When I was but a wee lad, the first book that I can really remember as *my own* was a book of stories for boys. Such a thing would be considered remarkably quaint these days, of course. It contained a number of short pieces, some fiction and some fact, of suitably heroic and adventurous activities.

It must have had some effect, as there was the story of Shackleton's "Endurance" expedition and a dozen years later or so I spent a year in Antarctica.

Anyway, its relevance to this august forum is that it contained a rather nice little piece about a Union drummer boy at Shiloh. Two nights ago, while reading the collection "Bradbury Stories", I nearly asphyxiated when I came across that drummer boy again. I even remembered the line about the church.

Flipping to the back, I saw that the story had been written for the Saturday Evening Post in 1960, which would have been just about right for later publication in that story collection.

Can anyone tell me what that book might have been titled?

Thanks.

RMeegan

That book title would be:::

"The Machineries of Joy""

I'm sorry, but I don't think that's the book that I'm looking for. It wasn't a Bradbury collection, nor was it all fiction.

I wonder if it was a collection of pieces from the "Post".

Bradbury stories have appeared in hundreds of anthologies. I would recommend trying the "Booksleuth" forum here: http://forums.abebooks.com/abesleuthcom and the newsgroup here: http://groups.google.com/groups?group=rec.arts.books.childrens using a distinctive header and describing your collection.