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Chapter 6:
The following story, originally written by me for the
Southern Bivouac, is strictly true.
The successful forager was once a patient of mine, and is well known to me. I also know that he perpetrated the joke as described.
The article is intended to appear as if written by a soldier's son.
High price for needles and thread.
>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?’
‘1 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.
