“Don’t be discouraged, boys,” he said as he pulled from the stalk an ear of corn that the hoofs of the Northern cavalry had failed to trample under.  “Now this is a fine ear, a splendid ear, and if you boys search well you may be able to find others like it.  All things come to him who looks long enough.  Remember how Nebuchadnezzar ate grass, and he must have had to do some hunting too, because I understand grass didn’t grow very freely in that part of the world, and then remember also that we are not down to grass yet.  Corn, nuts and maybe a stray pumpkin or two.  ’Tis a repast fit for the gods, noble sirs.”

“I can go without, part of the time,” said Harry, “but it hurts me to have to hunt through a big field for a nubbin of corn and then feel happy when I’ve got the wretched, dirty, insignificant little thing.  My father often has a hundred acres of corn in a single field, producing fifty bushels to the acre.”

“And my father,” said Dalton, “has a single field of fifty acres that produces fifteen hundred bushels of wheat, but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a shock of wheat.”

“Console yourself with the knowledge,” said Harry, “that it’s too late in the year for wheat to be in the stack.”

“Or anywhere else, either, so far as we’re concerned.”

“Don’t murmur,” said Happy.  “Mourners seldom find anything, but optimists find, often.  Didn’t I tell you so?  Here’s another ear.”

Harry had approached the edge of the field and he saw something red gleaming through a fringe of woods beyond.  The experienced eye of youth told him at once what it was, and he called to his comrades.

“Come on, boys,” he said.  “There’s a little orchard beyond the wood.  I know there is because I caught a glimpse of a red apple hanging from a tree.  I suppose the skirt of forest kept the Yankee raiders from seeing it.”

They followed with a shout of joy.

“Treasure trove!” exclaimed Happy.

“Who’s an optimist now?” asked Harry.

“All of us are,” said St. Clair.

They passed through the wood and entered a small orchard of not more than half an acre.  But it was filled with apple trees loaded with red apples, big juicy fellows, just ripened by the October sun.  A little beyond the orchard in a clearing was a small log house, obviously that of the owner of the orchard, and also obviously deserted.  No smoke rose from the chimneys, and windows and doors were nailed up.  The proprietor no doubt had gone with his family to some town and the apples would have rotted on the ground had the young officers not found them.

“There must be bushels and bushels here,” said St. Clair.  “We’ll fill up our sacks first and then call the other men.”

They had brought sacks with them for the corn, but the few ears they had found took up but little space.

“I’ll climb the trees, and shake ’em down,” said Harry.  He was up a tree in an instant, all his boyhood coming back to him, and, as he shook with his whole strength, the red apples, held now by twigs nearly dead, rained down.  They passed from tree to tree and soon their sacks were filled.