CHICKAMAUGA. 83 



were already taking down their dinner-pails. 

 Standard time, so called, is an unquestioned 

 convenience, but the stomach of a day- 

 laborer has little respect for convention, and 

 is not to be appeased by a setting back of 

 the clock. For my own part, I was not 

 hungry, — in that respect, as in some others, 

 I might have envied the day-laborers, — 

 but as men of a certain amusing sort are 

 said to turn up their trousers in New York 

 when it rains in London, so I felt it patri- 

 otic to nibble at my luncheon as best I 

 could, now that the clocks were striking 

 twelve in Boston. 



The hour (but it was two hours) calls for 

 little description. The breeze was delicious, 

 and the hazy landscape beautiful. The cow- 

 bells and the locusts filled the air with mu- 

 sic, the birds kept me company, and for half 

 an hour or more I had human society that 

 was even more agreeable. When the work- 

 men had eaten their dinner at the foot of 

 the tower, four of them climbed the stairs, 

 and my field-glass proved so pleasing a 

 novelty that they stayed till their time was 

 up, to the very last minute. One after an- 

 other took the glass, and no sooner had it 



