* * * * *

"My companion, meanwhile, was not inactive. He sought out the obscure
retreat of a distant branch of our family, a poor widow, who lived with
her only son, an active and industrious mechanic. He renewed the
acquaintance which we had allowed to drop some years before, and set
before her in glowing colors the chance that opened for the young man to
achieve a high and glorious destiny. Fired with patriotic zeal, he even
went so far as to promise to take the support of the mother upon
himself, while her son was absent working for the cause of liberty, and
making for himself an honorable name, and succeeded so well, that he was
thus enabled to send a substitute in his place to represent the family,
so to speak. Nor did he stop here. Not contented with these efforts, he
set about finding some other way in which he could show his zeal for the
cause. At length a bright thought struck him. He became an Army
Contractor."

"Of the service he has done the Government from that auspicious moment,"
concluded the lady, craning her long neck with an air of pardonable
pride, and fingering the massive chain that depended from it with a
caressing fondness, "I need not speak. Indeed, it speaks for itself. But
I may say that the country which he served has not proved ungrateful,
but has shown its ability to reward true merit in a substantial manner.
I will, however, add that when the intelligence arrived that the man he
had sent forth to represent his honor had perished in the first battle,
he generously took the surviving relative into his own house, provided
her with every comfort, and pays her weekly the sum of one dollar fifty,
for what little errands she does for me and the children. What I wished
to elucidate," added the speaker, energetically, "is this--that no one
can't put _me_ down, knowin' as I do my own rights. In fact, I may say,