I was not even discharged,
though I was deposed from the wagon to the command of a truck of
which I was myself the horse. I "ran out" brick from the pit after
that in the morning.
More than twenty years after, addressing the students of Rutgers
College, I told them of my experience in the brick-yard which was
so near them. At the end of my address a gentleman came up to me
and said, with a twinkle in his eye:
"So that was you, was it? My name is Pettit, and I work the brick-yard
now. I helped my father get that horse out of the pit, and I have
cause to remember that knock on the head." He made me promise sometime
to tell him what happened to me since, and if he will attend now
he will have it all.
I had been six weeks in the brick-yard when one day I heard of a
company of real volunteers that was ready to sail for France, and
forthwith the war fever seized me again. That night I set out for
Little Washington, and the next morning's steamer bore me past
the brick-yard, where the German hands dropped their barrows and
cheered me on with a howl of laughter that was yet not all derision.
Pages:
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82