“With ease,” I replied.
“How will you manage to get on?” he asked.
“This way,” I replied; and I placed one hand on the saddle and the other on my crutch, and sprung up with ease.
He opened his eyes with astonishment.
“Whew! You get on a horse easier than I can. But don’t get thrown off.”
“I won’t,” I replied. “Get up, old hoss!” And touching the animal with a spur I had put on—I only wear one, on ordinary occasions—darted away toward the river at a brisk gallop.
I visited the old camping-ground, and had the satisfaction of finding the exact spot—now lonely and deserted—on which the cabin of our mess had stood during the first winter of the war, and on which I had slept many a night, with a thin blanket and hard puncheon floor under me, a wood fire in the chimney near my feet—I had two of the articles then—and my knapsack, containing an extra shirt and pair of drawers, a few writing-materials, letters and photographs of friends, under my head. How the old scenes did come back to me! How vividly I saw, in imagination, the forms and faces that have passed away, and heard the merry voices that are hushed forever! How distinctly I saw and heard around me a hundred of the liveliest boys of my old regiment, who sleep in unmarked graves before Richmond, at Bull Run, South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg and Gettysburg! I had visited the old ground because I thought it would be a pleasure, but somehow, when the scenes of the past came crowding back upon me, and I remembered so many of my jovial comrades, now no more, a melancholy settled over me; and when I turned away toward Washington, it was with a sadness of heart that I cannot express.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Smith’s Experience on a Skate.
I SPENT the ensuing winter in Philadelphia, the great city which was laid out by William Penn, Esquire, who took a checker-board—an article used in a game invariably played “on the square”—for a pattern, and, hence, laid it out in squares that were perfectly square, and have remained so to the present day. Mr. Penn deserves great credit for his peaceable manner of acquiring the land on which the city is built. Instead of going to work and killing the poor innocent savages, like others did, he purchased the land from them, at a good round price in buttons, keys, tooth picks, shoe-pegs, marbles, rum and the like. This course, besides speaking well for the goodness of his heart, is also strong evidence of his superior judgment and foresight, as the Indians at that time were too numerous to be easily overcome.
One day, in the middle of the skating season, I concluded to go down to Eastwick Park, Mr. R. O. Lowry’s popular resort, and amuse myself awhile by watching the skaters tumbling head over heels and cracking their brain-pans on the ice. I always had a passion for seeing any one fall, especially on skates. There is a calm, quiet enjoyment about it—to the observer—that is not equaled by any thing else. “We always,” remarks La Rochefoucault “have strength enough to bear the misfortunes of others,” a saying which, however humiliating it may be to confess it, has a certain truth. The ancient Greek writer Isidorus puts it very bluntly when he says: “Nothing is more pleasant than to sit at ease in the harbor and behold the shipwreck of others,” a sentiment which is repeated in an old English song: