One of his happiest efforts, I remember, was a stilted paraphrase of "Old Uncle Ned" a song very popular a quarter of a century ago, and which ran something like this: There was an old darky, an' his name was Uncle Ned, But he died long ago, long ago He had no wool on de top of his head, De place whar de wool ought to grouw.
CHORUS Den lay down de shubel an' de hoe, Den hang up de fiddle an' de bow; For dere's no more hard work for poor Uncle Ned He's gone whar de good niggahs go.
His fingers war long, like de cane in de brake, And his eyes war too dim for to see; He had no teeth to eat de corn cake, So he had to let de corn cake be.
CHORUS.
His legs were so bowed dat he couldn't lie still.
An' he had no nails on his toes; His neck was so crooked dot he couldn't take a pill, So he had to take a pill through his nose.
CHORUS.
One cold frosty morning old Uncle Ned died, An' de tears ran down massa's cheek like rain, For he knew when Uncle Ned was laid in de groun', He would never see poor Uncle Ned again, CHORUS.
In the hands of this artist the song became-- There was an aged and indigent African whose cognomen was Uncle Edward, But he is deceased since a remote period, a very remote period; He possessed no capillary substance on the summit of his cranium, The place designated by kind Nature for the capillary substance to vegetate.
CHORUS.
Then let the agricultural implements rest recumbent upon the ground; And suspend the musical instruments in peace neon the wall, For there's no more physical energy to be displayed by our Indigent Uncle Edward He has departed to that place set apart by a beneficent Providence for the reception of the better class of Africans.
And so on.

These rare flashes of fun only served to throw the underlying misery out in greater relief.

It was like lightning playing across the surface of a dreary morass.
I have before alluded several times to the general inability of Rebels to count accurately, even in low numbers.

One continually met phases of this that seemed simply incomprehensible to us, who had taken in the multiplication table almost with our mother's milk, and knew the Rule of Three as well as a Presbyterian boy does the Shorter Catechism.
A cadet--an undergraduate of the South Carolina Military Institute -- called our roll at Florence, and though an inborn young aristocrat, who believed himself made of finer clay than most mortals, he was not a bad fellow at all.

He thought South Carolina aristocracy the finest gentry, and the South Carolina Military Institute the greatest institution of learning in the world; but that is common with all South Carolinians.
One day he came in so full of some matter of rare importance that we became somewhat excited as to its nature.