Rick Saunders

“Pediculus vestimenti,”
― Leander Stillwell, The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865

“The planter himself was of a type then common in the South. He was a large, coarse looking man, with an immense paunch, wore a broad-brimmed, home-made straw hat and butter nut jeans clothes. His trousers were of the old-fashioned, "broad-fall" pattern. His hair was long, he had a scraggy, sandy beard, and chewed "long green" tobacco continually and viciously. But he was shrewd enough to know that ugly talk on his part wouldn't mend matters, but only make them worse, so he stood around in silence while we took his corn, but he looked as malignant as a rattlesnake. His wife was directly his opposite in appearance and demeanor. She was tall, thin, and bony, with reddish hair and a sharp nose and chin. And goodness, but she had a temper! She stood in the door of the dwelling house, and just tongue-lashed us "Yankees," as she called us, to the full extent of her ability. The boys took it all good naturedly, and didn't jaw back. We couldn't afford to quarrel with a woman. A year later, the result of her abuse would have been the stripping of the farm of every hog and head of poultry on it,”
― Leander Stillwell, The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865

“One quiet, star-lit summer night, while on picket between Bolivar and Toone's, I had the good fortune to witness the flight of the largest and most brilliant meteor I ever have seen. It was a little after midnight, and I was standing alone at my post, looking, listening, and thinking. Suddenly there came a loud, rushing, roaring sound, like a passenger train close by, going at full speed, and there in the west was a meteor! Its flight was from the southwest to the northeast, parallel with the horizon, and low down. Its head, or body, looked like a huge ball of fire, and it left behind a long, immense tail of brilliant white, that lighted up all the western heavens. While yet in full view, it exploded with a crash like a near-by clap of thunder, there was a wide, glittering shower of sparks,—and then silence and darkness. The length of time it was visible could not have been more than a few seconds, but it was a most extraordinary spectacle.”
― Leander Stillwell, The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865

“Never. Never ask for what ought to be offered.”
― Daniel Woodrell, Winter's Bone