"You're a plain, common man," continued Ephraim, paying the highest
compliment known to rural New England; "the people think a sight of you,
or they wouldn't hev chose you twice, General."

"So you were in the Wilderness?" said the President, adroitly changing
the subject.

"Yes, General. I was pressed into orderly duty the first day--that's when
I saw you whittlin' under the tree, and you didn't seem to have no more
consarn than if it had been a company drill. Had a cigar then, too. But
the second day; May the 6th, I was with the regiment. I'll never forget
that day," said Ephraim, warming to the subject, "when we was fightin'
Ewell up and down the Orange Plank Road, playin' hide-and-seek with the
Johnnies in the woods. You remember them woods, General?"

The President nodded, his cigar between his teeth. He looked as though
the scene were coming back to him.

"Never seen such woods," said Ephraim, "scrub oak and pine and cedars and
young stuff springin' up until you couldn't see the length of a company,
and the Rebs jumpin' and hollerin' around and shoutin' every which way.
After a while a lot of them saplings was mowed off clean by the bullets,
and then the woods caught afire, and that was hell."

"Were you wounded?" asked the President, quickly.

"I was hurt some, in the hip," answered Ephraim.

"Some!" exclaimed Cynthia, "why, you have walked lame ever since." She
knew the story by heart, but the recital of it never failed to stir her