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THE COUNTRYMAN.
45
was not enough for me, so I attempted to
increase it. In so doing I stirred the sedi
ment, for they almost teazed my life out of
me about Inventus,and thus gave my nascent
cacoethes a check from which it took many
long months to recover. Without consid
ering what may have been their intention,
was not this proceeding on their part, of ser
vice to me ?
TURKWOLD, GA., NOVEMBER 3, 1862.
lige.
Lige was a sable genius, who, without any
teaching, learned to make drums, cross
bows, and wagons. His drums were little
drums for children; his cross-bow's little
cross-bows for children ; and his wagons
little wagons for children. How all the
children loved Lige, and how Lige loved
all the children ! How he delighted to make
drums,and wagons,and cross-hows for them!
When Lige first began to contemplate
manufacturing his wagons, &c., being a
young man, he thought about the subject
so much, day and night, that it crazed his
brain, and his master had to confine him as
a madman : but he emerged from his mad'
ness and his prison, a skillful manufactu
rer of the articles he so much longed to make
It was my delight to visit Lige’s little
work-shop. It was a very small, rude log-
hut, but all the dearer to me on that ac
count. You know how children love to
make “ little houses.” You know how
they love a “little house” to play in.
Well, Lige had a little house to work
in—just about the size of a house I would
have been pleased to have for a work-shop,
and a play-house combined : for, when a
child, I always had my little box of tools
with which I delighted to work, aud botch,
and cobble. What child does not like a
hammer and a gimlet ?
Well, there stood Lige’s little shop—my
beau ideal of what a shop ought to be. It
pleased my childish fancy much better, of
course, than would a machine shop that
could turn out from its bowels of steam,
everything, from a horse-shoe nail, to a
steam-engine. I loved Ligo's shop best, be
cause that was within my comprehension,
and my hopes. I could understand that,
and I could see the possibility of my hav
ing one like it. But what is there but in
finity to a child’s mind about those tremen
dous steam-works, with their huge wheels ;
their everlasting clatter ; their broad bands;
their puffing, blowing, and screeching ; and
their clouds of steam and smoke 1 How
can he see any beginning or ending to any
of it ? It is all past his comprehension.
He can neither understand it, nor does he
hope for one like it, nor does he wish to
hope for one like it.
But Lige’s shop I could understand. It
was all plain to my childish mind. Lige had
no great number of tools. A hammer, saw,
chisel, drawing-knife, an auger or 2, and 1
or 2 gimlets, with a scoop to hollow out his
drums, were about all. I loved to see him
work on his wagons, drums, and cross-bows.
And then his shop was always attractive
on other accounts: he generally had hick
ory-nuts, walnuts, chestnuts, cbinquepins,
or bome’thing of the sort to give the chil
dren who visited him.
My acquaintance with Lige began when
I wa's some 8 or 10 years old. Being at
that time unable to walk, on account of a
very severe attack of white-swelling, my
father bought one of his wagons that I might
ride about the yard and garden, in it. There
was great joy in my heart on this account,
and lhave always been very partial to Lige,
ever since. *
Several years after this, I got so I could
walk Sbout on crutches, and being on a vis-
’it to my young friend Wm. H. Chambers
—now of Eufaula, Ala.—he gave me a
very large cross-bow made by a man by
the name of Battle, a mechanic of this
county. Col. James M. Chambers then
lived at old Pop-Castle, the present home
stead of the family' to which I referred in
my article about “ the old place,” and he
is the father of my friend Wm. H. My
boyish fancy was entirely captivated by
this huge cross-bow. But it was too large
to be of any service to me, and iny old
friend Lige came to my rescue again, by ma
king me a smaller cross-bow—one that I
could shoot. I shot at a great many birds
with it, but don’t think I ever hit one. It
is likely the dogs, cats, cows, hogs, chick
ens, and turkeys sufiered some : but 1
think I never shot anything feres natures.
Lige used to have some ambition to ex
tend Jus mechanical genius into the gun or
pistol making line. He once got some
pewter, and a joint of elder, and by plac
ing a stick exactly in the centre of the el
der, he moulded a pistol barrel, drilled out
the touch-hole, and put it in a very respec
table stock. He could not make the lock,
however. The stock was in the shape of
a lifle stock, and the pewter barrel was
some 10 or 12 inches long. This was a
little gun, with a bright barrel, and of
course I was much pleased with it. By
some means—gift or purchase—I obtained
it from Lige, and slily taking some powder
and shot from my father’s flask and pouch,
I loaded the little gun. My mother found
it out, probably by some negro’s betraying
me (which he ought to have done, as my
experiment was very dangerous) and my
firearm was seized upon as being an article
contraband of peace. Archibald Davis, my
father’s overseer at the time, was charged
with the,task of discharging my pewter
gun. Putting it behind a tree, he got round
on the other side, aud with a long stick
with fire at the end, he touched the vent of
my little gun, and it went off with a load
report, doing no damage. I was highly
pleased at the noise, and the result of the
experiment, and was more anxious than ev
er to have my gun, but never got it in my
possession again. It was, 1 believe, return
ed to Lige.
But not only did Lige make me wagons,
and cross-bows, and guns, but he made me
drums. Nobody’s drums ever sounded to
me like Lige’s drums did,*when I was a
boy. We used to have one at school, and
we mustered to its beat, at play-time.
Some of the boys who mustered at school,
and learned the step to the tattoo of Lige’s
drum, have, since this war begun, stepped
time to a more martial beat, and, at death’s
tattoo, has gone to join his silent band.
And Lige lives to make drttfns and wag-
ous yet. The same hand that made these
things for the boy Countryman, now makes
them for the man Countryman’s boys. It
seems but yesterday that Lige made these
things for me, when a child, and now, every
few months, he comes to see me, and brings
for my boys a drum or a wagon ; for it does
not take my boys long to destroy a drum
or wagon, to be succeeded by another to
be destroyed in its turn. And so we go on.
My boys have learned the martial step to
the noise of Lige’s drums, and speeding
years will soon bring them to the day when
they may have to step time to another *
drum, to repel an insolent foe. No man
can foresee time’s changes.
I love to go occasionally, now, to “the
old place.” As I said in another article,
I was there not very long ago, to assist at
the burial of a friend. The same oaks,
and the same shadow and solitude, were
there. Two cedars planted by the hand
of my friend—the hand thal now moulders
in Virginia—send up their straight shafts,
one on each side of the front porch, and
I shall never see them without regarding
them as shafts reared to the memory of
my departed friend. The same cedars are
there : the same oaks stand sentries in the
old yard : the same purling stream flows
in the valley : the owl still hoots down on