,

and the hands that lent to the light skiff wings

have grown familiar with sterner things.

but i love to think of the hours that sped

as i rocked where the whirls their white spray shed,

ere the blossoms waved, or the green grass grew

o’er the moldering stern of the old canoe.

the mule is such an ungainly animal that very few ladies are given over to admiring him. as for me, i’d rather see an old mule coming my way when i have the blues, than to see a long absent friend.

a mule and a proposal.

i know that is a broad assertion, but when you hear the why, i know you will agree with me, and say as did a little negro, that “one end of him was good.”

when a little girl, i lived with my people on a handsome farm three miles distant to the church we attended.

charley, my dear lord and master, lived only a mile from the church. you see, charley was the most bashful man around the neighborhood, and while everyone knew ages before he proposed, that he loved me, it begun to look as though he would never gather courage enough to say so.

night after night he would call, and invariably told me “i was looking kind of pretty,” and after a dreadful silence, he would break out suddenly, “i’m kind o’ stuck on you,” giving me such a start that i would nearly jump out of my chair.

beyond that “i’m kind o’ stuck on you,” it seemed he would never get, and at last, growing desperate, one night i determined to use a little strategy and screw his courage to the sticking point. so when he came, and discoursed a short time on the weather, the brightness of the moon, our sick neighbors and such like, i knew my time was near, and awaited nervously for the never-failing sentence, “i’m kind o’ stuck on you,” when i expected to say, “oh, charles, this is so sudden. i only thought you liked me as a friend.” this i felt sure would do the work.

at last, clearing his throat, charles made ready. looking lovingly at me, he said, “may, i’m kind o’ stuck on you,” and before the blush had fairly mantled my cheeks, aye, before i had a chance to utter a sound, the mean thing went on, “oh, may, i forgot to tell you, we have a new colt.”

never in my life did i feel more like strangling a man than i did that night. i had to turn aside to hide my tears of disappointment, for you must know that i really loved the dear fellow. he was not the least bit bashful with men, or even in the presence of old women. but when it came to girls, his conversation above speaks volumes.

one sunday charley had asked me if i would allow him to drive me home from church the following sabbath. i was only too willing to say yes, hoping that something would happen to make him utter the much-desired words. oh, girls, you can better imagine my disappointment than i can describe it, when late saturday afternoon my mother’s maiden sister arrived, bag and baggage. i did not need to be told that i should be left at home next morning, as the carriage would not accommodate all.

i could not eat any supper and later brother tom found me lying in my favorite nook in the summer house, sobbing as though my heart would break.

little by little he coaxed me into telling him the reason for my grief, and at last i told him of my promise to charley.

he sat and thought for a long time, and then breaking out into a happy laugh, he cried: “i have it, little sis. when the others are gone, i’ll saddle old bob, and you can ride behind me until we get near the church, when we can get down and tie bob in the woods and walk the rest of the way.”

i felt many misgivings, i can tell you, about riding that mule, but as this was the only chance of getting to church, i reluctantly assented. accordingly, when the carriage drove down the driveway the next morning, i flew to my room to dress, while tom went out to saddle bob. we were soon ready, and with tom’s assistance i mounted behind him. the first two miles were soon covered, and feeling uncomfortable from the jolting i was getting, i begged tom to get off and walk the rest of the way.

all at once tom uttered a yell like a comanche indian, and never in the history of the world did a mule make better time than bob did, getting nearer and nearer to church at each leap.

how i begged tom to stop him and let me get off. but never a whit did bob slacken his speed, and i thought i would faint with horror as the church appeared through the woods.

faster and faster we came right up to the church door, and that mule brayed longer and louder than he ever did before.

down i slid, and back on the home track i started as hard as i could run. i had not gone far when a horse and buggy came up behind me and a moment later i was sobbing on charley’s breast.

he asked me to be his wife that day, and i have long since forgiven the mule, as he certainly brayed some courage into my charles. can you blame me for being an ardent admirer now of a mule?

mamie taylor geisson.