Page:The Diothas, or, A far look ahead (IA diothasorfarlook01macn).pdf/241

 those days, any thing worth knowing was spread over the world in an incredibly short time.

These songs naturally led to a discussion of the slave-system, and the struggle that led to its extinction on this continent. "Uncle Tom's Cabin," I found, was one of the few books that had retained its popularity through the long succession of ages. Version after version had appeared, rendered necessary by the progressive changes in the language. The last, which had appeared about fifteen centuries before the period of which we are speaking, was regarded as one of the choice classics of the language.

A chance reference to the "Hero of Ossawatomie" recalled to my mind the wild, simple melody associated with his name,—a melody that even now, to those who lived through that era of blood and strife, seems ever associated with the tramp of armed hosts and the boom of distant cannon. At least, so it is to me.

I was too young to take part in, or even to have an intelligent understanding of, the great struggle at the time. But one of my earliest recollections is, of standing at a window with my mother to see my uncle's regiment march past on its way to the front, to take part in the last desperate struggle round Richmond. It seems as if but yesterday. How noble looked the bronzed and bearded leader who rode at the head of the column! How different from the pale and helpless form brought back two months later!

He looked up to our window. Sister though she was, it was not to my mother alone, or chiefly, that was waved that mute gesture of farewell. Just then the band struck