no delicacy, who was I, that I should have been acting the tyrant all this time over this dear, sainted old man, who had years ago expiated, in his whole manhood’s life, the madness of a boy’s treason?  “Mr. Nolan,” said I, “I will tell you everything you ask about.  Only, where shall I begin?”

Oh, the blessed smile that crept over his white face! and he pressed my hand and said, “God bless you!  Tell me their names,” he said, and he pointed to the stars on the flag.  “The last I know is Ohio.  My father lived in Kentucky.  But I have guessed Michigan and Indiana and Mississippi—­that was where Fort Adams is—­they make twenty.  But where are your other fourteen?  You have not cut up any of the old ones, I hope?”

Well, that was not a bad text, and I told him the names in as good order as I could, and he bade me take down his beautiful map and draw them in as I best could with my pencil.  He was wild with delight about Texas, told me how his cousin died there; he had marked a gold cross near where he supposed his grave was; and he had guessed at Texas.  Then he was delighted as he saw California and Oregon,—­that, he said, he had suspected partly, because he had never been permitted to land on that shore, though the ships were there so much.  “And the men,” said he, laughing, “brought off a good deal beside furs.”  Then he went back—­heavens, how far!—­to ask about the Chesapeake, and what was done to Barron for surrendering her to the Leopard, and whether Burr ever tried again—­and he ground his teeth with the only passion he showed.  But in a moment that was over, and he said, “God forgive me, for I am sure I forgive him.”  Then he asked about the old war—­told me the true story of his serving the gun the day we took the Java—­asked about dear old David Porter, as he called him.  Then he settled down more quietly, and very happily, to hear me tell in an hour the history of fifty years.

How I wished it had been somebody who knew something!  But I did as well as I could.  I told him of the English war.  I told him about Fulton and the steamboat beginning.  I told him about old Scott, and Jackson; told him all I could think of about the Mississippi, and New Orleans, and Texas, and his own old Kentucky.  And do you think, he asked who was in command of the “Legion of the West.”  I told him it was a very gallant officer named Grant, and that, by our last news, he was about to establish his headquarters at Vicksburg.  Then, “Where was Vicksburg?” I worked that out on the map; it was about a hundred miles, more or less, above his old Fort Adams and I thought Fort Adams must be a ruin now.  “It must be at old Vick’s plantation, at Walnut Hills,” said he:  “well, that is a change!”

I tell you, Ingham, it was a hard thing to condense the history of half a century into that talk with a sick man.  And I do not now know what I told him—­of emigration,