killed and wounded, and 13,000 were taken prisoners.



XXI. "I PITY THEM."

1. A poor man once undertook to emigrate from Castine, Me., to Illinois.
When he was attempting to cross a river in New York, his horse broke
through the rotten timbers of the bridge, and was drowned. He had but this
one animal to convey all his property and his family to his new home.

2. His wife and children were almost miraculously saved from sharing the
fate of the horse; but the loss of this poor animal was enough. By its aid
the family, it may be said, had lived and moved; now they were left
helpless in a land of strangers, without the ability to go on or return,
without money or a single friend to whom to appeal. The case was a hard
one.

3. There were a great many who "passed by on the other side." Some even
laughed at the predicament in which the man was placed; but by degrees a
group of people began to collect, all of whom pitied him.

4. Some pitied him a great deal, and some did not pity him very much,
because, they said, he might have known better than to try to cross an
unsafe bridge, and should have made his horse swim the river. Pity,
however, seemed rather to predominate. Some pitied the man, and some the
horse; all pitied the poor, sick mother and her six helpless children.

5. Among this pitying party was a rough son of the West, who knew what it
was to migrate some hundreds of miles over new roads to locate a destitute