'Long come a big rain an' the next day everything was green as far as the eye could reach an' you'd see little flowers bloomin' down under the shelter of the grass." "I didn't know you had a poetical streak in you, sergeant," said Dick, who marked his abrupt change from the discussion of the war to a far different topic.
"I think some of it is in every man," replied Sergeant Whitley gravely.
"I remember once that when we had finished a long chase after some Northern Cheyennes through mighty rough and dry country we came to a little valley, a kind of a pocket in the hills, fed by a fine creek, runnin' out of the mountains on one side, into the mountains on the other.

The pocket was mebbe two miles long an' mebbe a mile across, an' it was chock full of green trees an' green grass, an' wild flowers.

We enjoyed its comforts, but do you think that was all?
Every man among us, an' there was at least a dozen who couldn't read, admired its beauties, an' begun to talk softer an' more gentle than they did when they was out on the dry plains.

An' you feel them things more in war than you do at any other time." "I suppose you do," said Dick.

"The spring is coming out now in Kentucky where I live, and I'd like to see the new grass rippling before the wind, and the young leaves on the trees rustling softly together." "Stop sentimentalizing," said Warner.