"Gentlemen, this busybody has come all the way from Washington here to
tell me I'm a thief. I wrote to his damn Yankee government that I was
needing the money last winter to go East on the aid committee and
would replace it, and now that I'm going out to-morrow to die for his
damn Yankee government, he has the impertinence to come in here and
say I stole that money. Now what I want to ask you, gentlemen, is
this: Do I go out to-morrow to die on the field of glory for my
country, or does this here little contemptible whippersnapper take me
off to rot in some Yankee jail? I leave it to you, gentlemen. Settle
it for yourselves." And with that Culpepper throws the man into the
crowd and walks behind the screen in solemn state.

The boy never knew how it was settled. But Martin Culpepper went to
"the field of glory," and all the boy knew of the incident is here
recorded. However, in the Biography of Watts McHurdie above-mentioned
and aforesaid occur these words, in the same chapter--the one
entitled "The Large White Plumes": "Let memory with gentle hand cover
with her black curtain of soft oblivion all that was painful on that
glorious day. Let us not recall the bickerings and the strifes, let
the grass watered by Lethe's sweet spring creep over the scars in the
bright prospect which lies under our loving gaze. Let us hold in our
heart the tears in beauty's eyes; the smile that curls her crimson
lips, and the hope that burns upon her brow. Let us fondle the sacred
memory of every warm hand clasp of comrade and take to the silent
grave the ever green garland of love that adorned our hearts that day.
For the sordid thorns that pierced our bleeding hearts--what are they
but ashes to-day, blown on the winds of yesterday?"

What indeed, Martin Culpepper--what indeed, smiled John Barclay as he
reached for the rose on his broad mahogany desk across forty long