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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