An Old Familiar Place

Forgetting Those Things . . . Breathes there a man with soul so dead, who never to himself has said,  "This is my own, my native land." Walter Scott By the time Joab reached the train station in Washington, D.C., he was as tired as he’d ever been. He had slept little, had eaten even less, and riding in slatted cattle cars for hundreds of miles in below freezing temperatures, he had near frozen to death. And what was more troubling, he had it to do over again back to Memphis. There was one thing for sure, he must use a few of those dollars he earned at Manassas Junction for food. Where, he had no idea. He cleaned the car and shuffled some hay about, jumped Star to the ground and rode to the station. A light snow covered the dirt packed roads of the Nation’s Capitol, and the trees were bare except for the myriad evergreens. It was early morning and the lamplights were still flickering. He crossed the bridge over the Potomac River and searched the horizon for th...