I have now to record a little incident such as we sometimes read of but seldom gain cognizance of through our own auricular and optic organs. It may well be termed a “Romance in real life.”
Once, while in the army, I had picked up a small white pebble on the battle-ground of Bull Run, intending to keep it as a relic of that famed field. I had put it in a port-monnaie, and carried it with me through all my battles. While lying in the barn alluded to, I had lost my port-monnaie, which only contained, besides the pebble, a small bit of white paper on which I had made some notes of marches and their dates; and since then I had scarcely given it a thought. In fact, it had gone quite out of my mind.
Well, on Sunday morning, March twenty-sixth, 1865, before I left Mr. Pry’s house, Mrs. Pry showed me a small fancy basket of curiosities, such as little shells, bullets, and the like, and as she handed it to me to examine, she said:
“You will find among those shells a little white pebble, to which there is probably some story attached.”
“Ah?” I replied, moving the shells about. “How so?”
“Why, I think,” said she, “that it must have been the property of some soldier who, no doubt, carried it as a relic. Our boys were fishing one day, not long ago, and one of them drew up on his hook a port-monnaie—and what a fish he thought he had!—when——”
“A port-monnaie!” I exclaimed, as the recollection of my pebble suddenly flashed upon my mind for the first time since my leaving the army.
“Yes,” she went on; “and in it was the pebble——”
“And this is it!” I interrupted, as I found it at that moment among the shells and instantly recognized it by its peculiar shape and a little dark streak running through it.
“Yes, that is it.”