of the primary and of the grammar schools,
educate youths of from sixteen to twenty. Here
is the country youth of seventeen or eighteen,
with the child's unsated enjoyment of plum-cake
and apples, with the heart yet tender for his
mother, with the conscience yet pure by close
home observance of religious duties, and the first
dawn in him also of the young romance of love.
He is not a clever fellow. He is, here and there,
uncertain about his spelling, but he works hard
now and then as a freshman in his second or
third term, though he has fits of novel-reading
and fits of rough frolic. He is too young to be
alone in a room of his own, where the card-
playing and idling youths may make themselves
at ease with him, but he is a good little fellow,
who accounts it no shame to run to his "ma"
whenever she comes into town. The political
ferment begins. The town is disturbed, the
students are unsettled. The young diarist
begins to "cut" his classes freely; has lost his
earlier tenderness of conscience about missing
chapel and prayer-meeting. He runs wild,
increases his expenditure upon tobacco, is with
the students who hoist secession flags and create
disturbance in the streets of nights, is with the
first to volunteer. He records the buying cloth
for his first pair of trooper's trousers, his days
of pistol practice when he should be studying,
his march with the army, his fighting at Bull's
Run, his picket duties, and the incidents of his
camp life. Another of the widow's sons had
volunteered. The diarist mentions this brother
from time to time as in the camp; but the record
is not continued to the date when I picked up
the little book stained with the college student's
oil and scarred at the edges with fire, from
among the papers left at Manassas. It was
broken off five or six months before, on the
seventeenth of last October, at a record of picket
duties and eating chesnuts in the neighbourhood
of Fairfax Court-house, where it is remembered
that a picket party was surprised one day while
chesnut gathering, and some of the men were
shot. Perhaps the diarist was then killed. At
Manassas, doubtless, it was either his brother or
some friend who left the diary behind. Here,
then, are some records of the last nine months
of the life of a widow's son in Virginia during
days of civil war.

The diary begins with New Year's day sixty-
one, in the boy's home, on the farm at a village
about nine miles from Lexington, the county
capital of Rockbridge, in Virginia. Deep snow
is on the ground. The diarist records that he
rose at eight, "read a novel named the Children
of the Abbey, had some rasper, and took steps
towards making a Yankee jumper. The trees
were all covered with a beautiful frost." Next
day he worked on at his jumper, which is a sort
of sledge, "cut a pair of poles, shaved them,
and bored the holes." Also, he "helped feed the
hogs and beef." This day he records too that
they were "visited by a pretty lady and gentleman,"
and that "Sis Fan and Mat started for
Lynchburg when it thawed a little." Lynchburg
is a town bigger than Lexington, good
thirty miles away. We may suppose sister Fan
to be going home thither with the brother in
trade there, after a Christmas visit to the mother
in the old home at the farm.

On the next day, the fourth of January,
Friday, the young diarist is humorous and happy.
This being fast-day appointed by the President,
he says that he "kept it till breakfast-time."
These were the last days of President Buchanan,
I may remind readers. Only South Carolina
had seceded. At Charleston, Fort Sumter had
just been occupied by Major Anderson.
Political feeling was near boiling-point. Secession
of the other Southern States and outbreak of
the civil war were imminent. The diarist, after
breakfast, went to a preaching in the sleigh of his
own making, "heard a good sermon, had a fine
time generally, bought a new hat," &c. (Not
long, by the way, after return to school he
"traded hats with another boy.") So ended the
holidays, of which the record is boyish and
simple. Next day, he "started to town on the
stage, had a pleasant time, a very heavy load
was on board, roads in a very bad condition."

There was still heavy snow next morning when
the youth returned to college, "heard a first-
rate sermon from Parson White, attended
college prayer-meeting, smoked, chatted, and ate
apples with some of the boys till bedtime."
Next day, after setting down his college occupation,
his record is equally boylike. "Bought
several things that were necessary, eat some of
my cake, and then went to bed." He had gone
to school, of course, with apples and a cake in
his box. Next day, he was "put through" by
each of the professors, "mailed" (i. e. posted)
"a good many tickets," which on the previous
day he had "fixed up to send to ladies;" also
he "wrote to ma," paid a debt to a schoolfellow,
sent a newspaper to his brother Jimmie (the one
who afterwards as well as himself turned
volunteer). "Helped fusee Nat and Nowell"
(possibly the playing of a school trick), "scratched
on the fiddle untill bedtime, eat another piece of
my cake, dreampt of my betrothed."

Next day the snow was all gone: he bought
a load of wood, carried a boot to be mended,
did not study much, wrote to his brother Jimmie,
delivered a school declamation, smoked and
talked with a schoolfellow before he "went to
shut-eye town." On the day after that he fixed
an almanac on his table to save trouble of
getting up, for dates of the day interested him;
again he "fixed up a paper to send to Jimmie,"
and on that day "a disunion flag was raised on
top of Coll. Old Doc was very angry." On
the day after that he "had a perfect set of
recitations ready, but was not put through."
There was another sort of learning by heart then
astir. "Took part," he writes, "in a discussion
on the question of Union or Disunion, broke
up in a general row, had but one fight"—when
he shed, doubtless,his first blood in the cause—
"was sent for home on urgent business."

He had left for school but a week before.
The urgent business he does not mention, but
it was not of a grievous sort; for, next day, he