HIGH PRICE FOR NEEDLES AND THREAD.

By Walter.

My father was once a private soldier in the Confederate army, and he often tells us interesting stories of the war.  One morning, just as he was going down town, mother sent me to ask him to change a dollar.  He could not do it, but he said,—­

“Ask your mother how much change she wants.”

She only wanted a dime to buy a paper of needles and some silk to mend my jacket.  So I went back and asked for ten cents.  Instead of taking it out of his vest-pocket, father opened his pocket-book and said,—­

“Did you say you wanted ten dollars or ten cents, my boy?”

“Why, father,” said I, “whoever heard of paying ten dollars for needles and thread?”

“I have,” said he.  “I once heard of a paper of needles, and a skein of silk, worth more than ten dollars.”

His eyes twinkled and looked so pleasant that I knew there was a story on hand, so I told mother and sis’ Loo, who promised to find out all about it.  After supper that night mother coaxed father to tell us the story.  We liked it ever so much:  so I got mother to write it down for the Bivouac.

After the battle of Chickamauga, one of “our mess” found a needle-case which had belonged to some poor fellow, probably among the killed.  He did not place much value upon the contents, although there was a paper of No. 8 needles, several buttons, and a skein or two of thread, cut at each end and neatly braided so that each thread could be smoothly drawn out.  He put the whole thing in his breast-pocket, and thought no more about it.  But one day, while out foraging for himself and his mess, he found himself near a house where money could have procured a fine meal of fried chicken, corn-pone, and buttermilk, besides a small supply to carry back to camp.  But Confederate soldiers’ purses were generally as empty as their stomachs, and in this instance the lady of the house did not offer to give away her nice dinner.  While the poor fellow was inhaling the enticing odor, and feeling desperately hungry, a girl rode up to the gate on horseback, and bawled out to another girl inside the house,—­

“Oh, Cindy, I rid over to see if you couldn’t lend me a needle!  I broke the last one I had to-day, and pap says thar ain’t nary ’nother to be bought in the country hereabouts!”

Cindy declared she was in the same fix, and couldn’t finish her new homespun dress for that reason.

The soldier just then had an idea.  He retired to a little distance, pulled out his case, sticking two needles on the front of his jacket, then went back and offered one of them, with his best bow, to the girl on the horse.  Right away the lady of the house offered to trade for the one remaining.  The result was a plentiful dinner for himself; and in consideration of a thread or two of silk, a full haversack and canteen.

After this our mess was well supplied, and our forager began to look sleek and fat.  The secret of his success did not leak out till long afterward, when he astonished the boys by declaring that he “had been ‘living like a fighting-cock’ on a paper of needles and two skeins of silk.”