If the gallant Colonel would only substitute this occupation for whittling, what good might he not do in Harrisburg! I am happy to say that my Job's comforter turned out a false prophet; snow soon gave place to sleet, and sleet to rain, and before midnight the muck was complete.

Next morning, at three, we got into the 'bus, and soon after four the cars came in, and we found ourselves once more _en route_ for Pittsburg.

I think this was about the most disagreeable day's journey I ever had.

The mixture of human and metallic heat, the chorus of infantine squallers--who kept responding to one another from all parts of the car, like so many dogs in an eastern city--and the intervals filled up by the hissing on the stove of the Virginia juice, were unpleasant enough; but even the elements combined against us.

The rain and the snow were fighting together, and producing that slushiness of atmosphere which obscures all scenery; added to which, the unfortunate foreknowledge that we were doomed to fifteen or sixteen hours of these combinations of misery, made it indeed a wretched day.