THE DEACON HURRIEDLY LEAVES FOR CHATTANOOGA.

THAT evening Lieut. Bowersox sent a telegram to Deacon Klegg. It had to be strictly limited to 10 words, and read:

     JOSIAH KLEGG, ESQ.,

     Somepunkins Station, Ind.:

     Josiah not killed. Hospital at Chattanooga. Badly wounded.
     E. C. BOWERSOX.

It did not arrive at Sumpunkins Station, three miles from the Deacon's home, until the next forenoon. The youth who discharged the multifarious duties of Postmaster, passenger, freight and express-agent, baggage-master, and telegraph operator at Sumpunkins Station laboriously spelled out the dots and dashes on the paper strip in the instrument. He had barely enough mastery of the Morse alphabet to communicate the routine messages relating to the railroad's business aided by the intelligence of the conductors and engineers as to what was expected of them. This was the first outside message that he had ever received, and for a while it threatened to be too much for him, especially as the absence of punctuation made it still more enigmatical. He faithfully transcribed each letter as he made it out and then the agglomeration read:

"Josiamn otkildho spitalat chatano ogabadl ywounded ecbower sox."

"Confound them smart operators at Louisville and Jefferson ville," he grumbled, scanning the scrawl. "They never make letters plain, and don't put in half of 'em, just to worrit country operators. I'd like to take a club to 'em. There's no sort o' sense in sich sending. A Philadelphia lawyer couldn't make nothing out of it. But I've got to or get a cussing, and mebbe the bounce. I'll try it over again, and see if I can separate it into words. Why in thunder can't they learn to put a space be tween the words, and not jumble the letters all to gether in that fool fashion?"

The next time he wrote it out:

"J. O. S. I am not kild Hospital at Chattanooga badly wounded E. C. Bower sox."

"That begins to look like something," said he, wiping the sweat from his forehead. "But who is J. O. S.? Nobody o' them initials in this neighbor hood. Nor E. C. Bower. Deacon Klegg can't know any of 'em. Then, how's the hospital badly wounded Bower? What's that about his socks? I'll have to try it over again as soon as No. 7, freight, gets by."

After No. 7 had gotten away, he tackled the message again:

"No, that sixth letter's not an m, but an h. H is four dots, and m is two dashes. It's specks in the paper that makes it look like an h. I'll put in some letters where they're needed. Now let's see how it'll read:"

228 SI KLEGG.

"Josiah Nott killed Hospital at Chattanooga. Badly wounded E. C. Bower sox."

"That seems to have more sense in it, but I don't know any Josiah Nott in this country. Does it mean that he killed a man named Hospital at Chattanooga, and badly wounded E. C. Bower in the socks? That don't seem sense. I'll try it again."

The next time he succeeded in making it read:

"Josiah Nott killed. Hospital at Chattanooga. Badly wounded E. C. Bower's ox."

"There, that's best I can do," he said, surveying the screed. "It'll have to go that way, and let the Deacon study it out. He's got more time 'n I have, and mebbe knows all about it. I can't spend no more time on it. No. 3, passenger, from the West 's due in 20 minutes, and I've got to get ready for it. Good luck; there comes the Deacon's darky now, with a load of wheat. I'll send it out by him."

The operator wrote out his last version of the message on a telegraph-blank, inclosed it in a West ern union envelope, which he addressed to Deacon Klegg, and gave to Abraham Lincoln, with strong injunctions to make all haste back home with it.

Impressed with these, Abraham, as soon as he delivered his grain to the elevator, put his team to a trot, and maintained it until he reached home.

Everything about the usually cheerful farm-house was shrouded in palpable gloom. The papers of the day before, with their ghastly lists of the dead and wounded, had contained Si's and Shorty's names, besides those of other boys of the neighborhood, in terrific, unmistakable plainness. There were few homes into which mourning had not come. The window curtains were drawn down, the front doors closed, no one appeared on the front porch, and it seemed that even the dogs and the fowls were op pressed with the general sadness, and forebore their usual cheerful utterances. Attired in sober black, with eyes red from weeping, and with camphor bottle near, Mr. Klegg sat in Si's room, and between her fits of uncontrollable weeping turned over, one after another, the reminders of her son. There were his bed, his clothes, which she had herself fashioned in loving toil for him; the well-thumbed school-books which had cost him so many anxious hours, his gun and fishing rod. All these were now sacred to her. Elsewhere in the house his teary-eyed sisters went softly and silently about their daily work.

The father had sought distraction in active work, and was in the cornfield, long corn-knife in hand, shocking up the tall stalks with a desperate energy to bring forgetfulness.

Abraham Lincoln burst into the kitchen, and taking the dispatch from his hat said:

"Hyah am a papeh or sumfin dat de agent down at de station done tole me to bring hyah jest as quick as I done could. He said hit done come ober a wire or a telugraph, or sumfin ob dat ere sort, and you must hab hit right-a-way."

"O, my; it's a telegraph dispatch," screamed Maria with that sickening apprehension that all women have of telegrams. "It's awful. I can't tech it. Take it Sophy."

"How can I," groaned poor Sophia, with a fresh outburst of tears. "But I suppose I must."

The mother heard the scream and the words, and hurried into the room.

"It's a telegraph dispatch, mother," said both the girls as they saw her.

"Merciful Father," ejaculated Mrs. Klegg, sinking into a chair in so nearly a faint that Maria ran into the next room for the camphor-bottle, while Sophy rushed outside and blew the horn for the Deacon. Presently he entered, his sleeves rolled to the elbow over his brawny arms, and his shirt and pantaloons covered with the spanish-needles and burrs which would grow, even in so well-tilled fields as Deacon Klegg's.

"What's the matter, mother? What's the matter, girls?" he asked anxiously.

Mrs. Klegg could only look at him in speechless misery.

"We've got a telegraph dispatch," finally answered Maria, bursting in a torrent of tears, into which Sophia joined sympathetically, "and we know it's about poor Si."

"Yes, it must be about poor Si; nobody else but him," added Sophia with a wail.

The father's face grew more sorrowful than be fore. "What does it say?" he nerved himself to ask, after a moment's pause.

"We don't know," sobbed Maria. "We haint opened it. We're afraid to. Here it is."

The father took it with trembling hand. "Well," he said after a little hesitation, "it can't tell nothin' no worse than we've already heard. Let's open it. Bring me my specs."

Maria ran for the spectacles, while her father, making a strong effort to calm himself, slit open the envelope with a jack-knife, adjusted his glasses, and read the inclosure over very slowly.

"Josiah Nott killed Hospital at Chattanooga badly wounded E. C. Bower's ox. What on airth does that mean? I can't for the life o' me make it out."

"Read it over again, pap," said Maria, suddenly drying her eyes.

The father did so.

"Le' me read it, pap," said Maria, snatching the telegram from his hand. "Josiah," said she, read ing. "That's Si's right name."

"Certainly it is," said her mother, reviving.

"Certainly; I didn't think o' that before," echoed the father.

"Josiah not killed," continued she. "Good heavens, that's what that means. They rebels has got hold o' the wires, and shook 'em and tangled up the rest, but the beginnin's all straight."

"I believe that Sam Elkins down at the station 's mixed it up," said Sophia, with hope springing in her breast. "He never can get things straight. He was in the class with me when I went to school, and too dumb to come in when it rained. He was the worst writer, speller and reader in the school. Think o' him being a telegraph operator. Why, he couldn't spell well enough to make tally-marks on a door when you're measurin' corn. Railroad was mighty hard up for help when it hired him. Let me read that dispatch. 'Josiah not killed.' That means Si Klegg, as sure's you're born. It can't mean nothin' else, or it wouldn't be addressed to you, pap. 'Hospital at Chattanooga.' Chattanooga's near where the battle was fought. 'Badly wounded.' That means Si's bin shot. 'E. C. Bower's ox.' What in the world can that be?"

"Bowersox?" said her father, catching the sound. "Why, that's the name o' the Lootenant Si and Shorty was under when they came home. Don't you remember they told us about him? I remember the name, for a man named Bowersox used to run a mill down on Bean-Blossom Crick, years ago, and I wondered if he was his son. He's sent me that dispatch, and signed his name. The Lord be praised for His never-endin' mercies. Si's alive, after all. Le' me read that over again."

He took the dispatch with shaking hands, but there was too much mist on his glasses-, and he had to hand it back to Maria to read over again to convince himself.

"I'll tell you what let's do: Let's all get in the wagon and ride over to the station, and get Sam Elkins to read the dispatch over again," suggested Sophia. "I'll jest bet he's mummixed it up."

"Don't blame him, Sophy," urged Maria. "I think the rebels has got at the poles or wires and shook 'em, and mixed the letters up. It's just like 'em."

Sophy's suggestion was carried out. Abraham Lincoln was directed to get out the spring wagon, and the Deacon helped hitch up, while the "women folks" got ready.

While they were at the station getting Sam Elkins to re-examine the dots and dashes on his strip of paper, the Eastern express arrived, bringing the morning papers. The Deacon bought one, and the girls nervously turned to the war news. They gave a scream of exultation when they read the revised returns of the killed and wounded, and found under head of "Wounded, in Hospital at Chattanooga":

"Corporal Josiah Klegg, Q, 200th Ind.

"Private Daniel Elliott, Q, 200th Ind."

"Mother and girls, I'm goin' to Chattanoogy on the next train," said the Deacon.

It was only a few hours until the train from the East would be along, and grief was measurably forgotten in the joy that Si was still alive and in the bustle of the Deacon's preparation for the journey.

"No," he said, in response to the innumerable suggestions made by the mother and daughters. "You kin jest set all them things back. I've bin down there once, and learned something. I'm goin' to take nothin with me but my Bible, a couple o' clean shirts, and my razor. A wise man learns by experience."

Mother and girls were inconsolable, for each had something that they were sure "Si would like," and would "do him good," but they knew Josiah Klegg, Sr., well enough to understand what was the condition when he had once made up his mind.

"If Si and Shorty's abl............