So... two things. Im sure you wonder sometimes at my odd sense of humor and whether I realize it or not (I do, BTW...), but... I have found it to be genetic... That leads to thing 2. From a long gone relative writing about his experiences in the Civil War... I present Elijah Wilson Harper. His nom de plume? Killacranky. He was from Georgia, so... snow was rather novel to him it would seem... It was my ride next. The heavens were overcast with laden clouds. The snow was falling thick and fast. Then the grounds around Manassas for miles was canopied with snow six inches deep. The crickets were chirping beneath our office hearthstone and insect life seemed to be rejoicing supreme, but myself, I was miserable, for I knew my ride was next on the list. My friend Thompson who next before was out on his ride, and about the time Thompson came in, a dispatch came in by Captain Fishers clerk to be carried out about 10 miles from the Junction. I knew just what I had to do and I began to do it. I saddled my horse, donned my great coat and started on my cold and dreaded ride through the grandest snow storm I ever witnessed. It was blowing in my face and also in that of my horse. Our progress was slow but after a desperate struggle with several stumbles by my horses feet, clogging with snow, we found the office and delivered the dispatch. He broke and opened and read it. He looked at me, cunning like, and said: I dont know where the b--d thing is, but you hitch and go into my fire and warm and Ill look for it. I went in his quarters wondering what the thing was. In a short time he came back and said: Ive not found it, yet, but Ill look again. Off he went and finally came back with a fiddle and bow and handed it to me for the answer to the dispatch. I began to get mad right there and then. I got on my horse and began to plan for the destruction of that fiddle. My road back to headquarters was embellished with extensive cedar groves. On my way I began to get cold. I could not get the answer to the dispatch in my pocket and had to carry it in my hand. I kept getting madder and madder, and I tell you, when I get desperate something has always took place. I got desperate mad. I turned my horse from the road into a dense cedar thicket and wore that fiddle to an unknown frazzle against a cedar tree, broke the bow and then I took mud and rubbed it on my horses nose, breast and legs. I rubbed some mud on my clothes and stuck a splinter of the fiddle in my coat. I picked up part of the fiddle and packed it in to Fisher and told him my horse clogged down and I fell on the fiddle and demolished it. Capt. Fisher believed all I told him, but my horse knew he did not fall and shook his head. I told him he did fall.
Posted on: Tue, 22 Apr 2014 01:59:58 +0000
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