Yesterday's Gone On Down The River And

Call Saw That Everyone Was Looking At Him, The Hands And Cowboys And Townspeople Alike. The Anger Had Drained Out Of Him, Leaving Him Feeling Tired. He Didn't Remember The Fight, Particularly, But People Were Looking At Him As If They Were Stunned. He Felt He Should Make Some Explanation, Though It Seemed To Him A Simple Situation. "i Hate A Man That Talks Rude," He Said. "i Won't Tolerate It.

Call Listened With Amusement--not That The Incident Hadn't Been Terrible. Being Decapitated Was A Grisly Fate, Whether You Were A Yankee Or Not. But Then, Amusing Things Happened In Battle, As They Did In The Rest Of Life. Some Of The Funniest Things He Had Ever Witnessed Had Occurred During Battles. He Had Always Found It More Satisfying To Laugh On A Battlefield Than Anywhere Else, For If You Lived To Laugh On A Battlefield, You Could Feel You Had Earned The Laugh. But If You Just Laughed In A Saloon, Or At A Social, The Laugh Didn't Reach Deep.

Books Can Accommodate The Proximity Of Computers But It Doesn't Seem To Work The Other Way Around. Computers Now Literally Drive Out Books From The Place That Should, By Definition, Be Books' Own Home: The Library.

A Woman's Love Is Like The Morning Dew. It's Just As Likely To Settle On A Horse Turd As A Rose.

Working- And Middle-class Families Sat Down At The Dinner Table Every Night - The Shared Meal Was The Touchstone Of Good Manners. Indeed, That Dinner Table Was The One Time When We Were All Together, Every Day: Parents, Grandparents, Children, Siblings. Rudeness Between Siblings, Or A Failure To Observe The Etiquette Of Passing Dishes To One Another, Accompanied By "please" And "thank You," Was The Training Ground Of Behavior, The Place Where Manners Began.