The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 | Page 8

it has--a vitality that can not be dried out by time, nor crushed out by violence. You know how in old mummy-cases have been found grains of wheat, which, being sown, sprang up, and bore a harvest like that which waved in the breeze on the banks of the Nile. You know how God's truth--all truth is God's truth--was shut up in that old mummy-case, the monastery, and how, when found by one Luther, and sown broadcast, it sprang up, and now there is hardly an island, or a river's bank, on which it has not fallen and does not bear abundant fruit. The 'heel of despotism' could not crush out its life; ages hence it will be said of it: 'It still lives.'
And still lives, yours,
MOLLY O'MOLLY.

'THAT LAST DITCH.'
Many reasons have been assigned for the Chivalry's determining to die in that last ditch. One William Shakspeare puts into the mouth of Enobarbus, in Antony and Cleopatra, the best reason we have yet seen. 'Tis thus:
'I will go seek Some ditch wherein to die: THE FOUL BEST FITS MY LATTER PART OF LIFE.'

HOPEFUL TACKETT--HIS MARK.
BY RICHARD WOLCOTT, 'TENTH ILLINOIS.'
'An' the Star-Spangle' Banger in triump' shall wave O! the lan dov the free-e-e, an' the ho mov the brave.'
Thus sang Hopeful Tackett, as he sat on his little bench in the little shop of Herr Kordw?ner, the village shoemaker. Thus he sang, not artistically, but with much fervor and unction, keeping time with his hammer, as he hammered away at an immense 'stoga.' And as he sang, the prophetic words rose upon the air, and were wafted, together with an odor of new leather and paste-pot, out of the window, and fell upon the ear of a ragged urchin with an armful of hand-bills.
'Would you lose a leg for it, Hope?' he asked, bringing to bear upon Hopeful a pair of crossed eyes, a full complement of white teeth, and a face promiscuously spotted with its kindred dust.
'For the Banger?' replied Hopeful; 'guess I would. Both on 'em--an' a head, too.'
'Well, here's a chance for you.' And he tossed him a hand-bill.
Hopeful laid aside his hammer and his work, and picked up the hand-bill; and while he is reading it, let us briefly describe him. Hopeful is not a beauty, and he knows it; and though some of the rustic wits call him 'Beaut,' he is well aware that they intend it for irony. His countenance runs too much to nose--rude, amorphous nose at that--to be classic, and is withal rugged in general outline and pimply in spots. His hair is decidedly too dingy a red to be called, even by the utmost stretch of courtesy, auburn; dry, coarse, and pertinaciously obstinate in its resistance to the civilizing efforts of comb and brush. But there is a great deal of big bone and muscle in him, and he may yet work out a noble destiny. Let us see.
By the time he had spelled out the hand-bill, and found that Lieutenant ---- was in town and wished to enlist recruits for Company ----, ---- Regiment, it was nearly sunset; and he took off his apron, washed his hands, looked at himself in the piece of looking-glass that stuck in the window--a defiant look, that said that he was not afraid of all that nose--took his hat down from its peg behind the door, and in spite of the bristling resistance of his hair, crowded it down over his head, and started for his supper. And as he walked he mused aloud, as was his custom, addressing himself in the second person, 'Hopeful, what do you think of it? They want more soldiers, eh? Guess them fights at Donelson and Pittsburg Lannen 'bout used up some o' them ridgiments. By Jing!' (Hopeful had been piously brought up, and his emphatic exclamations took a mild form.) 'Hopeful, 'xpect you'll have to go an' stan' in some poor feller's shoes. 'Twon't do for them there blasted Seceshers to be killin' off our boys, an' no one there to pay 'em back. It's time this here thing was busted! Hopeful, you an't pretty, an' you an't smart; but you used to be a mighty nasty hand with a shot-gun. Guess you'll have to try your hand on old Borey's [Beauregard's] chaps; an' if you ever git a bead on one, he'll enter his land mighty shortly. What do you say to goin'? You wanted to go last year, but mother was sick, an' you couldn't; and now mother's gone to glory, why, show your grit an' go. Think about it, any how.'
And Hopeful did think about it--thought till late at night of the insulted flag, of the fierce fights and glorious victories, of the dead and the dying lying out in the pitiless storm, of the