So we were anchored for a little space, and enjoyed keenly the repose
of this summer nook on the Opequon. Soon the bugle would sound again,
and new storms would buffet us; meanwhile, we laughed and sang,
snatching the bloom of the peaceful hours, inhaling the odors,
listening to the birds, and idly dreaming.
For myself, I had more dreams than the rest of the gray people there!
The Bower was not a strange place to me. My brethren of the staff used
to laugh, and say that, wherever we went, in Virginia, I found
kins-people. I found near and dear ones at the old house on the
Opequon; and a hundred spots which recalled my lost youth. Every object
carried me back to the days that are dead. The blue hills, the stream,
the great oaks, and the hall smiled on me. How familiar the portraits,
and wide fireplaces, and deers' antlers. The pictures of hawking
scenes, with ladies and gentlemen in the queerest costumes; the
engravings of famous race-horses, hanging between guns, bird-bags and
fishing-rods in the wide hall--these were not mere dead objects, but
old and long-loved acquaintances. I had known them in my childhood;
looked with delight upon them in my boyhood; now they seemed to salute
me, murmuring--"Welcome! you remember us!"
Thus the hall, the grounds, the pictures, the most trifling object
brought back to me, in that summer of 1863, a hundred memories of the
years that had flown.
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