72 THE FOGY DAYS AXD NOW; 



I have often conversed with Mr. John C. Calhoun, for he 

 was fond of talking with boys, and would adapt his conversa- 

 tion to entertain and instruct them. He once said to me, 

 "You boys go out liunting with your double-barrel guns, 

 pov/der flasks and shot pouches filled with amunition, and not 

 even the little larks and buUbats escaped your attention, you 

 waste your amunition and bring home trifling game in your 

 bird bags; said it was not so in his youth, that then he 

 shot a rifle, and never fired at anything less than a squirrel or a 

 turkey, and that it was a rare thing for him to miss a shot ; 

 that amunition was expensive and had to be economized. I 

 still have in my possession his life and speeches, presented me 

 by his own hand. He also gave me a list of histories for my 

 early readings, which I purchased and kept up to the late war, 

 and lost during the confusion of that terrible time, together 

 with everything else I owned. Mr. Calhoun told me that his 

 favorite reading in his youth was such books as Josephus 

 Rollins, Ancient History and Plutarchs lives, and especially 

 the last, he was very fond of; said we boys w^ere too fond of 

 trashy novels, that he never read them. I remember once 

 discussing with Mr. Calhoun the phenomena of rains, his 

 unassuming manner throwning me off my guard, when I 

 launched off into quite a theory of my own. Ho listened 

 deferentially to what I had to say, and then gave me modestly 

 his ideas upon the subject, and I was so struck by his able 

 logic that it suddenly occurred to me that I was listening to 

 the greatest mind of the day. How i-idiculous my shallow 

 ideas must have appeared to him, and during the balance of 

 the conversation felt constrained to say little more than yes sir, 

 and no sir, and felt much embarrassed, which I know he dis- 

 covered and tried to relieve. 



