A Daughter of Maryland — page 16: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A DAUGHTER OF MARYLAND. CHAPTER [f. THE SIGHTLESS SENTRY—SYLVANIA—AN ALARM. ‘HALT! who comes here ?’’ It was a beautiful day in early autumn, 1863; nature’s _ favors resting like a benison of peace on the battle-scarred hills and valleys of Western Maryland, which had so recently throbbed beneath the floodtide of invading armies —where even then the trailing garments of war hung over the loftiest peaks of South Mountains. The startling chal- lenge, uttered in a hollow, supernatural tone, broke in on the melody of a myriad of minor life like a discordant note in the strains of some sweet song. ‘The wavering treble of a feathered songster, that for the past half hour had been making merry a leafy coppice near the foot of the height, suddenly ceased and the whir of tiny wings bespoke the singer’s flight. A squirrel, flitting swiftly from bough to bough of a neighboring oak, let fall the nut he had been holding between his hairy cheeks until they had seemed ready to burst, and skurried away to his home in a hollow pine. <A busy bee that had kept up a continual buzzing as it flew hither and thither on what seemed a fruitless errand, abruptly ended his monotonous ditty and dropped mysteri- ously out of sight; while overhead a lone hawk, on the alert for an unwary victim, gave a shriek of alarm and ' soared aloft into a higher and wider circle of recon- noissance. “COMICDOO Geer dS iL day LOR aD KG YS eRe ls A be POMS Rees Mah hale tr Sin'y bec ARN chs PP tech LP MGT UAL Paeaem eT athe, SUS pape ? P . ‘* A iv co - fs ‘ . + . ' . : / - « ' « cS co hoe . at 2 nN ‘ a vib. ye . a