AN IDLER ON MISSIONARY BIDGE. 3 



chase, and when I had seen it I must look 

 also at a summer tanager, a chat, and so on, 

 one thing leading to another ; and by the 

 time I returned to the observatory the vet- 

 erans had come down and were under some 

 apple-trees, from one of which the spokes- 

 man was cutting a big walking-stick. He 

 had stood under those trees — which were 

 now in bloom — thirty years before, he said, 

 with General Bragg himself. 



I was sorry to have missed his story of 

 the battle, and ashamed to have seemed un- 

 grateful and rude, but I forget what apology 

 I offered. At this distance it is hard to see 

 how I could have got out of the affair with 

 much dignity. I might have heard all about 

 the battle from a man who was there, and 

 instead I went off to listen to a sparrow 

 singing in a bush. I thought, to be sure, 

 that the men would be longer upon the ob- 

 servatory, and that I should still be in sea- 

 son. Probably that was my excuse, if I 

 made one ; and in all likelihood the veteran 

 was too completely taken up with his own 

 concerns to think twice about the vagaries 

 of a stray Yankee, who seemed to be an odd 

 stick, to say nothing worse of him. Well, 



