But among other things the forager brought information to the effect that he had secured employment for both at the cheering rate of five dollars per week.
So one day these two "laid down the shovel and the hoe," and made most excellent time for Richmond, arriving there early in the day, and entering at once upon the new work.
C.S. Buttons off
During the stay at the farm the survivors felt that they were not yet returned to civil life, but "foraging" on the neutral ground between war and peace,—neither soldiers nor citizens. But now, in regular employment, in a city,—their own city!—with so much per week and the responsibility of "finding themselves," and especially after the provost made them cut the brass buttons off their jackets, and more especially after they were informed that they must take the oath before doing anything else, they began to think that probably the war was nearing its end. But a real good hearty war like that dies hard. No country likes to part with a good earnest war. It likes to talk about the war, write its history, fight its battles over and over again, and build monument after monument to commemorate its glories.
A long time after a war, people begin to find out, as they read, that the deadly struggle marked a grand period in their history!
CHAPTER XI.
CAMP-FIRES OF THE BOYS IN GRAY.
The soldier may forget the long, weary march, with its dust, heat, and thirst, and he may forget the horrors and blood of the battle-field, or he may recall them sadly, as he thinks of the loved dead; but the cheerful, happy scenes of the camp-fire he will never forget. How willingly he closes his eyes to the present to dream of those happy, careless days and nights! Around the fire crystallize the memories of the soldier's life. It was his home, his place of rest, where he met with good companionship. Who kindled the fire? Nobody had matches, there was no fire in sight, and yet scarcely was the camp determined when the bright blaze of the camp-fire was seen. He was a shadowy fellow who kindled the fire. Nobody knows who he was; but no matter how wet the leaves, how sobby the twigs, no matter if there was no fire in a mile of the camp, that fellow could start one. Some men might get down on hands and knees, and blow it and fan it, rear and charge, and fume and fret, and yet "she wouldn't burn." But this fellow would come, kick it all around, scatter it, rake it together again, shake it up a little, and oh, how it burned! The little flames would bite the twigs and snap at the branches, embrace the logs, and leap and dance and laugh, at the touch of the master's hand, and soon lay at his feet a bed of glowing coals.