same, and then don the new suit of blue. So far well; but he was a lucky man if he did not share his new clothes with other hungry pediculi inside of a week.

"Skirmishing," however, furnished only slight relief from the oppressive attentions of the grayback, and furthermore, took much time. Hot water was the sovereign remedy, for

it penetrated every mesh and seam, and cooked the millions yet unborn, which Job himself could not have exterminated by the thumbnail process unaided. So tenacious of life were these creatures that some veterans affirm they have seen them still creeping on garments taken out of boiling water, and that only by putting salt in the water were they sure of accomplishing their destruction.

I think there was but one opinion among the soldiers in regard to the graybacks; viz., that the country was being ruined by over-production. What the Colorado beetle is to the potato crop they were to the soldiers of both armies, and that man has fame and fortune in his hand who, before the next great war in any country, shall have invented an extirpator which shall do for the pediculus what paris-green does for the potato-bug. From all this it can readily be seen why no good soldier wanted his bunk to be regarded as common property.

I may add in passing that no other variety of insect life caused any material annoyance to the soldier. Now and then a wood-tick would insert his head, on the sly, into some part of the human integument; but these were not common or unclean.

I have already related much that the soldier did to pass away time. I will add to that which I have already given two branches of domestic industry that occupied a considerable time in log huts

to washing and mending. Some of the men were just as particular about changing their underclothing at least once a week as they would be at home; while others would do so only under the severest pressure. It is disgusting to remember, even at this late day, how little care hundreds of the men be

stowed on bodily clean

BOILING THEM.

liness. The story, quite familiar to old soldiers, about the man who was so negligent in this respect that when he finally took a bath he found a number of shirts and socks

A WOOD-TICK.

which he supposed he had lost, arose from the fact of there being a few men in every organization who were most unaccountably regardless of all rules of health, and of whom such a statement would seem, to those that knew the parties, only slightly exaggerated.

How was this washing done? Well, if the troops were camping near a brook, that simplified the matter somewhat; but even then the clothes must be boiled, and for this purpose there was but one resource - the mess kettles. There is a familiar anecdote related of Daniel

Webster: that while he was Secretary of State, the French Minister at Washington asked him whether the United States would recognize the new government of France I think Louis Napoleon's. Assuming a very solemn tone and posture, Webster replied: "Why not? The United States has recognized the Bourbons, the French Republic,

CLEANING UP.

the Directory, the
Council of Five
Hundred, the First
Consul, the Emper-
or, Louis XVIII.
Charles X., Louis
Philippe, the "
"Enough! enough!"
cried the minister,
fully satisfied with
the extended array
of precedents cited.

So, in regard to
using our mess ket-
tles to boil clothes
in, it might be ask-
ed 66
Why not?"
Were they not used
to boil our meat and

potatoes in, to make our bean, pea, and meat soups in, to boil our tea and coffee in, to make our apple and peach sauce in? Why not use them as wash-boilers? Well, "gentle reader," while it might at first interfere somewhat with your appetite to have your food cooked in the wash-boiler, you would soon get used to it; and so this complex use of the mess kettles soon ceased to affect the appetite, or to shock the sense of propriety of the average soldier as to the eternal fitness of things, for he was often compelled by circumstances to endure much greater improprieties. It

would indeed have been a most admirable arrangement in many respects could each man have been provided with an excellent Magee Range with copper-boiler annex, and set tubs near by; but the line had to be drawn somewhere, and so everything in the line of impedimenta was done away with, unless it was absolutely essential to the service. For this reason we could not take along a well equipped laundry, but must make some articles do double or triple service.

It may be asked what kind of a figure the men cut as washerwomen. Well, some of them were awkward and imperfect enough at it; but necessity is a capital teacher, and, in this as in many other directions, men did perforce what they would not have attempted at home. It was not necessary, however, for every man to do his own washing, for in most companies there was at least one man who, for a reasonable recompense, was ready to do such work, and he usually found all he could attend to in the time he had off duty. There was no ironing to be done, for "boiled shirts," as white-bosomed shirts were called, were almost an unknown garment in the army except in hospitals. Flannels were the order of the day. If a man had the courage to face the ridicule of his comrades by wearing a white collar, it was of the paper variety, and white cuffs were unknown in camp.

In the department of mending garments each man did his own work, or left it undone, just as he thought best; but no one hired it done. Every man had a "housewife or its equivalent, containing the necessary needles, yarn, thimble, etc., furnished him by some mother, sister, sweetheart, or Soldier's Aid Society, and from this came his materials to mend or darn with.

Now, the average soldier was not so susceptible to the charms and allurements of sock-darning as he should have been; for this reason he always put off the direful day until both heels looked boldly and with hardened visage out the back-door, while his ten toes ranged themselves en échelon in

front of their quarters. By such delay or neglect good ventilation and the opportunity of drawing on the socks from either end were secured. The task of once more restricting the toes to quarters was not an easy one, and the processes of arriving at this end were not many in number. Perhaps the speediest and most unique, if not the most artistic, was that of tying a string around the hole. This was a scheme for cutting the Gordian knot of darning, which a few modern Alexanders put into execution. But I never heard any of them commend its comforts after the job was done.

A HOUSEWIFE.

Then, there were other men who, having arranged a checker-board of stitches over the holes, as they had seen their mothers do, had not the time or patience to fill in the squares, and the inevitable consequence was that both heels and toes would look through the bars only a few hours before breaking jail again. But

there were a few of the boys who were kept furnished with home-made socks, knit, perhaps, by their good old grandmas, who seemed to inherit the patience of the grandams themselves; for, whenever

there was mending or darning to be done, they would sit by the hour, and do the work as neatly and conscientiously as any one could desire. I am not wide of the facts when I say that the heels of the socks darned by these men remained firm when the rest of the fabric was well spent.

There was little attempt made to repair the socks drawn from the government supplies, for they were generally of