'
"'However does this Gen'ral Wheeler save you?' asks Dan Boggs.
'Which I'm shore eager to hear.'
"'The tale is simple,' responds the Colonel, 'an' it's a triboote to
that brave commander which I'm allers ready to pay. It's in the
middle years of the war, an' I'm goin' to school in a village which
lies back from the river, an' is about twenty miles from my
ancestral home. Thar's a stockade in the place which some invadin'
Yanks has built, an' thar's about twenty of 'em inside, sort o'
givin' orders to the village an' makin' its patriotic inhabitants
either march or mark time, whichever chances to be their Yankee
caprices.
"'As a troo Southern yooth, who feels for his strugglin' country, I
loathes them Yankees to the limit, an' has no more use for 'em than
Huggins has for a temp'rance lecturer.
"'One day a troop of reb cavalry jumps into the village, an'
stampedes these yere invaders plumb off the scene. We gets the news
up to the school, an' adjourns in a bunch to come down town an'
cel'brate the success of the Southern arms. As I arrives at the
field of carnage, a reb cavalryman is swingin' outen the saddle. He
throws the bridle of his hoss to me.
"'" See yere, Bud," he says, "hold my hoss a minute while I sees if
I can't burn this stockade.
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