
          1059.

*Mr. Talbot.

that we were in a lime-stone locality.  A short distance beyond the
kilns we met an old man* leading a mule.   We soon learned that he, too, had been in Conferderate army.  He told us that at that time he was a boy, he
acted as a messenger.  Talking about the lies that he was obliged to tell at this time,
he said he had told more than he could account for.  He had been caught
a number of times by Union soldiers, but each time nothing incriminating
was found upon him, although at one time, he said, he had papers
between an in-sole and the sole of his boot.  After the war was
over, his father was very poor.  He didn't know what to do, but, "at
last", he said, "I said, if there is nothing else to do, I will have to 
go to work", and to work he went.  He showed us his house off
in the distance across the field.  He told us that a company now
owns "The Caves" and that they were trying to sell it in smaller
farms.  He showed us a place, where by allowing a ditch to
be stopped up, a small lake had been formed.  He said it was
because of such carelessness that the place had become "run down" but
that it really was <s>a</s> most productive land.  We bade the old man
good-bye and started in the direction of his homestead.  We soon came
to the temporary lake, now frozen over and beautifully covered with the light snow.
It certainly was pretty, here, in the sunlight on the ice and yet practically in the woods,
        