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Within six months the family had evolved into a well-run care facility as well as an operating farm. Jim's condition stabilized and the nursing system was perfected. He lost more weight and coughed too often, yet, the rhythms of living he and his family had developed proved adequate if not a curing treatment. Joe and Uncle Alex's roles were critical to Jim's mental and spiritual health as surely as the women folks efforts were vital to his physical condition. Solon and Lou talked every night about his day's activities, attitudes and accomplishments. They both were cheered by the love and attention of Alex and Joe's faithful brotherliness to his younger twin brother.
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"Play them again, Uncle A. 'The General' and 'To the Standard'", Jim pleaded with his forty-seven-year-old bachelor uncle. The seventeen-year-old nephew, twin son of his twin sister, looked thirteen, not his true seventeen. Pale, fair, his resemblance to Alex was as pronounced as Joe's was to his mother. Jim had always adored his Uncle Alex and in his illness and confinement, the two had become close. They were as mentor and apprentice to one another. Alex kept him still and fascinated with stories of Lou, Solon and his Civil War adventures. He did not sanitize the dirt and gore, and Jim loved the whole story, asking questions on the details. He got his uncle to play for him the standard cavalry calls of the Army of Tennessee. Uncle Alex said there were nearly thirty different in the US Cavalry Bugle Manual of 1841, but only six or eight were used in battle . . . "Forward", "Halt", "To the Left", "To the Right", "About", "Rally on the Chief", "Trot", "Gallop", "Commence Firing" and "Disperse".
"Joe, the noise in skirmishes is awful; shot, shouting, horses making a ruckus, screaming wounded and dying, clashes of metal and troops and mounts, well just all sorts of noisy commotion. Horse soldiers can't hear shouted orders clearly twenty feet away, much less 100 yards or more. The bugle becomes the officers' clear voice, carrying his orders clear and loud about the den of hell. A well commanded cavalry troop is something to behold and the bugle gives them the what and when for their actions."
Alex's old bull bugle horn was well worn but had a sound that carried mighty well, piercing Jim's bedroom walls. Folks at the barn or nearby fields could hear it. Jim would watch out his window towards the stock lot as Uncle Alex "ordered" the farm's trained older mules and horses to several actions. It was always amazing to Jim how the younger lots of untrained animals followed the lead of the older seasoned ones in reacting to the bugle calls. It was like "follow the leader" that the twins had played as small children.