"Perhaps it was her daguerreotype?"
The infant wept afresh, and says he:
"No-o-o."
"Then," says Samyule, in a broken voice, "it must have been her blessing."
"No! no-o-o," cried the small Mackerel drummer, with quivering lips.
"Then what in thunder was it that your mother gave you?" says Samyule, greatly bewildered.
"It was a spanking!" screamed the affectionate little creature, cramming both his little fists into his little eyes, and blubbering unrestrainedly.
Samyule gazed a moment at the child, and says he:
"Well may affection bid thee weep, thou tender little one! When a sweetheart blushingly places a rose upon her lover's breast, the scene is affecting; but my own memory of childhood tells me that a far deeper feeling is excited when the tender mother selects a different flower, and places upon the back of her child the modest lady's slipper."
Immediately after this affecting little incident, my boy, Samyule led his men to their duty, and they marched into one end of the defile as soldiers, to pass out of the other as spirits.