318 SKETCHES IN PROSE. 



experience, he showed rare argumentative ability. At nine- 

 teen he commenced teaching, which he followed until he 

 was twenty-one years old, with the exception of two terms 

 at institutions, were he went to better fit himself for that 

 work. When a lad at school he was noted for his peaceful 

 disposition and for his avoidance of those disputes which the 

 average juvenile covets to show his prowess. In a school 

 where the children of Friends formed a small per cent, he 

 used the plain language to all, his thee and thy being addressed 

 impartially to canal boy and to his more refined playmates. 

 As he grew to manhood and the clouds of Civil War were 

 breaking over the land, his friends little dreamed that he 

 would ever be part and parcel of the bloody strife. He was 

 admired by his acquaintances and reigned in the social circles 

 around him. He was apparently enjoying life, and it was not 

 thought by the unobservant that his patriotism would go 

 beyond the lip service, with which so many lovers of their 

 country served it. But as the trouble deepened and it became 

 more and more apparent that the fighting done was but the 

 preliminary skirmish of a prolonged and deadly war for physical 

 mastery, wherein one of the sections must go down ; when 

 they who enlisted for a holiday were getting appalled at the 

 work before them ; when stay-at-home advocates of the war 

 became timorous lest they might be called on to practice their 

 preachings, and were trying to make themselves believe they 

 could serve their country best at home ; when opponents of 

 the war were chuckling at their little gatherings, over the dis- 

 asters that followed one another through the spring and fall 

 of 1862 — then they who knew Robert Kenderdine knew that it 

 was only a question of time, and that a brief time, when he 

 would lay aside his peaceful ways and congenial studies and 

 join in body as well as in mind the soldiers who were fighting 

 for their country. He debated the matter long and well. There 

 was the unwillingness of his family that he should enter a 



