"Si Klegg, of the 200th Ind., and Shorty, his Partner," were born more than 25 years ago in the brain of John McElroy, editor of The National Tribune, who invented the names and characters, outlined the general plan, and wrote a number of the chapters. Subsequently, the editor, having many other important things pressing upon his attention, called in an assistant to help on the work, and this assistant, under the direction and guidance of the editor, wrote some of these chapters. Subsequently, without the editor's knowledge or consent, the assistant adopted all the material as his own, and expanded it into a book which had a limited sale and then passed into the usual oblivion of shortlived subscription books.
The sketches in this first number are the original ones published in The National Tribune in 1885-6, revised and enlarged somewhat by the editor.
Those in the second and all following numbers appeared in The National Tribune when the editor, John McElroy, resumed the story in 1897, 12 years after the first publication, and continued it for the unprecedented period of seven years, with constantly growing interest and popularity. They gave "Si Klegg" a nation-wide and enduring celebrity. Gen. Lew Wallace, the foremost literary man of his day, pronounced "Si Klegg" the "great idyll of the war."
How true they are to nature every veteran can abundantly testify from his own service. Really, only the name of the regiment was invented. There is no doubt that there were several men of the name of Josiah Klegg in the Union Army, and who did valiant service for the Government. They had experiences akin to, if not identical with, those narrated here, and substantially every man who faithfully and bravely carried a musket in defense of the best Government on earth had sometimes, if not often, experiences of with those of Si Klegg, Shorty and the boys are strong reminders.
Many of the illustrations in this first number are by the late Geo. Y. Coffin, deceased, a talented artist, whose work embellished The National Tribune for many years. He was the artist of The National Tribune until his lamented and premature death, and all his military work was done by daily consultation, instruction and direction of the editor of The National Tribune.
THE NATIONAL TRIBUNE.
CONTENTS
PREFACE.
SI KLEGG
CHAPTER I. GOING TO WAR—SI KLEGG'S COMPLETE EQUIPMENT
CHAPTER II. THE DEADLY BAYONET
CHAPTER III. THE OLD CANTEEN
CHAPTER IV. THE AWFUL HARDTACK
CHAPTER V. FAT PORK—INDISPENSABLE BODY TIMBER FOR PATRIOTISM
CHAPTER VI. DETAILED AS COOK—SI FINDS RICE ANOTHER INNOCENT
CHAPTER VII. IN THE AWKWARD SQUAD
CHAPTER VIII. ON COMPANY DRILL
CHAPTER IX. SI GETS A LETTER
CHAPTER X. SI AND THE DOCTORS
CHAPTER XI. THE PLAGUE OF THE SOLDIER
CHAPTER XII. A WET NIGHT
CHAPTER XIII. SI "STRAGGLED"
CHAPTER XIV. SI AND THE MULES
CHAPTER XV. UNDER FIRE—SI HAS A FIGHT, CAPTURES A PRISONER
CHAPTER XVI. ONE OF THE "NON-COMMISH"
CHAPTER XVII. FORAGING ON THE WAY
CHAPTER XVIII. A SUNDAY OFF
CHAPTER XIX. A CLOSE CALL
CHAPTER XX. "THE SWEET SABBATH"
CHAPTER XXI. SI AND SHORTY WERE RAPIDLY LEARNING
CHAPTER XXII. A NIGHT OF SONG
ILLUSTRATIONS
As Si Looked when he Landed at Louisville
The Diverse Uses of the Good Old Canteen
As Maria Pictured Si Using his Bayonet
He Tries the Butt of his Gun on It
Si Makes the Acquaintance of The Guard House
Brought his Gun Down on the Man's Foot
"Let Yer Nails Grow; Ye'll Need 'em"
"Say, Cap, What Kind O' Bug is This?"
"Not 'less Ye Say 'Bunker Hill.'"
The 200th Ind. Was Not Without Talent in Foraging
Si Being Worked for a "good Thing."
Waiting for Their Clothes to Dry
An Assault on the Well-filled Corn Crib
"Shorty if We—only Git—out O' This—"
So Straight he Leaned Backward
AFTER Si Klegg had finally yielded to his cumulative patriotic impulses and enlisted in the 200th Ind. for three years or until the rebellion was put down, with greater earnestness and solemnity to equip himself for his new career.
He was thrifty and provident, and believed in being ready for any emergency. His friends and family coincided with him. The Quartermaster provided him with a wardrobe that was serviceable, if not stylish, but there were many things that he felt he would need in addition.
"You must certainly have a few pairs of homeknit socks and some changes of underclothes," said his tearfully-solicitous mother. "They won't weigh much, and they'll in all likelihood save you a spell of sickness."
"Certainly," responded Josiah, "I wouldn't think of going away without 'em."
Into the capacious knapsack went several pounds of substantial knit woolen goods.
"You can't get along without a couple of towels and a piece of soap," said his oldest sister, Maria, as she stowed those things alongside the socks and underclothes.
"Si," said Ellen, his second sister, "I got this pocket album for my gift to you. It contains all our pictures, and there is a place for another's picture, whose name I suppose I needn't mention," she added archly.
Si got a little red in the face, but said:
"Nothing could be nicer, Nell. It'll be the greatest comfort in the world to have all your pictures to look at when I'm down in Dixie."
"Here's a 'housewife' I've made for you with my own hands," added Annabel, who was some other fellow's sister. She handed him a neatly-stitched little cloth affair. "You see, it has needles, thread, buttons, scissors, a fine-tooth comb, and several other things that you'll need very badly after you've been in camp awhile. And" (she got so near Si that she could whisper the rest) "you'll find in a little secret pocket a lock of my hair, which I cut off this morning."
"I suppose I'll have a good deal of leisure time while we're in camp," said Si to himself and the others; "I believe I'll just put this Ray's Arithmetic and Greene's Grammar in."
"Yes, my young friend," added the Rev. Boanarg, who had just entered the house, "and as you will be exposed to new and unusual temptations, I thought it would be judicious to put this volume of 'Baxter's Call to the Unconverted' in your knapsack, for it may give you good counsel when you need it sorely."
"Thankee," said Si, stowing away the book. Of course, Si had to have a hair-brush, blackingbrush, a shaving kit, and some other toilet appliances.
Then it occurred to his thoughtful sister Maria that he ought to have a good supply of stationery, including pens, a bottle of ink, and a portfolio on which to write when he was far away from tables and desks.
These went in, accompanied by a half-pint bottle of "No. 6," which was Si's mother's specific for all the ills that flesh is heir to. Then, the blanket which the Quartermaster had issued seemed very light and insufficient to be all the bed-clothes a man would have when sleeping on the bare ground, and Si rolled up one of the warm counterpanes that had helped make the Indiana Winter nights so comfortable for him.
"Seems rather heavy," said Si as he put his knapsack on; "but I guess I'll get used to it in a little while. They say that soldiers learn to carry surprising loads on their backs. It'll help cure me of being round-shouldered; it'll be better 'n shoulder-braces for holding me up straight."
Of course, his father couldn't let him go away without giving him something that would contribute to his health and comfort, and at last the old gentleman had a happy thought—he would get the village shoemaker to make Si a pair of his best stout boots. They would be ever so much better than the shoes the Quartermaster furnished for tramping over the muddy roads and swamps of the South. Si fastened these on top of his knapsack until he should need them worse than at present.
His old uncle contributed an immense bowie knife, which he thought would be of great use in the sanguinary hand-to-hand conflicts Si would have to wage.
On the way to the depot Si found some of his comrades gathered around an enterprising retail dealer in hardware, who was convincing them that they could serve their country much better, besides adding to their comfort, by buying from him a light hatchet and a small frying-pan, which he offered, in consideration of their being soldiers, to sell them at remarkable low rates.
Si saw at once the great convenience a hatchet and a frying-pan would be, and added them to his kit. An energetic dealer in tinware succeeded in selling him, before he reached the depot, a cunning little coffee-pot and an ingenious combination of knife, fork and spoon which did not weigh more than a pound.
When he got in the cars he was chagrined to find that several of his comrades had provided themselves with convenient articles that he had not thought of. He consoled himself that the regiment would stop some time in Louisville, when he would have an opportunity of making up his deficiencies.
But when the 200th reached Louisville there was no leisure for anything. Bragg was then running his celebrated foot-race with Buell for the Kentucky metropolis, and the 200th Ind. was trotted as rapidly as unused legs could carry it to the works several miles from the center of the city.
Everybody who was in that campaign remembers how terribly hot and dry everything was.
Si Klegg managed to keep up tolerably near the head of the column until camp was reached, but his shoulders were strained and blisters began to appear on his feet.
"That was a mighty tough pull, wasn't it?" he said to his chum as they spread their blankets on the dog-kennel and made some sort of a bed; "but I guess after a day or two we'll get so used to it that we won't mind it."
For a few days the 200th Ind. lay in camp, but one day there came an order for the regiment to march to Bardstown as rapidly as possible. A battle was imminent. The roads were dusty as ash-heaps, and though the pace was not three miles an hour, the boys' tongues were hanging out before they were out of sight of camp.
"I say, Captain, don't they never have resting spells in the army?" said Si.
"Not on a forced march," answered the Captain, who, having been in the first three months' service, was regarded as a veteran. "Push on, boys; they say that they'll want us before night." Another hour passed.
"Captain, I don't believe you can put a pin-point anywhere on my feet that ain't covered with a blister as big as a hen's egg," groaned Si.
"It's too bad, I know," answered the officer; "but you must go on. They say Morgan's cavalry are in our rear shooting down every straggler they can find."
Si saw the boys around him lightening their knapsacks. He abominated waste above all things, but there seemed no help for it, and, reaching into that receptacle that bore, down upon his aching shoulders like a glacier on a groundhog, he pulled out and tossed into the fence corner the educational works he had anticipated so much benefit from. The bottle of "No. 6" followed, and it seemed as if the knapsack was a ton lighter, but it yet weighed more than any stack of hay on the home farm.
A cloud of dust whirled up, and out of it appeared a galloping Aid.
"The General says that the 200th Ind. must push on much faster. The enemy is trying to get to the bridge ahead of them," he shouted as he dashed off in another cloud of dust.
A few shots were heard in the rear.
"Morgan's cavalry are shooting some more stragglers," shouted some one.
Si was getting desperate. He unrolled the counterpane and slashed it into strips with his bowie. "My mother made that with her own hands," he explained to a comrade, "and if I can't have the good of it no infernal rebel shall. He next slashed the boots up and threw them after the quilt, and then hobbled on to overtake the rest of his company.
"There's enough dry-goods and clothing lying along in the fence corners to supply a good-sized town," the Lieutenant-Colonel reported as he rode over the line of march in rear of the regiment.
The next day Si's feet felt as if there was a separate and individual jumping toothache in every sinew, muscle, tendon and toe-nail; but that didn't matter. With Bragg's infantry ahead and John Morgan's cavalry in the rear, the 200th Ind. had to go forward so long as the boys could put one foot before the other.
The unloading went on even more rapidly than the day before.
"My knapsack looks like an elephant had stept on it," Si said, as he ruefully regarded it in the evening.
"Show me one in the regiment that don't," answered his comrade.
Thenceforward everything seemed to conspire to teach Si how vain and superfluous were the things of this world. The first rain-storm soaked his cherished album until it fell to pieces, and his sister's portfolio did the same. He put the photographs in his blouse pocket and got along just as well. When he wanted to write he got paper from the sutler. A mule tramped on his fancy coffee-pot, and he found he could make quite as good coffee in a quart-cup. A wagon-wheel lan over his cherished frying-pan, and he melted an old canteen in two and made a lighter and handier pan out of one-half of it. He broke his bowie-knife prying the lid off a cracker-box. He piled his knapsack with the others one day when the regiment was ordered to strip them off for a charge, and neither he nor his comrades ever saw one of them again. He never attempted to replace it. He learned to roll up an extra pair of socks and a change of underclothing in his blanket, tie the ends of this together and throw it over his shoulder sash fashion. Then, with his socks drawn up over the bottoms of his pantaloons, three days' rations in his haversack and 40 rounds in his cartridgebox, he was ready to make his 30 miles a day in any direction he might be sent, and whip anything that he encountered on the road.
IN COMMON with every other young man who enlisted to defend the glorious Stars and Stripes, Si Klegg, of the 200th Ind., had a profound superstition concerning the bayonet. All the war literature he had ever read abounded in bloodcurdling descriptions of bayonet charges and hand-to-hand conflicts, in which bayonets were repeatedly thrust up to the shanks in the combatants' bodies just as he had put a pitch-fork into a bundle of hay. He had seen pictures of English regiments bristling with bayonets like a porcupine with quills, rushing toward French regiments which looked as prickly as a chestnut-bur, and in his ignorance he supposed that was the way fighting was done. Occasionally he would have qualms at the thought of how little his system was suited to have cold steel thrust through it promiscuous-like, but he comforted himself with the supposition that he would probably get used to it in time—"soldiers get used to almost anything, you know."
When the 200th Ind. drew its guns at Indianapolis he examined all the strange accouterments with interest, but gave most to the triangular bit of steel which writers who have never seen a battle make so important a weapon in deciding contests.
It had milk, molasses, or even applejack, for Si then was not a member of the Independent Order of Good Templars, of which society he is now an honored officer. Nothing could be nicer, when he was on picket, to bring buttermilk in from the neighboring farm-house to his chum Shorty, who stood post while he was gone.
Later in the service Si learned the inestimable value of coffee to the soldier on the march. Then he stript the cloth from his canteen, fastened the strand with bits of wire and made a fine coffee-pot of it. In the morning he would half fill it with the splendid coffee ihe Government furnished, fill it up with water and hang it from a bush or a stake over the fire, while he went ahead with his other culinary preparations. By the time these were finished he would have at least a quart of magnificent coffee that the cook of the Fifth Avenue could not surpass, and which would last him until the regiment halted in the afternoon.
The bully of the 200th took it into his thick head one day to try to "run over" Si. The latter had just filled his canteen, and the bully found that the momentum of three pints of water swung at arm's length by an angry boy was about equal to a mule's kick.
Just as he was beginning to properly appreciate his canteen, he learned a sharp lesson, that comes to all of us, as to how much "cussedness" there can be in the simplest things when they happen to go wrong. He went out one day and got a canteen of nice sweet milk, which he and "Shorty" Elliott heartily enjoyed. He hung the canteen upon the ridge-pole of the tent, and thought no more about it until the next day, when he came in from drill, and found the tent filled with an odor so vile that it made him cough.
"Why in thunder don't the Colonel send out a detail to find and bury that dead mule? It'll pizen the hull camp."
He had been in service just long enough to believe that the Colonel ought to look out for and attend to everything.
"'Taint no dead mule," said Shorty, whose nose had come close to the source of the odor. "It's this blamed canteen. What on earth have you been putting in it. Si?"
"Ha'int had nothin' in but that sweet milk yesterday."
"That's just what's the matter," said the Orderly, who, having been in the three-months' service, knew all about war. He had come in to detail Si and Shorty to help unload Quartermaster's stores. "You must always scald out your canteens when you've had milk in 'em. Don't you remember how careful your mother is to scald her milk pans?"
After the company wagon had run over and hopelessly ruined the neat little frying-pan which Si had brought from Posey County, he was in despair as to how he should fry his meat and cook his "lobscouse." Necessity is the mother of invention. He melted in two a canteen he picked up, and found its halves made two deep tin pans, very light and very handy. A split stick made a handle, and he had as good a frying-pan as the one he had lost, and much more convenient, for when done using the handle was thrown away, and the pan slipt into the haversack, where it lay snug and close, instead of clattering about as the frying-pan did when the regiment moved at the double-quick.
The other half of the canteen was useful to brown coffee, bake hoe-cake, and serve for toilet purposes.
One day on the Atlanta campaign the regiment moved up in line to the top of a bald hill. As it rose above the crest it was saluted with a terrific volley, and saw that another crest across the narrow valley was occupied by at least a brigade of rebels.
"We'll stay right here, boys," said the plucky little Colonel, who had only worn Sergeant's stripes when the regiment crossed the Ohio River. "We've preempted this bit of real estate, and we'll hold it against the whole Southern Confederacy. Break for that fence there, boys, and every fellow come back with a couple of rails."
It seemed as if he hardly ceased speaking when the boys came running back with the rails which they laid down along the crest, and dropped flat behind them, began throwing the gravelly soil over them with their useful half-canteens. In vain the shower of rebel bullets struck and sang about them. Not one could penetrate that little ridge of earth and rails, which in an hour grew into a strong rifle-pit against which the whole rebel brigade charged, only to sustain a bloody repulse.
The war would have lasted a good deal longer had it not been for the daily help of the ever-useful half-canteen.
WHEN Josiah (called "Si" for short) Klegg, of the 200th Ind., drew his canteen from the Quartermaster at Louisville, he did not have a very high idea of its present or prospective importance. In the 22 hot Summers that he had lived through he had never found himself very far from a well or spring when his thirst cried out to be slacked, and he did not suppose that it was much farther between wells down South.
"I don't see the use of carrying two or three pints o' water along all day right past springs and over cricks," he remarked to his chum, as the two were examining the queer, cloth-covered cans.
"We've got to take 'em, any way," answered his chum, resignedly, "It's regulations."
On his entry into service a boy accepted everything without question when assured that it was "regulations." He would have charged bayonets on a buzz-saw if authoritatively informed that it was required by the mysterious "regulations."
The long march the 200th Ind. made after Bragg over the dusty turnpikes the first week in October, 1862, taught Si the value of a canteen. After that it was rarely allowed to get empty.
"What are these grooves along each side for?" he asked, pointing out the little hollows which give the "prod" lightness and strength.
"Why," answered the Orderly, who, having been in the three-months' service, assumed to know more about war than the Duke of Wellington, "the intention of those is to make a wound the lips of which will close up when the bayonet is pulled out, so that the man'll be certain to die."
Naturally so diabolical an intention sent cold shivers down Si's back.
The night before Si left for "the front" he had taken his musket and couterments home to show them to his mother and sisters—and the other fellow's sister, whose picture and lock of hair he had safely stowed away. They looked upon the bayonet with a dreadful awe. Tears came into Maria's eyes as she thought of Si roaming about through the South like a bandit plunging that cruel steel into people's bowels.
"This is the way it's done," said Si, as he charged about the room in an imaginary duel with a rebel, winding up with a terrifying lunge. "Die, Tur-r-rraitor, gaul durn ye," he exclaimed, for he was really getting excited over the matter, while the girls screamed and jumped upon the chairs, and his good mother almost fainted.
The attention that the 200th Ind. had to give to the bayonet drill confirmed Si's deep respect for the weapon, and he practiced assiduously all the "lunges," "parries," and "guards" in the Manual, in the hope that proficiency so gained would save his own dearly-beloved hide from puncture, and enable him to punch any luckless rebel that he might encounter as full of holes as a fishing net.
The 200th Ind.'s first fight was at Perryville, but though it routed the rebel force in front of it, it would have taken a bayonet half-a-mile long to touch the nearest "Johnny." Si thought it odd that the rebels didn't let him get close enough to them to try his new bayonet, and pitch a dozen or two of them over into the next field.
If the truth must be told, the first blood that stained Si's bayonet was not that of a fellow-man.
Si Klegg's company was on picket one day, while Gen. Buell was trying to make up his mind what to do with Bragg. Rations had been a little short for a week or so. In fact, they had been scarcely sufficient to meet the demands of Si's appetite, and his haversack had nothing in it to speak of. Strict orders against foraging had been, issued. It was the day of "guarding rebel onion patches." Si couldn't quite get it straight in his head why the General should be so mighty particular about a few pigs and chickens and sweet potatoes, for he was really getting hungry, and when a man is in this condition he is not in a fit mood to grapple with fine-spun theories of governmental policy.
So when a fat pig came wabbling and grunting toward his post, it was to Si like a vision of manna to the children of Israel in the wilderness. A wild, uncontrollable desire to taste a fresh spare-rib took possession of him. Naturally, his first idea was to send a bullet through the animal, but on second thought he saw that wouldn't do at all. It would "give him away" at once, and, besides, he had found that a single shot on the picket-line would keep Buell's entire army in line-of-battle for a whole day.
Si wrote to his mother that his bright new bayonet was stained with Southern blood, and the old lady shuddered at the awful thought. "But," added Si, "it was only a pig, and not a man, that I killed!"
"I'm so glad!" she exclaimed.
By the time Si had been in the service a year there was less zeal in the enforcement of orders of this kind, and Si had become a very skillful and successful forager. He had still been unable to reach with his bayonet the body of a single one of his misguided fellow citizens, but he had stabbed a great many pigs and sheep. In fact, Si found his bayonet a most useful auxiliary in his predatory operations. He could not well have gotten along without it.
Uncle Sam generally furnished Si with plenty of coffee—roasted and unground—but did not supply him with a coffee mill. Si thought at first that the Government had forgotten something. He saw that several of the old veterans of '61 had coffee mills, but he found on inquiry that they had been obtained by confiscation only. He determined to supply himself at the first opportunity, but in the meantime he was obliged to 'use his bayonet as a substitute, just as all the rest of the soldiers did.
We regret to say that Si, having thrown away his "Baxter's Call to the Unconverted" in his first march, and having allowed himself to forget the lessons he had learned but a few years before in Sunday-school, soon learned to play poker and other sinful games. These, at night, developed another use for the bayonet. In its capacity as a "handy" candlestick it was "equaled by few and excelled by none." The "shank" was always ready to receive the candle, while the point could be thrust into the ground in an instant, and nothing more was necessary. This was perhaps the most general sphere of usefulness found by the bayonet during the war. Barrels of candle-grease flowed down the furrowed sides of this weapon for every drop of human blood that dimmed its luster.
"APPETITE'S a queer thing," said Si to Shorty one day, when both were in a philosophical mood. "It's an awful bother when you haven't it, and it's a great deal worse when you have it, and can't get anything for it." "Same as money," returned sage Shorty. During the first few months of Si Klegg's service in the army the one thing that bothered him more than anything else was his appetite. It was a very robust, healthy one that Si had, for he had grown up on his father's farm in Indiana, and had never known what it was to be hungry without abundant means at hand for appeasing his desires in that direction. His mother's cupboard was never known to be in the condition of Old Mother Hubbard's, described in the nursery rhyme. The Kleggs might not have much tapestry and bric-a-brac in their home, but their smoke-house was always full, and Mrs. Klegg's kitchen could have fed a camp-meeting any time without warning. So it was that when Si enlisted his full, rosy face and his roundness of limb showed that he had been well fed, and that nature had made good use of the ample daily supplies that were provided. His digestive organs were kept in perfect condition by constant exercise.
After Si had put down his name on the roll of Co. Q of the 200th Ind. he had but a few days to remain at home before his regiment was to start for Louisville. During this time his mother and sisters kept him filled up with "goodies" of every sort. In fact, it was the biggest thing in the way of a protracted picnic that Si had ever struck.
"You must enjoy these things while you can, Si," said his mother, "for goodness knows what you'll do when you really git into the army. I've heerd 'em tell awful things about how the poor sogers don't have half enough to eat, and what they do git goes agin' any Christian stomach. Here, take another piece of this pie. A little while, and it'll be a long time, I reckon, till ye git any more."
"Don't keer if I do!" said Si, for there was scarcely any limit to his capacity.
And so during those days and nights the old lady and the girls cooked and cooked, and Si ate and ate, until it seemed as if he wouldn't want any more till the war was over.
Si was full, and as soon as Co. Q was, it was ordered to camp, and Si had to go. They loaded him down with good things enough to last him a week. The pretty Annabel—the neighbor's daughter who had solemnly promised Si that she wouldn't go with any other fellow while he was away—came around to see Si off and brought him a rich fruit cake.
"I made that for you," she said.
"Bully for you!" said Si, for he felt that he must begin to talk like a soldier.
The first day or two after reaching Louisville the 200th received rations of "soft bread." But that didn't last long. It was only a way they had of letting the fresh soldier down easy. Orders came to get ready to pull out after Bragg, and then Si'a regiment had its first issue of army rations. As the Orderly pried open a box of hardtack and began to distribute them to the boys, exclaimed:
"Them's nice-looking soda crackers. I don't believe the grub is going to be so bad, after all."
Si had never seen a hardtack before.
"Better taste one and see how you like it!" said one of Buell's ragged Indiana veterans, who had come over to see the boys of the 200th and hear the latest news from "God's country."
It happened that this lot was one of extra quality as to hardness. The baker's watch had stopped, or he had gone to sleep, and they had been left in the oven or dry-kiln too long. Si took one of them and carried it to his mouth. He first tried on it the bite which made such havoc with a quarter section of custard pie, but his incisors made no more impression upon it than if it had been a shingle.
"You have to bear on hard," said the veteran, with a grim smile.
"Je-ru-sa-lem!" exclaimed Si after he had made two or three attempts equally barren of results.
Then he tried his "back teeth." His molars were in prime order, and his jaw power was sufficient to crack a hickory nut every time. Si crowded one corner of the hardtack as far as he could between his "grinders," where he could get a good "purchase" on it, shut his eyes and turned on a full head of steam. His teeth and jaws fairly cracked under the strain, but he couldn't even "phase" it.
"If that ain't old pizen!" said Si. "It beats anything I ever seen up in the Wabash country."
But his blood was up, and laying the cracker upon a log, he brought the butt of his gun down upon it like a pile-driver.
"I thought I'd fix ye," he said, as he picked up the fragments, and tried his teeth upon the smaller ones. "Have I got to eat such stuff as that?" with a despairing look at his veteran friend. "I'd just as soon be a billy-goat and live on circus-posters, fruit-cans and old hoop-skirts."
"You'll get used to it after a while, same's we did. You'll see the time when you'll be mighty glad to get even as hard a tack as that!"
Si's heart sank almost into his shoes at the prospect, for the taste of his mother's pie and Annabel's fruit cake were yet fresh in his mouth. But Si was fully bent on being a loyal, obedient soldier, determined to make the best of everything without any more "kicking" than was the inalienable right of every man who wore a uniform.
For the first time in his life Si went to bed hungry that night. Impelled by the gnawings of his appetite he made repeated assaults upon the hardtack, but the result was wholly insufficient to satisfy the longings of his stomach. His supper wasn't anything to speak of. Before going to bed he began to exercise his ingenuity on various schemes to reduce the hardtack to a condition in which it would be more gratifying to his taste and better suited to the means with which nature had provided him for disposing of his rations. Naturally Si thought that soaking in water would have a beneficial effect. So he laid five or six of them in the bottom of a camp-kettle, anchored them down with a stone, and covered them with water. He thought that with the aid of a frying-pan he would get up a breakfast that he could eat, anyway.
Si felt a little blue as he lay curled up under his blanket with his head pillowed on his knapsack. He thought some about his mother, and sister Maria, and pretty Annabel, but he thought a good deal more about the beef and potatoes, the pies and the puddings, that were so plentifully spread upon the table at home.
It was a long time before he got to sleep. As he lay there, thinking and thinking, there came to his mind some ether uses to which it seemed to him the hardtack might be put, which would be much more consistent with its nature than to palm it off on the soldiers as alleged food. He thought he could now understand why, when he enlisted, they examined his teeth so carefully, as if they were going to buy him for a mule. They said it was necessary to have good teeth in order to bite "cartridges" successfully, but now he knew it was with reference to his ability to eat hardtack.
Si didn't want to be killed if he could help it.
While he was lying there he determined to line one of his shirts with hardtacks, and he would put that on whenever there was going to be a fight. He didn't believe the bullets would go through them. He wanted to do all he could toward paralyzing the rebels, and with such a protection he could be very brave, while his comrades were being mowed down around him. The idea of having such' a shirt struck Si as being a brilliant one.
Then, he thought hardtack would be excellent for half-soling his shoes. He didn't think they would ever wear out.
If he ran short of ammunition he could ram pieces of hardtack into his gun and he had no doubt they would do terrible execution in the ranks of the enemy.
All these things and many more Si thought of until finally he was lost in sleep. Then he dreamed that somebody was trying to cram stones down his throat.
The company was called out at daylight, and immediately after roll-call Si went to look after the hardtacks he had put to soak the night before. He thought he had never felt so hungry in his life. He fished out the hardtack and carefully inspected them, to note the result of the submerging and to figure out the chances on his much-needed breakfast.
To any old soldier it would be unnecessary to describe the condition in which Si found those hardtacks, and the effect of the soaking. For the information of any who never soaked a hardtack it may be said that Si found them transformed, to all appearances, into sole-leather. They were flexible, but as tough as the hide that was "found in the vat when the tanner died."
Si tried to bite a piece off one of them to see what it was like, but he couldn't get his teeth through it. In sheer desperation he laid it on a log, seized a hatchet, and chopped off a corner. He put it in his mouth and chewed on it a while, but found it as tasteless as cold codfish.
Si thought he would try the frying-pan. He chopped the hardtacks into bits, put in equal parts of water and grease, sifted over the mixture a little salt and pepper, and then gave it a thorough frying. Si's spirits rose during the gradual development of this scheme, as it seemed to offer a good prospect for his morning meal. And when it came to the eating. Si found it really good, comparatively speaking, even though it was very much like a dish compounded of the sweepings from around a shoemaker's bench. A good appetite was indispensable to a real enjoyment of this—which the soldiers called by a name that cannot be given here—but Si had the appetite, and he ate and was thankful.
"I thought I'd get the bulge on them things some way or other," said Si, as he drank the last of his coffee and arose from his meal, feeling like a giant refreshed with new wine.
For the next two or three months Si largely devoted his surplus energies to further experimenting with the hardtack. He applied every conceivable process of cookery he could think of that was possible with the meager outfit at his command in the way of utensils and materials. Nearly all of his patient and persevering efforts resulted only in vexation of spirit.
He continued to eat hardtack from day to day, in these various forms, but it was only because he had to do it. He didn't hanker after it, but it was a military necessity—hardtack or starvation. It was a hard choice, but Si's love of life—and Annabel—induced him to choose the hardtack.
But for a long-time Si's stomach was in a state of chronic rebellion, and on the whole he had a hard time of it getting used to this staple article of army diet. He did not become reconciled to it until after his regiment had rations of flour for a week, when the "cracker-line" had been cut by the guerillas and the supply of that substantial edible was exhausted. Si's experience with the flour swept away all his objections to the hardtack. Those slapjacks, so fearfully and wonderfully made, and those lumps of dough, mixed with cold water and dried on flat stones before the fire, as hard as cannon balls, played sad havoc with his internal arrangements. For the first time he was obliged to fall into the cadaverous squad at sick-call and wabble up to the doctor's shop, where he was dosed with castor-oil and blue-mass. Si was glad enough to see hardtack again. Most of the grumbling he did thereafter concerning the hardtack was because he often couldn't get enough.
About six months taught Si what all the soldiers learned by experience, that the best way to eat the average hardtack was to take it "straight"—just as it came out of the box, without any soaking or frying or stewing. At meal-time he would make a quart or so of coffee, stab the end of a ramrod through three or four slices of sowbelly, and cook them over the coals, allowing some of the drippings to fall upon the hardtack for lubricating purposes, and these constituted his frugal repast.
IT WAS told in the last chapter how the patriotic impulses of Si Klegg, of the 200th Ind., reached his stomach and digestive apparatus, and brought them under obedient subjection to hardtack. He didn't have quite so rough an experience with that other staple of army diet, which was in fact the very counterpart of the hardtack, and which took its most popular name from that part of the body of the female swine which is usually nearest the ground. Much of Si's muscle and brawn was due to the fact that meat was always plenty on his father's farm. When Si enlisted he was not entirely free from anxiety on the question of meat, for to his appetite it was not even second in importance to bread. If bread was the "staff of life" meat was life itself to Si. It didn't make much difference to him what kind it was, only so it was meat. He didn't suppose Uncle Sam would keep him supplied with quail on toast and porterhouse steaks all the time, but he did hope he would give him as much as he wanted of something in that line.
"You won't get much pork, unless you're a good forager," said one of Si's friends he met at Louisville, and who had been a year in the service.
Si thought he might, with practice and a little encouragement, be fairly successful in foraging on his' own hook, but at the same time he said he wouldn't grumble if he could only get plenty of pork. Fortunately for him he had not been imbued with the teachings of the Hebraic dispensation which declared "unclean" the beast that furnished the great bulk of the animal food for the American defenders of the Union.
Co. Q of the 200th Ind. received with the first issue of army rations at Louisville a bountiful supply of bacon of prime quality, and Si was happy at the prospect. He thought it would always be that way.
"I don't see anything the matter with such grub as that!" said Si. "Looks to me as though we were goin' to live like fighting-cocks."
"You're just a little bit brash," said his veteran friend, who had just been through the long, hungry march from Huntsville, Ala., to Louisville. "Better eat all you can lay yer hands on now, while ye've got a chance. One o' these days ye'll git into a tight place and ye won't see enough hog's meat in a week to grease a griddle. I've bin there, myself! Jest look at me and see what short rations 'll bring you to?"
But Si thought he wouldn't try to cross a bridge till he got to it, nor lie awake nights worrying over troubles that were yet in the future. Si had a philosophical streak in his mental make-up and this, by the way, was a good thing for a soldier to have. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," was an excellent rule for him to go by.
So Si assimilated all the pork that fell to his share, with an extra bit now and then from a comrade whose appetite was less vigorous. He thrived under its fructifying influence, and gave good promise of military activity and usefulness. No scientific processes of cookery were necessary to prepare it for immediate use. A simple boiling or frying or toasting was all that was required.
During the few days at Louisville fresh beef was issued occasionally. It is true that the animals slain for the soldiers were not always fat and tender, nor did each of them have four hind-quarters. This last fact was the direct cause of a good deal of inflammation in the 200th Ind., as in every other regiment. The boys who got sections of the forward part of the "critter," usually about three-quarters bone, invariably kicked, and fired peppery remarks at those who got the juicy steaks from the rear portion of the animal. Then when their turn came for a piece of hind-quarter the other fellows would growl. Four-fifths of the boys generally had to content themselves with a skinny rib or a soupshank. Si shared the common lot, and did his full quota of grumbling because his "turn" for a slice of steak didn't come every time beef was issued.
The pickled pork was comparatively free from this cause of irritation. It was all alike, and was simply "Hobson's choice." Si remembered the fragrant and delicious fried ham that so often garnished his mother's breakfast table and wondered why there was not the same proportion of hams and sides in the Commissary that he remembered in the meathouse on the Wabash. He remarked to Shorty one day:
"I wonder where all this pork comes from?"
"It comes from Illinoy, I suppose," said Shorty. "I notice the barrels are all marked 'Chicago'."
"Must grow funny kind o' hogs out there—a mile long each, I should say. What do you mean?"
"Why, we've drawn a full mile o' sides from the Commissary, and haint struck a ham yit. I'm wonderin' jest how long that hog is!"
"Well, you are green. You oughter know by this time that there are only enough hams for the officers."
Now and then a few pigs' shoulders were handed round among the boys, but the large proportion of bone they contained was exasperating, and was the cause of much profanity.
Sometimes bacon was issued that had really outlived its usefulness, except, perhaps, for the manufacture of soap. Improperly "cured," it was strong and rancid, or, occasionally, so near a condition of putrefaction that the stench from it offended the nostrils of the whole camp. Some times it was full of "skippers," that tunneled their way through and through it, and grew fat with riotous living.
Si drew the line at this point. He had an ironplated stomach, but putrid and maggoty meat was too much for it. Whenever he got any of this he would trade it off to the darkies for chickens. There is nothing like pork for a Southern negro. He wants something that will "stick to his ribs."
By a gradual process of development his appetite reached the point when he could eat his fat pork perfectly raw. During a brief halt when on the march he would squat in a fence corner, go down into his haversack for supplies, cut a slice of bacon, lay it on a hardtack, and munch them with a keen relish.
At one of the meetings of the Army of the Cumberland Gen. Garfield told a story which may appropriately close this chapter.
One day, while the Army of the Cumberland was beleaguered in Chattanooga and the men were almost starving on quarter rations, Gen. Rosecrans and his staff rode out to inspect the lines. As the brilliant cavalcade dashed by a lank, grizzled soldier growled to a comrade:
"It'd be a darned sight better for this army if we had a little more sowbelly and not quite so many brass buttons!"
IT WOULD have been very strange, indeed, if Si Klegg had not grumbled loudly and frequently about the food that was dished up to him by the company cooks. In the first place, it was as natural for a boy to grumble at the "grub" as it was for him to try to shirk battalion drill or "run the guard." In the next place, the cooking done by the company bean-boiler deserved all the abuse it received, for as a rule the boys who sought places in the hash foundry did so because they were too lazy to drill or do guard duty, and their knowledge of cooking was about like that of the Irishman's of music:
"Can you play the fiddle, Pat?" he was asked. "Oi don't know, sor-r-r—Oi niver tried."
Si's mother, like most of the well-to-do farmers' wives in Indiana, was undoubtedly a good cook, and she trained up her daughters to do honor to her teachings, so that Si undoubtedly knew what properly-prepared food was. From the time he was big enough to spank he had fared sumptuously every day. In the gush of patriotic emotions that prompted him to enlist he scarcely thought of this feature of the case. If it entered his mind at all, he felt that he could safely trust all to the goodness of so beneficent a Government as that for the preservation of which he had offered himself as a target for the rebels to shoot at. He thought it no more than fair to the brave soldiers that Uncle Sam should furnish professional cooks for each company, who would serve everything up in the style of a first-class city restaurant. So, after Si got down among the boys and found how it really was, it was not long till his inside was a volcano of rebellion that threatened serious results.
When, therefore, Si lifted up his voice and cried aloud, and spared not—when he said that he could get as good coffee as that furnished him by dipping his cup into a tan-vat; when he said that the meat was not good soap-grease, and that the potatoes and beans had not so much taste and nutrition in them as so much pine-shavings, he was probably nearer right than grumblers usually are.
"Give it to 'em, Si," his comrades would Say, when he turned up his loud bazoo on the rations question. "They ought to get it ten times worse. When we come out we expected that some of us would get shot by the rebels, but we didn't calculate that we were going to be poisoned in camp by a lot of dirty, lazy potwrastlers."
One morning after roll-call the Orderly-Sergeant came up to Si and said:
"There's been so much chin-music about this cooking-business that the Captain's ordered the cooks to go back to duty, and after this everybody'll have to take his regular turn at cooking. It'll be your turn to-day, and you'll stay in camp and get dinner."
When Co. Q marched out for the forenoon drill. Si pulled off his blouse and set down on a convenient log to think out how he should go to work. Up to this time he had been quite certain that he knew all about cooking that it was worth while to know. Just now none of his knowledge seemed to be in usable shape, and the more he thought about it the less able he seemed to be to decide upon any way of beginning. It had always appeared very easy for his mother and sisters to get dinner, and on more than one occasion he had reminded them how much better times they had staying in the house cooking dinner than he had out in the harvest field keeping up with the reaper. At this moment he would rather have kept up with the fastest reaper in Posey County, on the hottest of July days, than to have cooked the coarse dinner which his 75 comrades expected to be ready for them when they returned, tired, hot and hungry, from the morning drill.
He went back to the barracks and inspected the company larder. He found there the same old, coarse, greasy, strong, fat pork, a bushel or so of beans, a few withered potatoes, sugar, coffee, bread, and a box of rice which had been collected from the daily rations because none of the cooks knew how to manage it. The sight of the South Carolina staple recalled the delightful rice puddings his mother used to make. His heart grew buoyant.
"Here's just the thing," he said. "I always was fond of rice, and I know the boys will be delighted with it for a change. I know I can cook it; for all that you've got to do is to put it in a pot with water and boil it till it is done. I've seen mother do that lots o' times.
"Let's see," he said, pursuing his ruminations.
"I think each boy can eat about a cupful, so I'll put one for each of 'em in the kettle."
"There's one for Abner," he continued, pouring a cupful in for the first name on the company-roll; "one for Acklin, one for Adams, one for Barber, one for Brooks," and so on down through the whole well-known list.
"It fills the old kettle tol'bly full," he remarked, as he scanned the utensil after depositing the contribution for Williams, the last name on the roll; "but I guess she'll stand it. I've heard mother tell the girls that they must always keep the rice covered with water, and stir it well, so that it wouldn't burn; so here goes. Won't the boys be astonished when they have a nice mess of rice, as a change from that rusty old side-meat!"
He hung the kettle on the fire and stepped out to the edge of the parade-ground to watch the boys drilling. It was the first time he had had the sensation of pleasure of seeing them at this without taking part in it himself, and he began to think that he would not mind if he had to cook most of the time. He suddenly remembered about his rice and hurried back to find it boiling, bulging over the top like a small snowdrift.
"I was afraid that kettle was a little too full," he said to himself, hurrying off for another campkettle, in which he put about a third of the contents of the first. "Now they're all right. And it'll cook better and quicker in two than one. Great Scott! what's the matter? They're both boiling over. There must be something wrong with that rice."
Pretty soon he had all the company kettles employed, and then all that he could borrow from the other companies. But dip out as much as he would there seemed no abatement in the upheaving of the snowy cereal, and the kettles continued to foam over like so many huge glasses of soda water. He rushed to his bunk and got his gum blanket and heaped upon it a pile as big as a small haycock, but the mass in the kettle seemed larger than it was before this was subtracted.
He sweat and dipped, and dipped and sweat; burned his hands into blisters with the hot rice and hotter kettles, kicked over one of the largest kettles in one of his spasmodic rushes to save a portion of the food that was boiling over, and sent its white contents streaming over the ground. His misery came to a climax as he heard the quick step of his hungry comrades returning from drill.
"Right face; Arms a-port; Break ranks—March!" commanded the Orderly-Sergeant, and there was a clatter of tin cups and plates as they came rushing toward him to get their dinner—something to stay their ravenous stomachs. There was a clamor of rage, ridicule, wrath and disappointment as they took in the scene.
"What's the matter here?" demanded the Captain, striding back to the company fire. "You young rascal, is this the way you get dinner for your comrades? Is this the way you attend to the duty for which you're detailed? Waste rations in some fool experiment and scatter good food all over the ground? Biler, put on your arms and take Klegg to the guard-houae. I'll make you pay for this nonsense, sir, in a way that you won't forget in a hurry, I'll be bound."
So poor Si marched to the guard-house, where he had to stay for 24 hours, as a punishment for not knowing, until he found out by this experience, that rice would "s-well." The Captain wouldn't let him have anything to eat except that scorched and half-cooked stuff cut of the kettles, and Si thought he never wanted to see any more rice as long as he lived.
In the evening one of the boys took Si's blanket to him, thinking he would want it to sleep in.
"I tell ye, pard, this is purty derned tough!" said Si as he wiped a tear out of the southwest corner of his left eye with the sleeve of his blouse. "I think the Cap'n's hard on a feller who didn't mean to do nothin' wrong!" And Si looked as if he had lost all his interest in the old flag, and didn't care a pinch of his burnt rice what became of the Union.
His comrade "allowed" that it was hard, but supposed they, had got to get used to such things. He said he heard the Captain say he would let Si out the next day.
WHEN Si Klegg went into active service with Co. Q of the 200th Ind. his ideas of drill and tactics were exceedingly vague. He knew that a "drill" was something to make holes with, and as he understood that he had been sent down South to make holes through people, he supposed drilling had something to do with it. He handled his musket very much as he would a hoe. A "platoon" might be something to eat, for all he knew. He had a notion that a "wheel" was something that went around, and he thought a "file" was a screeching thing that his father used once a year to sharpen up the old buck saw.
The fact was that Si and his companions hardly had a fair shake in this respect, and entered the field at a decided disadvantage. It had been customary for a regiment to be constantly drilled for a month or two in camp in its own State before being sent to the front; but the 200th was rushed off to Kentucky the very day it was mustered in. This was while the cold chills were running up and down the backs of the people in the North on account of the threatened invasion by Bragg's army. The regiment pushed after the fleeing rebels, but whenever Suell's army halted to take breath, "Fall in for drill!" was shouted through its camp three or four times a day. It was liable to be called into action at any moment, and it was deemed indispensable to begin at once the process of making soldiers out of those tender-footed Hoosiers, whose zeal and patriotism as yet far exceeded their knowledge of military things. Most of the officers of the 200th were as green as the men, though some of them had seen service in other regiments; so, at first, officers and non-commissioned officers who had been in the field a few months and were considered veterans, and who knew, or thought they knew, all about tactics that was worth knowing, were detailed from the old regiments to put the boys through a course of sprouts in company and squad drill.
One morning three or four days after leaving Louisville, word was passed around that the regiment would not move that day, and the boys were so glad at the prospect of a day of rest that they wanted to get right up and yell. Si was sitting on a log, with his shoes off, rubbing his aching limbs and nursing his blisters, when the Orderly came along.
"Co. Q, be ready in 10 minutes to fall in for drill. Stir around, you men, and get your traps on. Klegg, put on them gunboats, and be lively about it."
"Orderly," said Si, looking as if he hadn't a friend on earth, "just look at them blisters; I can't drill to-day!"
"You'll have to or go to the guard-house," was the reply. "You'd better hustle yourself, too!"
Si couldn't think of anything to say that would do justice to his feelings; and so, with wailing and gnashing of teeth, and a few muttered words that he didn't learn in Sunday school, he got ready to take his place in the company.
As a general combustion of powder by the armies of Buell and Bragg was hourly expected, it was thought best for the 200th to learn first something about shooting. If called suddenly into action it was believed the boys could "git thar," though they had not yet mastered the science of company and battalion evolutions. Co. Q was divided into squads of eight for exercise in the manual of arms. The man who took Si's squad was a grizzled Sergeant, who had been "lugging knapsack, box and gun" for a year. He fully realized his important and responsible functions as instructor of these innocent youths, having at the same time a supreme contempt for their ignorance. "Attention, Squad!" and they all looked at him in a way that meant business.
"Load in nine times—Load!"
Si couldn't quite understand what the "in" meant, but he had always been handy with a shotgun, to the terror of the squirrels and coons up in Posey County, and he thought he would show the Sergeant how spry he was. So he rammed in a cartridge, put on a cap, held up his musket, and blazed away, and then went to loading again as if his life depended upon his activity. For an instant the Sergeant was speechless with amazement. At length his tongue was loosened, and he roared out:
"What in the name of General Jackson are you doing, you measly idiot! Who ordered you to load and fire your piece?"
"I—I th—thought you did!" said Si, trembling as if he had the Wabash ague. "You said for us to load nine times. I thought nine loads would fill 'er chuck full and bust 'er and I didn't see any way but to shute 'em oft as fast as I got 'em in."
"No, sir! I gave the command according to Hardee, 'Load—in—nine—times!' and ef yer hadn't bin in such a hurry you'd 'a' found out what that means. Yer'll git along a good deal faster ef you'll go slower. Yer ought ter be made ter carry a rail, and a big one, for two hours."
Si protested that he was sorry, and didn't mean to, and wouldn't do so again, and the drill went on. The master went through all the nine "times" of "Handle—Cartridge!" "Draw—Rammer!" etc., each with its two or three "motions." It seemed like nonsense to Si.
"Boss," said he, "I kin get 'er loaded in just half the time ef yer'll let me do it my own way!"
"Silence!"' thundered the Sergeant. "If you speak another word I'll have ye gagged 'n' tied up by the thumbs!"
Si had always been used to speaking right out when he had anything to say, and had not yet got his "unruly member" under thorough subjection. He saw that it wouldn't do to fool with the Drill Sergeant, however, and he held his peace. But Si kept thinking that if he got into a fight he would ram in the cartridge and fire them out as fast as he could, without bothering his head about the "one time and three motions."
"Order—Arms!" commanded the Sergeant, after he had explained how it was to be done. Si brought his gun down along with the rest like a pile-driver, and it landed squarely on the foot of the man next to him.
"Ou-ou-ouch!" remarked the victim of Si's inexperience.
"Didn't do it a'purpose, pard," said Si compassionately; "'pon my word I didn't. I'll be more keerful after this."
His suffering comrade, in very pointed language, urged upon Si the propriety of exercising a little more care. He determined that he would manage to get some other fellow to stand next to Si after that.
"Shoulder—Arms!" ordered the Sergeant, and the guns came straggling up into position. Then, after a few words of instruction, "Right shoulder shift—Arms!"
"Don't you know your right shoulder?" said the Sergeant, with a good deal of vinegar in his tone, to Si, who had his gun on the "larboard" side, as a sailor would say.
"Beg yer pardon," said Si; "I always was lefthanded. I'll learn if yer only gimme a show!"
"Silence!" again roared the Sergeant. "One more word, sir, and I will tie ye up, fer a fact!"
The Sergeant got his squad down to an "order arms" again, and then, after showing them how, he gave the order, "Fix—Bayonets!"
There was the usual clicking and clattering, during which Si dexterously managed to stick his bayonet into the eye of his comrade, whose toes were still aching from the blow of the butt of Si's musket. Si assured him he was sorry, and that it was all a mistake, but his comrade thought the limit of patience had been passed. So he confidently informed Si that as soon as drill was over he was going to "pound the stuffin'" out of him, and there wouldn't be any mistake about it, either.
When the hour was up the Captain of the company came around to see how the boys were getting along. The upshot of it was that poor Si was immediately organized into an "awkward squad" all by himself, and drilled an extra hour.
"We'll see, Mr. Klegg," said the Captain, "if you can't learn to handle your arms without mashing the toes and stabbing the eyes out of the rest of the company."
"ALL in for company drill!"
These words struck the unwilling ears of Co. Q, 200th Ind., the next time Buell halted his army to draw a long breath.
"Wish somebody would shoot that durned Orderly," muttered Si Klegg. "For two cents I'd do it myself."
"Don't do it, Si," admonished Shorty, "They'd git another one that'd be just as bad. All orderlies are cusses."
Si believed it would be a case of justifiable homicide, and, if the truth must be told, this feeling was largely shared by the other members of the company. For more than a week the boys had been tramping over a "macadamized" Kentucky pike. Feet were plentifully decorated with blisters, legs were stiff and sore, and joints almost refused to perform their functions.
It had rained nearly all the previous day, and the disgusted Hoosiers of the 200th went sloshing along, wet to the skin, for 20 dreary miles. With that diabolical care and method that were generally practiced at such times, the Generals selected the worst possible locations for the camps. The 200th was turned into a cornfield, where the men sank over their shoetops in mud, and were ordered to bivouac for the night. The wagons didn't get up at all. How they passed the slowly-dragging hours of that dismal night will not be told at this time. Indeed, bare mention is enough to recall the scene to those who have "been there."
In the morning, when the company was ordered out for drill, Si Klegg was standing before the sputtering fire trying to dry his steaming clothes, every now and then turning around to give the other side a chance. The mercury in his individual thermometer had fallen to a very low point—in fact, it was a cold day for Si's patriotism. He had reached that stage, not by any means infrequent among the soldiers, when he "didn't care whether school kept or not."
"Well, Si, I s'pose you love your country this mornin'!" said Shorty. He was endeavoring to be cheerful under adverse circumstances.
"I ain't quite as certain about it," said Si, reflectively, "as I was when I left home, up in Posey County. I'm afeared I haven't got enough of it to last me through three years of this sort of thing!"
Si felt at that moment as though he was of no account for anything, unless it was to be decked with paint and feathers and stood for a sign in front of a cigar store.
The rain had ceased, and the Colonel of the 200th felt that he must, like the busy bee, "improve each shining hour" in putting his command into condition for effective service. So he told the Adjutant to have the companies marched over to an adjacent pasture for drill.
"Attention, Co. Q!" shouted the Captain, after the Orderly had got the boys limbered up enough to get into ranks. The Captain didn't know very much about drilling himself, but he had been reading up "Hardee," and thought he could handle the company; but it was a good deal like the blind trying to lead the blind.
"Right—Face!"
Not quite half the men faced the wrong way, turning to the left instead of the right, which was doing pretty well for a starter.
"Get around there, Klegg, and the rest of you fellows! Can't ye ever learn anything."
Si was so particularly awkward that the Captain put him at the tail-end of the company. Then he tried the right face again, and as the boys seemed to get around in fair shape he commanded:
"Right shoulder shift arms! Forward—March!"
The company started off; but the Captain was not a little surprised, on looking back, to see Si marching: off in the opposite direction. He had faced the wrong way again, and, as he didn't see the others, he thought he was all right, and away he went on his own hook, till a shout from the Captain told him of his mistake.
When the Captain reached the field which was the drill-ground for the day, he thought he would try a wheel. After a brief lecture to the company on the subject he gave the command for the movement.
It is scarcely necessary to say that the first trial was a sad failure. The line bulged out in the center, and the outer flank, unable to keep up, fell behind, the company assuming nearly the shape of a big letter C. Then the boys on the outer end took the double-quick, cutting across the arc of the proper circle, which soon resulted in a hopeless wreck of the whole company. The Captain halted the chaotic mass of struggling men, and with the help of the Orderly finally succeeded in getting them straightened out and into line again. The men had often seen practiced soldiers going through this most difficult of all tactical movements, and it seemed easy enough; they didn't see why they couldn't do it just as well as the other fellows. They kept at it, and in the course of half an hour had improved so much that they could swing around in some kind of shape without the line breaking to pieces.
"COMPANY Q, tumble up here and git yer mail!" shouted the Orderly one afternoon, soon after the 200th Ind. turned into a tobacco patch to bivouac for the night. It had been two weeks since the regiment left Louisville, and this was the first mail that had caught up with it.
It seemed to the boys as if they had been away from home a year. For a whole fortnight they hadn't heard a word from their mothers, or sisters, or their "girls." Si Klegg couldn't have felt more lonesome and forsaken if he had been Robinson Crusoe.
In the excitement of distributing the mail everything else was forgotten.. The boys were all getting their suppers, but at the thought of letters from home even hunger had to take a back seat.
Si left his coffee-pot to tip over into the fire, and his bacon sizzling in the frying-pan, as he elbowed his way into the crowd that huddled around the Orderly.
"If there ain't more'n one letter for me," said Si softly to himself, "I hope it'll be from Annabel; but, of course, I'd like to hear from Ma and sister Marier, too!"
The Orderly, with a big package of letters in his hand, was calling out the names, and as the boys received their letters they distributed themselves through the camp, squatting about on rails or on the ground, devouring with the greatest avidity the welcome messages from home. The camp looked as if there had been a snowstorm.
Si waited anxiously to hear his name called as the pile letters rapidly grew smaller, and he began to think he was going to get left.
"Josiah Klegg!" at length shouted the Orderly, as he held out two letters. Si snatched them from his hand, went off by himself, and sat down on a log.
Si looked at his letters and saw that one of them was addressed in a pretty hand. He had never received a letter from Annabel before, but he "felt it in his bones" that this one was from her. He glanced around to be certain nobody was looking at him, and gently broke the seal, while a ruddy glow overspread his beardless cheeks. But he was secure from observation, as everybody else was similarly intent.
"Dear Si," the letter began. He didn't have to turn over to the bottom of the last page to know what name he would find there. He read those words over and over a dozen times, and they set his nerves tingling clear down to his toe-nails. Si forgot his aches and blisters as he read on through those delicious lines.
She wrote how anxious she was to hear from him and how cruel it was of him not to write to her real often; how she lay awake nights thinking about him down among those awful rebels; how she supposed that by this time he must be full of bullet-holes; and didn't he ge' hungry sometimes, and wasn't it about time for him to get a furlough? how it was just too mean for anything that those men down South had to get up a war; how proud she was of Si because he had 'listed, and how she watched the newspapers every day to find some thing about him; how she wondered how many rebels he had killed, and if he had captured any batteries yet—she said she didn't quite know what batteries were, but she read a good deal about capturing 'em, and she supposed it was something all the soldiers did; how she hoped he wouldn't forget her, and she'd like to see how he looked, now that he was a real soldier, and her father had sold the old "mooley" cow, and Sally Perkins was engage to Jim Johnson, who had stayed at home, and as for herself she wouldn't have anybody but a soldier about the size of Si, and 'Squire Jones's son had been trying to shine up to her and cut Si out, but she sent him off with a flea in his ear.
"Yours till deth, Annabel."
The fact that there was a word misspelt now and then did not detract in the least from the letter, so pleasing to Si. In fact, he was a little lame in orthography himself, so that he had neither the ability nor the disposition to scan Annabel's pages with a critic's eye. Si was happy, and as he began to cast about for his supper he even viewed with complacence his bacon burned to a crisp and his capsized coffee-pot helplessly melting away in the fire.
"Well, Si, what does she say?" said his friend Shorty.
"What does who say?" replied Si, getting red in the face, and bristling up and trying to assume an air of indifference.
"Just look here now. Si," said Shorty, "you can't play that on me. How about that rosy-cheeked girl up in Posey County?"
It was Si's tender spot. He hadn't got used to that sort of thing yet, and he felt that the emotions that made his heart throb like a sawmill were too sacred to be fooled with. Impelled by a sudden impulse he smote Shorty fairly between the eyes, felling him to the ground.
The Orderly, who happened to be near, took Si by the ear and marched him up to the Captain's quarters.
"Have him carry a rail in front of my tent for an hour!" thundered the Captain. "Don't let it be a splinter, either; pick out a good, heavy one. And, Orderly, detail a guard to keep Mr. Klegg moving."
Of course, it was very mortifying to Si, and he would have been almost heartbroken had he not been comforted by the thought that it was all for her! At first he felt as if he would like to take that rail and charge around and destroy the whole regiment; but, on thinking it over, he made up his mind that discretion was the better part of valor.
As soon as Si's hour was up, and he had eaten supper and "made up" with Shorty, he set about answering his letter. When, on his first march, Si cleaned out all the surplusage from his knapsack, he had hung on to a pretty portfolio that his sister gave him. This was stocked with postage stamps and writing materials, including an assortment of the envelopes of the period, bearing in gaudy colors National emblems, stirring legends, and harrowing scenes of slaughter, all intended to stimulate the patriotic impulses and make the breast of the soldier a very volcano of martial ardor.
When Si got out his nice portfolio he found it to be an utter wreck. It had been jammed into a shapeless mass, and, besides this, it had been soaked with rain; paper and envelopes were a pulpy ruin, and the postage stamps were stuck around here and there in the chaos. It was plain that this memento of home had fallen an early victim to the hardships of campaign life, and that its days of usefulness were over.
"It's no use; 'tain't any good," said Si sorrowfully, as he tossed the debris into the fire, after vainly endeavoring to save from the wreck enough to carry, out his epistolary scheme.
Then he went to the sutler—or "skinner," as he was better known—and paid 10 cents for a sheet of paper and an envelope, on which were the cheerful words, "It is sweet to die for one's country!" and 10 cents more for a 3-cent postage stamp. He borrowed a leadpencil, hunted up a piece of crackerbox, and sat down to his work by the flickering light of the fire. Si wrote:
"Deer Annie."
There he stopped, and while he was scratching his head and thinking what he would say next the Orderly came around detailing guards for the night, and directed Klegg to get his traps and report at once for duty.
"It hain't my turn," said Si. "There's Bill Brown, and Jake Schneider, and Pat Dooley, and a dozen more—I've been since they have!"
But the Orderly did not even deign to reply. Si remembered the guard-house, and his shoulder still ached from the rail he had carried that evening; so he quietly folded up his paper and took his place with the detail.
The next morning the army moved early, and Si had no chance to resume his letter. As soon as the regiment halted, after an 18-mile march, he tackled it again. This time nothing better offered in the way of a writing-desk than a tin plate, which he placed face downward upon his knee. Thus provided, Si plunged briskly into the job before him, with the following result:
"I now take my pen in hand to let you know that I am well, except the doggoned blisters on my feet, and I hope these few lines may find you enjoying the same blessings."
Si thought this was neat and a good start for his letter. Just as he had caught an idea for the next sentence a few scattering shots were heard on the picket-line, and in an instance the camp was in commotion. "Tall in!" "Be lively, men!" were heard on every hand.
Si sprang as if he had received a galvanic shock, cramming the letter into his pocket. Of course, there wasn't any fight. It was only one of the scares that formed so large a part of that campaign. But it spoiled Si's letter-writing for the time.
It was nearly a week before he got his letter done. He wrote part of it using for a desk the back of a comrade who was sitting asleep by the fire. He worked at it whenever he could catch a few minutes between the marches and the numerous details for guard, picket, fatigue and other duty. He said to Annie:
"Bein' a soljer aint quite what they crack it up to be when
they're gittin' a fellow to enlist. It's mity rough, and
you'd better believe it. You ought to be glad you're a gurl
and don't haf to go. I wish't I was a gurl sometimes. I
haven't kild enny rebbles yet. I hain't even seen one except
a fiew raskils that was tuk in by the critter soljers, they
calls em cavilry. Me and all the rest of the boys wants to
hav a fite, but it looks like Ginral Buil was afeared, and
we don't git no chance. I axed the Ordly couldn't he get me
a furlow. The Ordly jest laft and says to me, Si, says he,
yer don't know as much as a mule. The Capt'n made me walk up
and down for an hour with a big rail on my sholder.
"You tell Squire Joneses boy that he haint got sand enuff to
jine the army, and if he don't keep away from you I'll bust
his eer when I git home, if I ever do. Whattle you do if I
shouldn't ever see you agin? But you no this glorus Govyment
must be pertected, and the bully Stars and Strips must
flote, and your Si is goin to help do it.
"My pen is poor, my ink is pale,
My luv for you shall never fale.
"Yours, aflfeckshnitly, Si Klegg."
SI KLEGG was a good specimen of a healthy, robust Hoosier lad—for he could scarcely be called' a man yet. Since he lay in his cradle and was dosed with paregoric and catnip tea like other babies, he had never seen a sick day, except when he had the mumps on "both sides" at once. He had done all he could to starve the doctors.
When the 200th Ind. took the field it had the usual outfit of men who wrote their names sandwiched between a military title in front and "M. D." behind, a big hospital tent, and an apothecary shop on wheels, loaded to the guards with quinine, blue-mass, castor oil, epsom salts, and all other devices to assuage the sufferings of humanity.
The boys all started out in good shape, and there had been hardly time for them to get sick much yet. So up to this stage of the regiment's history the doctors had found little to do but issue arnica and salve for lame legs and blistered feet, and strut around in their shiny uniforms.
But there came a day when they had all they could attend to. On going into camp one afternoon, the regiment, well in advance, struck a big field of green corn and an orchard of half-ripe apples. Of course, the boys sailed in, and natural consequences followed.
"Now this is something like!" said Si, as he squatted on the ground along with Shorty and half a dozen messmates. They surrounded a camp-kettle full of steaming ears and half a bushel or so of apples heaped on a poncho.
"Wish we had some o' mother's butter to grease this corn with," observed Si, as he flung a cob into the fire and seized a fresh ear.
All agreed that Si's head was level on the butter question, but under all the circumstances of the case they were glad enough to have the com without butter.
The ears went off with amazing rapidity. Every man seemed to be afraid he wouldn't get his share. When the kettle was empty the boys turned themselves loose on the apples, utterly reckless of results. So, they were filled full, and were thankful.
When Si got up he burst off half the buttons on his clothes. He looked as if he was carrying a bass-drum in front of him. After he began to shrink he had to tie up his clothes with a string until he had a chance to repair damages. But during the next 24 hours he had something else to think of.
In fact, it wasn't long till Si began to wish he had eaten an ear of corn and an apple or two less. He didn't feel very well. He turned in early, thinking he would go to sleep and be all right in the morning.
Along in the night he uttered a yell that came near stampeding the company. An enormous colic was raging around in his interior, and Si fairly howled with pain. He thought he was going: to die right away.
"Shorty," said he, between the gripes, to his comrade, "I'm afeared I'm goin' to peter out. After I'm gone you write to—to—Annie and tell her I died for my country like a man. I'd ruther been shot than die with the colic, but I 'spose 'twont make much difference after it's all over!" 9 "I'll do it," replied Shorty. "We'll plant you in good shape; and Si, we'll gather up the corn-cobs and build a monument over you!"
But Si wasn't cut off in the bloom of youth by that colic. His eruptive condition frightened Shorty, however, and though he was in nearly as bad shape himself, he went up and routed out one of the doctors, who growled a good deal about being disturbed.
The debris of the supper scattered about the camp told him what was the matter, and he had no need to make a critical diagnosis of Si's case. He gave him a dose of something or other that made the pain let up a little, and Si managed to rub along through the night.
Fortunately for Si, and for more than half the members of the regiment, the army did not move next day, and the doctors had a good opportunity to get in their work.
At the usual hour in the morning the bugle blew the "sick-call." A regiment of tanned and grizzled veterans from Ohio lay next to the 200th Ind., and as Si lay there he heard them take up the music:
"Git yer qui-nine! Git yer qui-nine!
Tumble up you sick and lame and blind;
Git a-long right smart, you'll be left be-hind."
"Fall in fer yer ipecac!" shouted the Orderly of Co. Q. Si joined the procession and went wabbling up to the "doctor's" shop. He was better than he had been during the night, but still looked a good deal discouraged.
It was a regular matinee that day. The Surgeon and his assistants were all on hand, as the various squads, colicky and cadaverous, came to a focus in front of the tent.
The doctors worked off the patients at a rapid rate, generally prescribing the same medicine for all, no matter what ailed them. This was the way the army doctors always did, but it happened in this case that they were not far wrong, as the ailments, arising from a common cause, were much the same.
Si waited till his turn came, and received his rations from the Hospital Steward. Of course, he was excused from duty for the day, and as he speedily recovered his normal condition he really had a good time.
A few days after this the whole regiment was ordered on fatigue duty to repair an old corduroy road. Si didn't want to go, and "played off." He told the Orderly he wasn't able to work, but the Orderly said he would have to shoulder an ax or a shovel, unless he was excused by the doctor. He went up at sick-call and made a wry face, with his hands clasped over his body in the latitude of his waistband.
The doctor gave him a lot of blue-mass pills, which Si threw into the fire as soon as he got back to his quarters. Then he played seven-up all day with Shorty, who had learned before Si did how to get a day off when he wanted it.
Si thought it was a great scheme, but he tried it once too often. The doctor "caught on," and said, the next time Si went up, that castor oil was what he needed to fetch him around. So he poured out a large dose and made Si take it right then and there.
The next time fatigue duty was ordered Si thought he felt well enough to go along with the boys.
"HELLO Si; goin' for a soljer, ain't ye?"
"You bet!"
"Wall, you'd better b'lieve its great fun; it's jest a picnic all the time! But, say, Si, let's see yer finger-nails!"
"I'd like ter know what finger-nails 's got to do with soljerin'!" said Si. "The 'cruitin' ossifer 'n' the man 't keeps the doctor shop made me shuck myself, 'n' then they 'xamined my teeth, 'n' thumped me in the ribs, 'n' rubbed down my legs, 'n' looked at my hoofs, same 's if 'I'd bin a hoss they wuz buyin', but they didn't say nothin' 'bout my finger-nails."
"You jest do 's I tell ye; let 'em grow, 'n' keep 'em right sharp. Ye'll find plenty o' use fer 'em arter a while, 'n' 'twont be long, nuther. I know what I'm talkin' 'bout; I've been thar!"
This conversation took place a day or two before Si bade farewell to his mother and sister Marier and pretty Annabel and left the peaceful precincts of Posey County to march away with the 200th Ind. for that awful place vaguely designated as "the front!" He had promptly responded to the call, and his name was near the top of the list of Company Q.
Si already had his blue clothes on. By enlisting early he had a good pick of the various garments, and so got a suit that fitted his form—which was plump as an apple-dumpling tolerably well. It was left for the tail-enders of the company to draw trousers that were six inches too long or too short, and blouses that either wouldn't reach around, and left yawning chasms in front, or were so large that they looked as if they were hung on bean-poles.
Of course, Si couldn't be expected to do any more plodding farm work, now that he had "jined" the army. While the company was filling up he spent most of his time on dress parade in the village near by, eliciting admiring smiles from all the girls, and an object of the profoundest awe and wonder to tha small boys.
One day Si was sitting on the sugar-barrel in the corner grocery, gnawing a "blind robin," and telling how he thought the war wouldn't last long after the 200th Ind. got down there and took a hand and got fairly interested in the game; they would wind it up in short meter. Such ardent emotions always seethed and bubbled in the swelling breasts of the new troops when they came down to show the veterans just how to do it.
One of the town boys who had been a year in the service, had got a bullet through his arm in a skirmish, and was at home on furlough, came into the store, and then took place the dialog between him and Si that opens this chapter.
Si wondered a good deal what the veteran meant about the finger-nails. He did not even know that there existed in any nature a certain active and industrious insect which, before he had been in the army a great while, would cause his heart to overflow with gratitude to a beneficent Providence for providing him with nails on his fingers.
When the 200th left Indiana all the boys had, of course, brand-new outfits right from Uncle Sam's great one-price clothing house. Their garments were nice and clean, their faces well washed, and their hair yet showed marks of the comb. At Louisville they stuck up their noses, with a lofty consciousness of superiority, at the sight of Buell's tanned and ragged tramps, who had just come up on the gallop from Tennessee and northern Alabama.
If the new Hoosier regiment had been quartered for a while in long-used barracks, or had pitched its tents in an old camp, Si would very soon have learned, in the school of experience, the delightful uses of finger-nails. But the 200th stayed only a single night in Louisville and then joined the procession that started on the chase after the rebel army. It generally camped on new ground, and under these circumstances the insect to which allusion has been made did not begin its work of devastation with that suddenness that usually marked its attack upon soldiers entering the field. But he never failed to "git there" sooner or later, and it was more frequently sooner than later.
One afternoon, when a few days out on this march, a regiment of Wisconsin veterans bivouacked next to the 200th Ind. The strange antics as they threw off their accouterments attracted Si's attention.
"Look a' thar," he said to Shorty. "What 'n name of all the prophets 's them fellers up to?"
"Seems like they was scratchin' theirselves!"
"I s'pose that's on account of the dust 'n' sweat," said Si.
"It's a mighty sight worse 'n that!" replied Shorty, who knew more about these things than Si did. "I reckon we'll all be doin' like they are 'fore long."
Si whistled softly to himself as he watched the Wisconsin boys. They were hitching and twisting their shoulders about, evidently enjoying the friction of the clothing upon their skins. There was a general employment of fingers, and often one would be seen getting come other fellow to scratch his back around where he couldn't reach himself. If everybody was too busy to do this for him he would back up to a tree and rub up and down against the bark.
Life has few pleasures that can equal the sensations of delightful enjoyment produced in those days, when graybacks were plenty, by rubbing against a tree that nicely fitted the hollow of the back, after throwing off one's "traps" at the end of a day's march.
Directly the Wisconsin chaps began to scatter into the woods. Si watched them as they got behind the trees and threw off their blouses and shirts. He thought at first that perhaps they were going in swimming, but there was no stream of water at hand large enough to justify this theory in explanation of their nudity. As each man set down, spread his nether garment over his knees and appeared to be intently engaged, with eyes and fingers. Si's curiosity was very much excited.
"Looks 's if they wuz all mendin' up their shirts and sewin' on buttons," said Si, "Guess it's part o' their regular drill, ain't it, Shorty?"
Shorty laughed at Si's ignorant simplicity. He knew what those veterans were doing, and he knew that Si would have to come to it, but he didn't want to shock his tender sensibilities by telling him of it.
"Them fellers ain't sewin' on no buttons. Si," he replied; "they're skirmishin'."
"Skirmishin'!" exclaimed Si, opening his eyes very wide. "I haint seen any signs o' rebs 'round here, 'n' there aint any shootin' goin' on, 'nless I've lost my hearin'. Durned if 't aint the funniest skirmishin' I ever hearn tell of!"
"Now, don't ax me nuthin' more 'bout it, Si," said Shorty. "All I'm goin' to tell ye is that the longer ye live the more ye'll find things out. Let's flax 'round 'n' git supper!"
A little while after, as Si was squatting on the ground holding the frying-pan over the fire, he saw a strange insect vaguely wandering about on the sleeve of his blouse. It seemed to be looking for something, and Si became interested as he watched it traveling up and down his arm. He had never seen one like it before, and he thought he would like to know what it was. He would have asked Shorty, but his comrade had gone to the spring for water. Casting his eye around he saw the Captain, who chanced to be sauntering through the camp.
The Captain of Co. Q had been the Principal of a seminary in Posey County, and was looked upon with awe by the simple folk as a man who knew about all that was worth knowing. Si thought he might be able to tell him all about the harmless's-looking little stranger.
So he put down his frying-pan and stepped up to the Captain, holding out his arm and keeping his eye on the insect so that he shouldn't get away.
"Good evenin', Cap.," said Si, touching his hat, and addressing him with that familiar disregard of official dignity that characterised the average volunteer, who generally felt that he was just as good as anybody who wore shoulder straps.
"Good evening, Klegg," said the Captain, returning the salute.
"Say, Cap, you've been ter collidge 'n' got filled up with book-larnin'; p'raps ye kin tell me what kind o' bug this is. I'm jest a little bit curious to know."
And Si pointed to the object of his inquiry that was leisurely creeping toward a hole in the elbow of his outer garment.
"Well, Josiah," said the Captain, after a brief inspection, "I presume I don't know quite as much as some people think I do; but I guess I can tell you something about that insect. I never had any of them myself, but I've read of them."
"Never had 'em himself," thought Si. "What 'n the world does ha mean?" And Si's big eyes opened with wonder and fear at the thought that whatever it was he had "got 'em."
"I suppose," continued the Captain, "you would like to know the scientific name?"
"I reck'n that'll do 's well 's any."
"Well, sir, that is a Pediculus. That's a Latin word, but it's his name."
"Purty big name fer such a leetle bug, ain't it, Perfessor?" observed Si. "Name's big enough for an el'fant er a 'potamus."
"It may seem so, Klegg; but when you get intimately acquainted with him I think you will find that his name isn't any too large for him. There is a good deal more of him than you think."
The young soldier's eyes opened still wider.
"I was going on to tell you," continued the Captain, "that there are several kinds of Pediculi—we don't say Pediculuses. There is the Pediculus Capitis—Latin again—but it means the kind that lives on the head. I presume when you were a little shaver your mother now and then harrowed your head with a fine-tooth comb?"
"Ya-as" said Si; "she almost took the hide off sometimes, an' made me yell like an Injun."
"Now, Klegg, I don't wish to cause you unnecessary alarm, but I will say that the head insect isn't a circumstance to this one on your arm. As you would express it, perhaps, he can't hold a candle to him. This fellow is the Pediculus Corporis!"
"I s'pose that means they eats up Corporals!" said Si.
"I do not think the Pediculus Corporis confines himself exclusively to Corporals, as his name might indicate," said the Captain, laughing at Si's literal translation and his personal application of the word. "He no doubt likes a juicy and succulent Corporal, but I don't believe he is any respecter of persons. That's my opinion, from what I've heard about him. It is likely that I 'will be able to speak more definitely, from experience, after a while. Corporis means that he is the kind that pastures on the human body. But there's one thing more about this fellow, some call him Pediculus Vestimenti; that is because he lives around in the clothing."
"But we don't wear no vests," said Si, taking a practical view of this new word; "nothin' but blouses, 'n' pants, 'n' shirts."
"You are too literal, Klegg. That word means any kind of clothes. But I guess I've told you as much about him as you care to know at present. If you want any more information, after two or three weeks, come and see me again. I think by that time you will not find it necessary to ask any more questions."
Si went back to his cooking, with the Pediculus still on his arm. He wanted to show it to Shorty. The Captain's profound explanation, with its large words, was a little too much for Si. He did not yet clearly comprehend the matter, and as he walked thoughtfully to where Shorty was "bilin'" the coffee he was trying to get through his head what it all meant.
"Hello, Si," said Shorty; "whar ye bin? What d'ye mean, goin' off 'n' leavin' yer sowbelly half done?"
"Sh-h!" replied Si. "Ye needn't git yer back up about it. Bin talkin' to the Cap'n. Shorty, look at that 'ere bug!"
And Si pointed to the object of the Captain's lecture on natural history that was still creeping on his arm. Shorty slapped his thigh and burst into a loud laugh.
"Was that what ye went to see the Cap'n 'bout?" he asked as soon as he could speak.
"Why—ya-as," replied Si, somewhat surprised at Shorty's unseemly levity. "I saw that thing crawlin' round, 'n' I was a-wonderin' what it was, fer I never seen one afore. I knowed Cap was a scolard, 'n' a perfesser, 'n' all that 'n' I 'lowed he c'd tell me all about it. So I went 'n' axed him."
"What'd he tell ye?"
"He told me lots o' big, heathenish words, 'n' said this bug was a ridiculous, or suthin' like that."
"'Diculus be blowed!" said Shorty, "The ole man was a'stuffin' ye. I'll tell ye what that is, Si," he added solemnly, "that's a grayback!"
"A grayback!" said Si. "I've hearn 'em call the Johnnies graybacks, but I didn't know 's there was any other kind."
"I reck'n 'twont be long, now, till yer catches on ter the meanin' ol what a grayback is. Ye'll know all 'bout it purty sudden. This ain't the first one I ever seen."
Si was impressed, as he had often been before, by Shorty's superior wisdom and experience.
"See here. Si," Shorty continued, as his eye suddenly lighted up with a brilliant thought, "I guess I kin make ye understand what a grayback is. What d'ye call that coat ye've got on?"
"Why, that's a fool question; it's a blouse, of course!"
"Jesso!" said Shorty. "Now, knock off the fust letter o' that word, 'n' see what ye got left!"
Si looked at Shorty as if he thought his conundrums were an indication of approaching idiocy. Then he said, half to himself:
"Let's see! Blouse—blouse—take off the 'b' 'n' she spells l-o-u-s-e, louse! Great Scott, Shorty, is that a louse?"
"That's jest the size of it. Si. Ye'll have millions of 'em 'fore the war's over 'f they don't hurry up the cakes."
Si looked as if he would like to dig a hole in the ground, get into it, and have Shorty cover him up.
"Why didn't the Cap'n tell me it was that? He said suthin' about ridiculus corporalis, and I thought he was makin' fun o' me. He said these bugs liked to eat fat Corporals.'
"I reck'n that's so," replied Shorty; "but they likes other people jest as well—even a skinny feller like me. They lunches off'n privits, 'n' Corp'rils, 'n' Kurnals, 'n' Gin'rals, all the same. They ain't satisfied with three square meals a day, nuther; they jest eats right along all the time 'tween regular meals. They allus gits hungry in the night, too, and chaws a feller up while he sleeps. They don't give ye no show at all. I rayther think the graybacks likes the ossifers best if they could have their ch'ice, 'cause they's fatter 'n the privits; they gits better grub."
Si fairly turned pale as he contemplated the picture so graphically portrayed by Shorty. The latter's explanation was far more effectual in letting the light in upon Si's mind than the scientific disquisition of the "Perfesser." He had now a pretty clear idea of what a "grayback" was. Whatever he lacked to make his knowledge complete was soon supplied in the regular way. But Si was deeply grieved and shocked at what Shorty had told him. It was some minutes before he said anything more.
"Shorty," he said, with a sadness in his tone that would almost have moved a mule to tears, "who'd a-thought rd ever git as low down 's this, to have them all-fired graybacks, 's ye call 'em, crawlin' over me. How'd mother feel if she knew about 'em. She wouldn't sleep a wink fer a month!"
"Ye'll have to come to it. Si. All the soljers does, from the Major-Gin'rals down to the tail-end of the mule-whackers. Ye mind them 'Sconsin chaps we was lookin' at a little bit ago?"
"Yes," said Si.
"Well, graybacks was what ailed 'em. The fellers with their shirts on their knees was killin' 'em off. That's what they calls 'skirmishin'. There's other kinds o' skirmishing besides fitin' rebels! Ye'd better git rid of that one on yer arm, if he hasn't got inside already; then there'll be one less of 'em."
Si found him after a short search, and proposed to get a chip, carry him to the fire and throw him in.
"Naw!" said Shorty in disgust, "that's no way. Lemme show yer how!"
Shorty placed one thumb-nail on each side of the insect. There was a quick pressure, a snap like the crack of a percussion cap, and all was over.
Si shuddered, and wondered if he could ever engage in such a work of slaughter.
"D'ye s'pose," he said to Shorty, "that there's any more of 'em on me?" And he began to hitch his shoulders about, and to feel a desire to put his fingers to active use.
"Shouldn't wonder," replied Shorty. "Mebbe I've got 'em, to. Let's go out'n do a little skirmishin' ourselves."
"We'd better go off a good ways," said Si, "so's the boys won't see us."
"You're too nice and pertickler for a soljer. Si. They'll all be doin' it, even the Cap'n himself, by termorrer or nex' day."
They went out back of the camp, where Si insisted on getting behind the largest tree he could find. Then they sat down and engaged in that exciting chase of the Pediculus up and down the seams of their garments, so familiar to all who wore either the blue or the gray. Thousands of nice young men who are now preachers and doctors and lawyers and statesmen, felt just as bad about it at first as Si did.
"Shorty," said Si, as they slowly walked back to eat their supper, which had been neglected in the excitement of the hour, "before Co. Q left Posey County to jine the rigiment a feller 't was home on furlow told me ter let my finger-nails grow long 'n' sharp. He said I'd need 'em. I didn't know what he meant then, but I b'lieve I do now."
NIGHT threw her dark mantle over the camp of the 200th Ind. The details of guard and picket had been made. Videts, with sleepless eye and listening ear, kept watch and ward on the outposts, while faithful sentries trod their beats around the great bivouac. All day the army had marched, and was to take the road again at an early hour in the morning. Supper had been eaten, and the tired soldiers were gathered around the campfires that gleamed far and near through the darkness.
"Si," said Shorty to his chum as they sat on a log beside the dying embers, "how d'ye like soldierin', as fur as ye've got?"
"It's purty hard business," said Si, reflectively, "an' I s'pose we haint seen the worst on it yet, either, from what I've hearn tell. Pity the men that got up this war can't be made to do all the trampin' 'n' fitin'. An' them fellers up in old Injjeanny that come 'round makin' such red-hot speeches to git us boys to 'list, wouldn't it be fun to see 'em humpin' 'long with gun 'n' knapsack, 'n' chawin' hardtack, 'n' stan'in' guard nights, 'n' pourin' water on their blisters, 'n' pickin' graybacks off their shirts, 'n' p'leecin' camp, 'n' washin' their own clothes?"
"I think we'd enj'y seein' 'em do all that," said Shorty, laughing at the picture Si had drawn. "I reckon most of 'em 'd peter out purty quick, and I'd like to hear what sort o' speeches they'd, make then. I tell ye, Si, there's a big diff'rence 'tween goin' yerself an' tellin' some other feller to go."
"Mebbe they'll git to draftin' after a while," observed Si, "'n' if they do I hope that'll ketch em!"
"Wall, we're in fur it, anyway," said Shorty. "Let's take down the bed 'n' turn in!"
It didn't take long to complete the arrangements for the night. They spread their "gum" blankets, or ponchos, on the ground, within the tent, and on these their wool blankets, placed their knapsacks at the head for pillows, and that was all. It was warmer than usual that evening, and they stripped down to their nether garments.
"Feels good once in a while," said Si, "to peel a feller's clothes oft, 'n' sleep in a Christian-like way. But, Great Scott! Shorty, ain't this ground lumpy? It's like lying on a big washboard. I scooted all over the country huntin' fer straw to-night. There wasn't but one little stack within a mile of camp. Them derned Ohio chaps gobbled every smidgin of it. They didn't leave enuff to make a hummin'-bird's nest. The 200th Ind. 'll git even with 'em some day."
So Si and Shorty crept in between the blankets, drew the top one up to their chins, and adjusted their bodily protuberances as best they could to fit the ridges and hollows beneath them.
"Now, Si," said Shorty, "don't ye git to fitin' rebels in yer sleep and kick the kiver off, as ye did last night."
As they lay there their ears caught the music of the bugles sounding the "tattoo." Far and near floated through the clear night air the familiar melody that warned every soldier not on duty to go to bed. Next to the 200th Ind. lay a regiment of wild Michigan veterans, who struck up, following the strains of the bugles:
Say, oh Dutch'y, will ye fight mit Si-gel?
Zwei glass o' la-ger, Yaw! Yaw! Yaw!!!
Will yet fight to help de bul-ly ea-gle?
Schweitzer-ksse und pret-zels,
Hur-raw! raw! raw!
During the night there came one of those sudden storms that seemed to be sent by an inscrutable Providence especially to give variety to the soldier's life.
A well-developed cyclone struck the camp, and Si and Shorty were soon awakened by the racket. The wind was blowing and whirling in fierce gusts, wrenching out the tent-pins or snapping the ropes as if they were threads. Everywhere was heard the flapping of canvas, and the yells and shouts of the men as they dashed about in the darkness and wild confusion. Many of the tents were already prostrate, and their demoralized inmates were crawling out from under the ruin. To crown all the rain began to fall in torrents. The camp was a vast pandemonium. The blackest darkness prevailed, save when the scene was illuminated by flashes of lightning. These were followed by peals of thunder that made the stoutest quake.
Si sprang up at the first alarm. "Git up, here, you fellers!" he shouted. "We'd better go outside and grab the ropes, or the hull shebang 'll go over."
There was not a moment to spare. Si dashed out into the storm and darkness, followed by his comrades. Seizing the ropes, some of which were already loosened, they braced themselves and hung on for dear life, in the drenching rain, their hair and garments streaming in the wind.
Si's prompt action saved the tent from the general wreck. The fury of the storm was soon past. Si and his comrades, after driving the pins and securing the ropes, re-entered the tent, wet and shivering for the mercury had gone down with a tumble, or rather it would have done so had they been supplied with thermometers. But the scanty costume in which Si found himself afforded a weather indicator sufficiently accurate for all practical purposes.
The ground was flooded, and their blankets and garments were fast absorbing the water that flowed around in such an exasperating way. Sleep under such conditions was out of the question. Si and Shorty put on their clothes and tried to make the best of their sorry plight.
By this time the rain had nearly ceased. Fortunately they had laid in a good stock of fuel the night before, and after a little patient effort they succeeded in getting a fire started. Around this the boys hovered, alternately warming their calves and shins.
"This is a leetle more'n I bargained fer," said Si. Then, taking a philosophical view of the case, he added, "but there's one good thing about it, Shorty, we'll be all fixed for mornin', an' we won't have to get up when they sound the revel-lee. The buglers kin jest bust theirselves a-blowin' fer all I keer!"
In this way the soldiers spent the remainder of the night. Before daybreak the blast of a hundred bugles rang out, but there was little need for the reveille.
Breakfast was soon over, and in the gray dawn of that murky morning the long column went trailing on its way. The weather gave promise of a sloppy day, and the indications were fully verified. A drizzling rain set in, and continued without cessation. The boys put their heads through the holes in their ponchos, from the corners of which the water streamed. With their muskets at a "secure" they sloshed along through the mud, hour after hour. In spite of their "gums" the water found its way in at the back of the neck and trickled down their bodies. Their clothes became saturated, and they were altogether about as miserable as it is possible for mortals to be.
It seemed to Si that the maximum of discomfort had been reached. He had experienced one thing after another during the few weeks since he left home, and he thought each in turn was worse than the last, and about as bad as it could be. But Si learned a good deal more before he graduated. All through the long, dreary day the soldiers plodded on. There was little comfort to be derived from the "rest," for the ground was soaked with water.
"Why didn't we think of it, Shorty," said Si, "'n' make it part o' the bargain' when we 'listed that we were to have umbrellers. These gum things don't amount to shucks, nohow, to keep the rain off. I sh'd think Uncle Sam might do that much for us!"
"I reckon our clothes 'll be purty well washed by the time we git out o' this mess," said Shorty.
"Feels that way," said Si; "but how about the bilin'? A cold bath jest refreshes them pesky little varmints, 'n' makes 'em livelier 'n ever. Say, Shorty, ye didn't write home anything 'bout our havin' graybacks, did ye?"
"No, not yet; but I was thinkin' I'd tell 'em 'bout it one o' these days."
"Well, Shorty, I ain't going to tell my folks; it 'd jest make my mother feel awful to know I was that way. And sister Maria, and—"
Si was thinking aloud, and was going to say "Annabel," but he checked himself. That name was not to be mentioned in other ears. But he was afraid she would go back on him if she knew, all about it.
It was nearly night when the 200th Ind., dripping and discouraged, filed off into a field of standing corn to pass the night. The men sank to their shoetops in the soft earth. Si remarked to Shorty that he didn't see why the officers should turn 'em loose in such a place as that. But the longer he lived the more he found out about those things. That was the way they always did.
In five minutes after arms were stacked not a cornstalk remained standing in the field. During the afterfnoon the troops had gone over a long stretch of swamp road that was almost impassable for teams. Fears were entertained that the wagons of the regiment would not be up that night, and they would not have their tents to shelter them from the storm. In anticipation of such a calamity the boys, gathered in the cornstalks, having a vague idea that they would help out in case of emergency.
Then there was a scramble for the fences. Recognizing the need of good fuel, an order from the General was filtered through the various headquarters that the men might take the top rails, only, from the fence inclosing tha field. This order was literally interpreted and carried out, each man, successively, taking the "top rail" as he found it. The very speedy result was that the bottom rails became the "top," and then there weren't any. Almost in the twinkling of an eye the entire fence disappeared.
The drizzle continued through the evening, and by the sputtering fires the soldiers prepared and ate their frugal suppers. Word came that, as was feared, the wagons were hopelessly bemired three or four miles back, and the men would have to make such shift as they could.
The prospect was dreary and cheerless enough. It was little wonder that many of the young Hoosiers felt as if they wanted to quit and go home. But with that wonderful facility for adapting themselves to circumstances that marked the volunteer soldiers, they set about the work of preparing for the night. No one who has not "been there" can imagine how good a degree of comfort—comparatively speaking, of course—it was possible to reach, with such surroundings, by the exercise of a little patience, ingenuity and industry.
Si and Shorty and the others of the "mess" bestirred themselves, and it did not take them more than 20 minutes to build, out of rails and cornstalks, a shelter that was really inviting. They kindled a big fire in front of it, laid some rails within, covered with stalks, and on these spread their blankets. Si, who had "bossed" the job, viewed the work with great satisfaction.
"I tell ye, that's no slouch of a shanty!" said he.
ONE day while Buell was chasing Bragg, two or three weeks after leaving Louisville, the army was pushing forward at a gait that made the cavalry ahead trot half the time to keep out of the way of the infantry. The extraordinary speed that day was due to the fact that there were no rebels in sight. Half a dozen ragged troopers with shotguns, a mile away, would have caused the whole army to halt, form line-of-battle, and stay thera the rest of the day.
The tanned veterans didn't mind the marching. They stretched their legs and went swinging along with a happy-go-lucky air, always ready for anything that might turn up. But it was rough on the new troops, just from home. It taxed their locomotive powers to the utmost limit.
The boys of the 200th Ind. started out bravely. Their fresh, clean faces, new uniforms, and shiny accouterments contrasted strongly with those of the weather-beaten soldiers of '61. You could tell a "tenderfoot" as far as you could see him.
They trudged along in fair shape for an hour or two. Before starting in the morning strict orders had been read to the regiment forbidding straggling, for any reason, under the most terrifying pains and penalties.
"Them fellers that's been in the service longer 'n we have think they're smart," said Si Klegg, as he and Shorty plodded on, both already a little blown. "Well show 'em that we can hoof it jest as fast as they can, and jest as fur in a day!"
"Seems to me we're git'n over the ground party lively to-day," replied Shorty, who was in a grumbling mood. "Wonder if the Gin'ral thinks we're bosses! I'm a little short o' wind, and these pesky gunboats are scrapin' the bark off'n my feet; but I'll keep up or bust."
Though e spirit of these young patriots was willing, the flesh was weak. It wasn't long till Si began to limp. Now and then a groan escaped his lips as a fresh blister "broke." But Si clinched his teeth, humped his back to ease his shoulders from the weight of his knapsack, screwed up his courage, and tramped on over the stony pike. He thought the breathing spells were very short and a long way apart.
Si's knapsack had experienced the universal shrinkage, as told in a previous chapter of our hero's martial career. He still had, however, a good many things that he thought he couldn't spare, but which he found later he could very well get along without.
By noon the 200th began to show signs of going to pieces. The column stretched out longer and longer, like a piece of India-rubber. The ranks looked thin and ragged. Lame and foot-sore, with wo-begone faces, their bodies aching in every bone and tendon, and overcome with a weariness that no one can realize unless he has "been there," the men dropped out one by one and threw themselves into the fence-corners to rest. The officers stormed and drew their swords in vain. Nature—that is, the nature of a new soldier—could endure no more. The ambulances were filled to their utmost, but these would not hold a twentieth part of the crippled and suffering men.
"How're ye gittin' on, Shorty?" said Si, as he and his comrade still struggled along.
"Fair to middlin'," replied Shorty. "I'm goin' to try and pull through!"
"I thought I could," said Si, "but I'm 'bout played out! I am, fer a fact! I guess ef I rest a bit I'll be able to ketch up after a while."
Si didn't know till he found out by experience how hard it was to "ketch up" when a soldier once got behind on the march. Si was too fat for a good roadster, but it didn't take a great while to work off his surplus flesh. Shorty was tall and slim, mostly bone—one of the sort that always stood the marching best, crept up to the Orderly and told him that he would have to stop and puff a while and give his blisters a rest. He'd pull up with Co. Q in an hour or so.
"Better not, Si" said the Orderly; "ye know it's agin orders, and the rear-guard 'll punch ye with their bay'net's if they catch ye stragglin'."
But Si concluded that if he must die for his country it would be sweeter to do so by having a bayonet inserted in his vitals, and then it would be all over with at once, than to walk himself to death.
So he gradually fell back till he reached the tail of the company. Watching his opportunity, he left the ranks, crept into a clump of bushes, and lay down, feeling as if he had been run through a grist-mill. Soon the rear-guard of the 200th came along, with fixed bayonets, driving before them like a flock of frightened sheep a motley crowd of limping, groaning men, gathered up by the roadside.
Si lay very still, hoping to escaoe discovery; but the keen eye of the officer detected the blue heap among the bushes.
"Bring that man out!" said he sternly to one of the guards.
Poor Si scarcely dare to breathe. He hoped the man would think he was dead, and therefore no longer of any account. But the soldier began to prod him with his bayonet, ordering him to get up and move on.
"Look-a-here, pard," said Si, "don't stab me with that thing! I jest can't git along any furder till I blow a little. You please lemme be, an' I'll do as much for you. P'rhaps some time you'll get played out and I'll be on the rear-guard. The Cap'n 'll tell me ter fotch ye 'long, an' I'll jest let ye rest, so I will!"
This view of the case struck the guard with some force. Moved with compassion, he turned away, leaving Si to enjoy his rest.
Si threw aside his traps, took off his shoes and stockings, and bathed his feet with water from his canteen. He ate a couple of hardtack, and in the course of half an hour began to feel more like Si Klegg. He geared himself up, shouldered his gun, and started to "ketch up."
All this time the stream of troops—regiments, brigades and divisions—had flowed on. Of course, soldiers who were with their colors had the right of way, and the stragglers were obliged to stumble along as best they could, over the logs and through the bushes at the sides of the roads or skirt along the edges of the fields and woods adjoining. It was this fact added to their exhausted and crippled condition, that made it almost impossible for stragglers to overtake their regiments until they halted for the night. Even then it was often midnight before the last of the wayfarers, weary and worn, dragged their aching limbs into camp.
Si started forward briskly, but soon found it was no easy matter to gain the mile or so that the 200th Ind. was now ahead of him. It was about all he could do to keep up with the fast-moving column and avoid failing still further to the rear. Presently the bugles sounded a halt for one of the hourly rests.
"Now," said Si to himself, "I'll have a good chance to git along tor'd the front. The soljers 'll all lie down in the fence corners an' leave the road clear. I'll jest git up an' dust!"
The sound of the bugles had scarcely died away when the pike was deserted, and on either side, as far as the eye could reach, the prostrate men that covered the ground mingled in a long fringe of blue.
Si got up into the road and started along the lane between these lines of recumbent soldiers. His gait was a little shaky, for the blisters on his feet began to give evidence of renewed activity. He trudged pluckily along, limping some in spite of himself, but on the whole making very good headway.
Pretty soon he struck a veteran regiment from Illinois, the members of which were sitting and lying around in all the picturesque and indescribable postures which the old soldiers found gave them the greatest comfort during a "rest." Then they commenced—that is, it was great sport for the Sucker boys, though Si did not readily appreciate the humorous features of the scene.
"What rigiment is this?" asked Si, timidly.
"Same old rijiment!" was the answer from half a dozen at once. A single glance told the swarthy veterans that the fresh-looking youth who asked this conundrum belonged to one of the new regiments, and they immediately opened their batteries upon him:
"Left—left-=left!"
"Hayfoot—strawfoot! Hayfoot—strawfoot!" keeping time with Si's somewhat irregular steps.
"Hello, there, you! Change step and you'll march easier!"
"Look at that 'ere poor feller; the only man left alive of his regiment! Great Cesar, how they must have suffered! Say, what rijiment did you b'long to?"
"Paymaster's comin', boys, here's a chap with a pay-roll round his neck!" Si had put on that morning the last of the paper collars he had brought from home.
"You'd better shed that knapsack, or it'll be the death of ye!"
"I say, there, how's all the folks to home?"
"How d'ye like it as far as you've got, any way?"
"Git some commissary and pour into them gunboats!"
"Second relief's come, boys; we can all go home now."
"Grab a root!"
"Hep—hep—hep!"
"How'd ye leave Mary Ann?"
Si had never been under such a fire before. He stood it as long as he could, and 'then he stopped.
"Halt!" shouted a chorus of voices. "Shoulder—Arms!" "Order—Arms!"
By this time Si's wrath was at the boiling point. Casting around him a look of defiance, he exclaimed:
"You cowardly blaggards; I can jest lick any two of ye, an' I'll dare ye to come on. If the 200th Ind. was here we'd clean out the hull pack of ye quicker'n ye can say scat!"
This is where Si made a mistake. He ought to have kept right on and said nothing. But Si had to find out all these things by experience, as the rest of the boys did.
All the members took a hand in the game. They just got right up and yelled, discharging at Si a volley of expletives and pointed remarks that drove him to desperation. Instinctively he brought up his gun.
"Load in nine times—Load!" shouted a dozen of the Illinois tramps.
If Si's gun had been loaded he would have shot somebody, regardless of consequences. Thinking of his bayonet, he jerked it quickly from its scabbard.
"Fix—Bay'net!" yelled the ragged veterans.
And he did, though it was more from the promptings of his own hostile feelings than in obedience to the orders.
"Charge—Bay'net!"
Si had completely lost control of himself in his overpowering rage. With blood in his eye, he came to, a charge, glancing fiercely from one side of the road to the other, uncertain where to begin the assault.
Instantly there was a loud clicking all along the line. The Illinois soldiers, almost to a man, fixed their bayonets. Half of them sprang to their feet, and all aimed their shining points at the poor young Hoosier patriot, filling the air with shouts of derision.
It was plain, even to Si in his inflamed state of mind, that the odds against him were too heavy.
"Unfix—Bay'net!" came from half the regiment.
Si concluded he had better get out of a bad scrape the best way he could. So he took off his bayonet and put it back in its place. He shouted words of defiance to his tormentors, but they could not be heard in the din.
"Shoulder—Arms!" "Right—Face!" "Right shoulder shift—Arms!" "Forward—March!" These commands came in quick succession from the ranks amidst roars of laughter.
Si obeyed the orders and started off.
"Left—left—left!"
"Hayfoot—strawfoot!"
Forgetting his blisters. Si took the double-quick while the mob swung their caps and howled with delight.
Si didn't "ketch up" with the 200 Ind. until after it had gone into camp. Shorty had a quart of hot coffee waiting for him.
"Shorty," said Si as they sat by the fire,—"I'm goin' to drop dead in my tracks before I'll fall out again."
"Why, what's the matter?"
"Oh, nothin'; only you jest try it," said Si.
Had it not been for the "fun" the soldiers had in the army to brighten their otherwise dark and cheerless lives, they would all have died. Si was a true type of those who had to suffer for the good of others until they learned wisdom in the school of experience.
"I'VE GOT to have a man to drive team for a few days," said the Orderly of Co. Q of the 200th Ind. one morning at roll-call. "The teamster's sick and I'm goin' to send him to the hospital to-day."
The Orderly-Sergeant of Co. Q was a wily fellow. All Orderly-Sergeants have to be. If they are not naturally, they learn it very quickly, or lose the little diamond on their sleeves, if not all their stripes. The man who undertakes to manage 60 or 75 stalwart, high-spirited young Americans through all their moods and tenses, and every kind of weather, has to be as wise as a serpent, though not necessarily as harmless as a dove. Therefore, the Orderly-Sergeant didn't tell the boys what ailed the teamster. The fact was that the heels of the "off=wheeler" caught the teamster in the pit of the stomach and doubled him up so badly that he wouldn't be fit for duty for a week. It was worse than the green-corn colic.
"'Tisn't every man," continued the Orderly, "that's gifted with fust-class talent fur drivin' team. I'd like to find the best man to steer them animals, an' if there's a real sientifick mule-whacker in this comp'ny let him speak up an' I'll detail him right off. It'll be a soft thing fur somebody; them mules are daises."
Somehow they didn't all speak at once. The company had only had the team two or three weeks, but the boys were not dull of hearing, and ominous sounds had come to them from the rear of the camp at all hours of the night—the maddening "Yeehaw-w-w!" of the long-eared brutes, and the frantic ejaculations of the teamster, spiced with oaths that would have sent a shudder through "our army in Flanders."
So they did not apply for the vacant saddle with that alacrity which might have been expected, when so good a chance was offered for a soldier to ride and get his traps carried on a wagon. Whenever an infantryman threw away such an opportunity it is safe to assume that there was some good reason for it.
But the idea of riding for a few days and letting his blisters get well was too much for Si Klegg. Besides, he thought if there was any one thing he could do better than another it was driving a team. He had been doing it on his father's farm all his life. It is true, he didn't know much about mules, but he imagined they were a good deal like horses.
"I'm your man!" spoke up Si cheerfully.
"All right," said the Orderly. "Company, Right—Face! Break ranks—March!"
"There ain't any trouble about it!" Si said to Shorty as they walked back to the tent. "I reckon it's easy enough to manage mules if you go at 'em right. It'll be just fun for me to drive team. And say. Shorty, I'll carry all your traps on my wagon. That'll be a heap better'n totin' 'em!"
Si gathered up his outfit and started to enter upon his new sphere of usefulness.
"Shall I take my gun and bay'net along?" he asked the Orderly.
"Guess you'd better; they might come handy!" replied the Orderly, as he thought of the teamster's disastrous encounter with the "off-wheeler."
After Shorty had eaten his breakfast he thought he would go back to the tent and see how Si was getting on. With thoughtful care Si had fed his mules before appeasing his own appetite, and Shorty found him just waiting for his coffee to cool a bit.
"Why, them 'ere mules is jist as gentle'n' peaceful-like ez so many kittens. Look at 'em, Shorty!" and Si pointed with a proud and gratified air to where the six "daisies" were standing, three on each side of the wagon-pole, with their noses in the feed-box, quietly munching their matutinal rations, and whisking their paint-brush tails about in evident enjoyment.
Indeed, to look at those mules one who was ignorant of the peculiar characteristics of the species would not have thought that beneath those meek exteriors there were hearts filled with the raging fires of total depravity. Shorty thought how it would be, but he didn't say anything. He was sure that Si would find out about it soon enough.
The brigade to which the 200th Ind. belonged was to march in the rear of the long procession that day. This was lucky for Si, as it gave him an hour or two more than he would otherwise have had to get hitched up. But all the same he thought he would begin early, so as to be on hand with his team in good time.
"Want any help?" asked Shorty.
"No," said Si; "I can hitch 'em up slick's a whistle. I can't see why so many makes sich a fuss 'bout handlin' mules."
Shorty lighted his cob pipe and sat down on a stump to watch Si. "Kinder think there'll be a circus!" he said to himself.
Si got up from his coffee and hardtack, and addressed himself to the business of the hour. It proved to be just as much as he could attend to. When Si poured half a bushel of corn into the feed box it was all very nice, and the animals rubbed their heads against him to give expression to their grateful emotions. But when it came to putting on the harness, that was quite a different thing. The mere touch of a strap was enough to stimulate into baleful activity all the evil passions of mule-nature.
"Now, Pete and Jim and Susan, we must git ready to pull out!" said Si to his charge, in a familiar, soothing tone, preliminary to getting down to business. It was his evident desire to maintain the friendly relations that he thought he had already established. At the first rattle of the harness Pete and Susan and the rest, moved by a common impulse, laid back their ears and began to bray, their heels at the same time showing symptoms of impatience.
"Whoa, there—whoa!" exclaimed Si, in a conciliatory way, as he advanced with a bridle in his hand toward one of the big wheelers, whose ears were flapping about like the fans of a windmill.
Si imprudently crept up from the rear. A flank movement would have been better. As soon as he had got fairly within range the mule winked viciously, lowered his head, and let fly both heels. Si was a spry boy, and a quick dodge saved him from the fate of his predecessor. One of the heels whizzed past his ear with the speed of a cannon ball, caught his hat, and sent it spinning through the air.
Shorty, who was whittling up a piece of Kentucky twist to recharge his pipe, laughed till he rolled off the stump all in a heap. A few of the other boys had stayed out to see the fun, and were lounging around the outskirts of the corral. "Go for 'em, Si!" they shouted.
Si was plucky, and again advanced with more caution. This time he was successful, after a spirited engagement, in getting the bridle on. He thought he would ride him down to the creek for water, and this would give him a chance to get acquainted with him, as it were. He patted the animal's neck, called him pet names, and gently stroked his stubby mane. Alas, Si didn't know then what an utter waste of material it was to give taffy to an army mule.
With a quick spring Si vaulted upon the back of the mule. He started off in good shape, waving his hand exultingly to the boys with the air of a General who has just won a great battle.
All at once the animal stopped as suddenly as if he had run against a stone wall. He planted his fore feet, throwing his ears back and his head down. There was a simultaneous rear elevation, with the heels at an upward angle of about 45 degrees. Si went sprawling among the bushes. This performance was greeted with great enthusiasm by the fast increasing crowd of spectators.
"I oughter have told you that saddle-mule's the worst bucker in the Army o' the Ohio," said the Quartermaster-Sergeant, who was among the onlookers. "Why, he'd buck off the stripe that runs down his back, if he took it into his measly head. He bucked off a chattel mortgage, and that's the way he come into the army. You can't ride him without using one of Aunt Jemima's sticking plasters."
"Much obliged for your information. But I will ride him all the same," said Si, whose temper had risen to the exploding point. "I kin ride him if he ties himself in a double bow-knot."
Si was too much of a farmer boy to give in to anything that walked on four legs.
He had hung on to the bridle rein, and after addressing a few impressive words to the obstreperous mule he again leaped upon his back. The mule took a docile turn, his motive having apparently been merely to show Si what he could do when he took a notion.
The space at command will not permit us to follow Si through all the details of "hitching up" that team. He did finally "git thar, Eli," after much strategic effort. The mules brayed and kicked a good deal, and Si's wrath was fully aroused before he got through. He became convinced that soft words were of no account in such a contest, and he enforced discipline by the judicious use of a big club, together with such appropriate language as he could think of. Si hadn't yet learned to swear with that wonderful and appalling proficiency that was so soon acquired by the army teamsters. In the management of mules profanity was considered an invaluable accessory in times of great emergency.
At last Si climbed into the saddle, as proud as a King. Seizing the long, single line running to the "leaders"—by which contrivance the army team was always guided—he shouted "Git up, thar, Pete! G'lang Susan!" and the caravan started. But the unregenerated brutes didn't go far. Si was gaily cracking his whip, trying to hit a big blue-bottle fly that was perched on the ear of one of the "swing" mules.
As if by a preconcerted plan, the establishment came to a sudden halt and the mules began to rear and kick and plunge around in utter disregard of consequences. It didn't take more than a minute for them to get into a hopeless tangle. They were in all conceivable shapes—heads and tails together, crosswise and "every which way," tied up with the straps of the harness. The air in all directions was full of heels. There was a maddening chorus of discordant braying.
In the course of the scrimmage Si found himself on the ground. Gathering himself up, he gazed in utter amazement at the twisted, writhing mass. At this moment a messenger came from the Captain to "hurry up that team," and poor Si didn't know what to do. He wished he could only swear like the old mule drivers. He thought it would make him feel better. There was no one to help him out of his dilemma, as the members of the company were all getting ready for the march.
A veteran teamster happened along that way, and took in the situation at a glance. He saw that Si had bit off more than he could chew, and volunteered his assistance.
"Here, young feller," said he, "lemme show ye how to take the stiffenin' out o' them ere dod-gasted mules!"
Seizing the whip at the small end of the stock he began laying on right and left with the butt, taking care to keep out of range of the heels. During these persuasive efforts he was shouting at the top of his voice words that fairly hissed through the air. Si thought he could smell the brimstone and see the smoke issuing from the old teamster's mouth and nostrils. This is a section of what that experienced mule driver said, as nearly as we can express it:
"_________;;_____________!!!***???!!!! ____???________???!!!!"
Si thanked the veteran for these timely suggestions in the way of language, and said he would remember them. He had no doubt they would help him out the next time.
They finally got the team untied, and Si drove over to the company ground. The regiment had been gone some time, a detail having been left to load the wagon. After getting out upon the road the mules plodded along without objection, and Si got on famously. But having lost his place in the column in consequence of the delay, he was obliged to fall in rear of the division train, and it was noon before he got well started.
Along towards evening Si struck a section of old corduroy road through a piece of swamp. The passage of the artillery and wagons had left the road in a wretched condition. The logs were lying at all points of the compass, or drifting vaguely about in the mire, while here and there were seas of water and pits of abysmal depth.
To make the story short, Si's mules stumbled and floundered and kicked,—while Si laid on with the whip and used some of the words he had learned from the old teamster before starting.
At length the wagon became hopelessly stalled. The wheels sank to the hubs, and Si yelled and cracked his whip in vain. Perhaps if he had had the old teamster there to swear for him he could have pulled through, but as it was he gave it up, dismounted, hunted a dry spot, and sat down to think and wait for something to turn up.
Just before dark a large detail from Co. Q, which had been sent back on an exploring expedition for Si and his team, reached the spot. After hours of prying and pushing and tugging and yelling they at length got the wagon over the slough, reaching camp about midnight.
"Orderly," said Si, "I believe I'd like to resign my place as mule-driver. It's a nice, soft thing, but I'd jest as lief let s'mother feller have it, so I'll take my gun an' go to hoofin' it agin!"
"SEEMS to me it's 'bout time ter be gitt' into a fite!" said Si Klegg to Shorty one night as they sat around the fire after supper, with their shoes and stockings off, comparing the size and number of their respective blisters. Neither of them had much of the skin they started out with left on their feet. "I always s'posed," he continued, "that bein' a sojer meant fitin' somebody; and here we are roaming over the country like a lot of tramps. I can't see no good in it, nohow."
"Don't be in a hurry. Si," replied Shorty; "I reckon we'll ketch it soon 'nuff. From what I've hearn the old soldiers tell a battle ain't such a funny thing as a feller thinks who don't know anything about it, like you'n me. The boys is always hungry at first for shootin' and bein' shot at, but I've an idee that it sorter takes away their appetite when they gits one square meal of it. They don't hanker after it no more. It's likely we'll git filled full one o' these days. I'm willin' to wait!"
"Wall," said Si, "I sh'd think we might have a little skirmish, anyway. I'd like to have a chance to try my gun and to hear what kind of a noise bullets make. Of course, I'd ruther they'd hit some other feller besides me, but I'm ready to take the chances on that. I don't b'lieve I'd be afeard."
Si was ambitious, and full of the martial ardor that blazed in the breast of every young volunteer. He was really glad when the Orderly came around presently and told them that the 200th Ind. would have the advance next day, and Co. Q would be on the skirmish-line. He told the boys to see that their cartridge-boxes were all full and their guns in good order, as they would be very like to run foul of the rebels.
This was just before the battle of Perryville. The rebels were very saucy, and there seemed to be a fair prospect that the curiosity of the members of the 200th Ind. to "see the elephant" would be at least measurably gratified.
Before Si went to bed he cleaned up his gun and made sure that it would "go off" whenever he wanted it to. Then he and Shorty crawled under the blankets, and as they lay "spoon fashion," thinking about what might happen the next day. Si said he hoped they would both have "lots of sand."
All night Si dreamed about awful scenes of slaughter. Before morning he had destroyed a large part of the Confederate army.
It was yet dark when the reveille sounded through the camp. Si and Shorty kicked off the blankets at first blast of bugle, and were promptly in their places for roll-call. Then, almost in a moment, a hundred fires were gleaming, and the soldiers gathered around them to prepare their hasty breakfast.
Before the sun was up the bugles rang out again upon the morning air. In quick succession came the "general," the "assembly," and "to the colors." The 200th marched out upon the pike, but soon filed off into a cornfield to take its assigned place in the line, for the advance division was to move in order of battle, brigade front, that day.
In obedience to orders, Co. Q moved briskly out and deployed as skirmishers, covering the regimental front. As the line advanced through field and thicket Si Klegg's heart was not the only one that thumped against the blouse that covered it.
It was not long till a squad of cavalrymen came galloping back, yelling that the rebels were just ahead. The line was halted for a few minutes; while the Generals swept the surrounding country with their field glasses and took in the situation.
The skirmishers, for fear of accidents, took advantage of such cover as they could find. Si and Shorty found themselves to leeward of a large stump.
"D'ye reckon a bullet 'd go through this 'ere stump?" said Si.
Before Shorty could answer something else happened that absorbed their entire attention. For the time they didn't think of anything else.
'Boom-m-m-m!'
"Great Scott! d'ye hear that?" said Si through his chattering teeth.
"Yes, and there's somethin' comin' over this way," replied Shorty.
A shell came screaming and swishing through the air. The young Hoosiers curled around the roots of that stump and flattened themselves out like a pair of griddle-cakes. If it was Si that the rebel gunners were after, they timed the shell to a second, for it burst with a loud bang just over them. The fragments flew all around, one striking the stump and others tearing up the dirt on every side.
To say that for the moment those two soldiers were demoralized would be drawing it very mildly. They showed symptoms of a panic. It seemed as though they would be hopelessly stampeded. Their tongues were paralyzed, and they could only look silently into each other's white faces.
Si was the first to recover himself, although it could hardly be expected that he could get over his scare all at once.
"D-d-did it hit ye, Sh-Shorty?" he said.
"N-no, I guess not; b-b-but ain't it aw-awful. Si? You look so bad I th-thought you was k-k-killed!"
"Who's afeard?" said Si. "I was only skeered of you. Shorty. Brace up, now same's I do!"
"Skirmishers—Forward!" was heard along the line. "Come on, Shorty!" said Si, and they plunged bravely ahead.
Emerging suddenly from a thick wood, they came upon the rebel skirmishers in full view, posted on the opposite side of the field.
Crack! Crack!—Zip! Zip!
"Guess there's a bee-tree somewhere around here, from the way the bees are buzzin'," said Si.
"'Taint no bees," replied Shorty; "it's a mighty sight worse'n that. Them's bullets, Si Don't ye see the dumed galoots over yonder a-shootin' at us?"
Si was no coward, and he was determined to show that he wasn't. The shell a little while before had taken the starch out of him for a few minutes, but that was nothing to his discredit. Many a seasoned veteran found himself exceedingly limber under such circumstances.
"Let's give the rascals a dose," said he; "the best we've got in stock!"
Suiting the action to the word, Si crept up to a fence, thrust his gun between the rails, took good aim and fired.
A bullet from one of the other fellows made the splinters fly from a rail a foot or two from Si's head; but he was getting excited now, and he didn't mind it any more than if it had been a paper wad from a pea-shooter.
It makes a great difference with a soldier under fire whether he can take a hand in the game himself, or whether he must lie idle and let the enemy "play it alone."
"Did ye hear him squeal?" said Si, as he dropped upon the ground and began to reload with all his might. "I hit that son-of-a-gun, sure. Give 'em H—Hail Columbia, Shorty. We'll show 'em that the 200th Ind. is in front to-day!"
"Forward, men!" shouted the officers. "Go right for 'em!"
The skirmishers sprang over the fence and swept across the field at a "double-quick" in the face of a sputtering fire that did little damage. None of them reached the other side any sooner than Si did. The rebels seemed to have found out that the 200th boys were coming, for they were already on the run, and some of them had started early. Pell-mell through the brush they went, and the blue-blouses after them.
"Halt, there, or I'll blow ye into the middle o' next week!" yelled Si, as he closed up on a ragged specimen of the Southern Confederacy whose wind had given out. Si thought it would be a tall feather in his hat if he could take a prisoner and march him back.
The "Johnny" gave one glance at his pursuer, hesitated, and was lost. He saw that Si meant business, and surrendered at discretion.
"Come 'long with me!" said Si, his eyes glistening with pleasure and pride. Si marched him back and delivered him to the Colonel.
"Well done, my brave fellow!" said the Colonel.
"This is a glorious day for the 200th Ind., and you've taken its first prisoner. What's your name my boy?"
"Josiah Klegg, sir!" said Si, blushing to the very roots of his hair.
"What company do you belong to?"
"Company Q, sir!" and Si saluted the officer as nicely as he knew how.
"I'll see your Captain to-night, Mr. Klegg, and you shall be rewarded for your good conduct. You may now return to your company."
It was the proudest moment of Si's life up to date. He stammered out his thanks to the Colonel, and then, throwing his gun up to a right shoulder-shift, he started off on a canter to rejoin the skirmishers.
That night Si Klegg was the subject of a short conversation between his Captain and the Colonel. They agreed that Si had behaved very handsomely, and deserved to be promoted.
"Are there any vacancies in your non-commissioned officers?" asked the Colonel.
"No," was the reply, "but there ought to be. One of my Corporals skulked back to the rear this morning and crawled into a wagon. I think we had better reduce him to the ranks and appoint Mr. Klegg."
"Do so at once," said the Colonel.
Next morning when the 200th was drawn up in line an order was read by the Adjutant reducing the skulker and promoting Si to the full rank of Corporal, with a few words commending the gallantry of the latter. These orders announcing rewards and punishments were supposed to have a salutary effect in stimulating the men to deeds of glory, and as a warning to those who were a little short of "sand."
The boys of Co. Q showered their congratulations upon Si in the usual way. They made it very lively for him that day. In the evening: Si hunted up some white cloth, borrowed a needle and thread, went off back of the tent, rammed his bayonet into the ground, stuck a candle in the socket, and sewed chevrons on the sleeves of his blouse. Then he wrote a short letter:
"Deer Annie: I once more take my pen in hand to tell you
there's grate news. I'm an ossifer. We had an awful fite
yisterdy. I don't know how menny rebbles I kild, but I guess
thare was enuff to start a good sized graveyard. I tuk a
prizner, too, and the Kurnal says to me bully fer you,
Mister Klegg, or sumthin to that effeck. This mornin they
made me a Corporil, and red it out before the hull rijiment
I guess youd been prowd if you could have seen me. To-night
the boys is hollerin hurraw fer Corporal Klegg all over
camp. I ain't as big is the Ginrals and gum of the other
ossifers, but thars no tellin how hi I'll get in three
years.
"Rownd is the ring that haint no end,
So is my luv to you my friend.
"Yours, same as before,
"Corporal Si Klegg."
"CORPORAL Klegg, you will go on duty to-night with the camp guard!" said the Orderly of Co. Q one evening, as the 200th Ind. filed off into a piece of woods to bivouac for the night, two or three days after Si had been promoted.
The chevrons on his arms had raised Si several degrees in the estimation not only of himself, but of the other members of the company. His conduct in the skirmish had shown that he had in him the material for a good soldier, and even the Orderly began to treat him with that respect due to his new rank as one of the "non-commish."
Like every other man who put on the army blue and marched away so bold, "With gay and gallant tread," Si could not tell whether he was going to amount to anything as a soldier until he had gone through the test of being under fire. There were many men who walked very erect, talked bravely, drilled well, and made a fine appearance on dress parade, before they reached "the front," but who wilted at the "zip" of bullets like tender corn blades nipped by untimely frost. And a good many of them continued in that wilted condition. Perhaps they really couldn't help it. An inscrutable Providence had seen fit to omit putting any "sand in their gizzards," as the boys expressed it.
It must be confessed that Si was somewhat unduly elated and puffed up over, his own achievements as a skirmisher and his success in climbing the ladder of military rank and fame. It is true, it wasn't much of a fight they had that day, but Si thought it was pretty fair for a starter, and enough to prove to both himself and his comrades that he wouldn't be one of the "coffee coolers" when there was business on hand.
Si was sorry that his regiment did not get into the fight at Perryville. The 200th Ind. belonged to one of the two corps of Buell's army that lay under the trees two or three miles away all through that October afternoon, while McCook's gallant men were in a life-and-death struggle against overwhelming odds. It bothered Si as much to understand it all as it did 30,000 other soldiers that day.
Si responded with alacrity when he was detailed for guard duty. He had walked a beat once or twice as a common tramp, and had not found it particularly pleasant, especially in stormy weather; but now he was a peg higher, and he thought as Corporal he would have a better time. He had already observed that the rude winds of army life were tempered, if not to the shorn lambs, at least to the officers, in a degree proportionate to their rank. The latter had the first pick of everything, and the men took what was left. The officers always got the softest rails to sleep on, the hardtack that was least tunneled through by the worms, the bacon that had the fewest maggots, and the biggest trees in a fight.
"Forward—March!" shouted the officer in command, when the detachment was ready. Si stepped off very proudly, thinking how glad his good old mother and sister Marier and pretty Annabel would be if they could see him at that moment. He was determined to discharge his official duties "right up to the handle," and make the boys stand around in lively style.
When the guard reached the place selected for headquarters the officer drily lectured them in regard to their duties, impressing upon them the necessity of being alert and vigilant. There was only a thin picket-line between them and the enemy. The safety of the army depended upon the faithfulness of those appointed to watch while others slept. He gave them the countersign, "Bunker Hill," and ordered them under no circumstances to allow any person to pass without giving it, not even the Commanding General himself.
Then the guards were posted, the "beats" laid off and numbered, and as the fast-gathering shadows deepened among the trees the sentinels paced to and fro around the tired army.
For an hour or two after the guards were stationed all was quiet along the line. The noise of the great camp was hushed for the night, and no sound broke the stillness of the gloomy forest. The moon rose and peeped timidly through the branches.
"Corporal of the Guard; Post No. 6."
Si's quick ear, as he lay curled up at the foot of a tree, caught these words, rapidly repeated by one sentinel after another. It was his first summons. He sprang to his feet, gun in hand, his heart beating at the thought of adventure, and started on the run for "Post No. 6."
"What's up?" he said to the guard, with a perceptible tremor in his voice.
"There's one o' the boys tryin' to run the guards!" was the answer. "He's been out foragin', I reckon. He's got a lot o' plunder he wants to git into camp with. See him, out there in the bush?"
The forager, for such he proved to be, was nimbly dodging from tree to tree, watching for a chance to cross the line, but the alertness of the' guards had thus far kept him outside. He had tried to bribe one or two of the boys by offering to "whack up" if they would let him pass or give him the countersign, so that he could get in at some other point in the cordon. But the guards were incorruptible. They were "fresh" yet, and had not caught on to the plan of accepting an offered chicken, a section of succulent pig, or a few sweet potatoes, and then walking off to the remote limit of the beat, with eyes to the front, while the forager shot across the line in safety. They learned all about this after a while.
The raider tried to parley with Si, but Si wouldn't have it. Raising his gun to a "ready" he ordered the man to come in or he would put a hole through him.
The best thing to do under the circumstances was to obey. The forager, who belonged to Si's company, crept up to Corporal Klegg and in a conciliatory tone opened negotiations.
"You jest let me pass, and you may have your pick of this stuff," said he, holding up a fowl in one hand and a ham in the other. "It'll be all right, and nobody 'll ever know nothin' 'bout it!"
Si hesitated; it was human nature. The offer was a tempting one, but he remembered his responsibility to his country, and his stomach appealed in vain. Duty came before stewed chicken or roasted sparerib.
"Can't do it!" said Si. "You've got hold of the wrong man this time. I ain't goin' to have nobody monkeyin' 'round while I'm Corporal of this 'ere guard. Come along with me, and step out lively, too!"
Si marched the culprit back to headquarters and delivered him up to the officer, who commended Si for his fidelity.
Next day the ground back of the Colonel's tent was strewn with feathers, chicken bones, ham rinds, and potato skins, while the unlucky forager who had provided the field officers' mess with such a royal meal was humped around for two hours on "knapsack drill," and condemned to spend 24 hours in the guard-house.
An hour later Si had another experience. The Captain of Co. Q felt a kindly interest, and not a little pride in him, since the skirmish, and he thought he would take a turn that night and see whether his newly-made Corporal was "up to snuff."
"Post No. 3," was Si's second call. He responded promptly, and as he approached the guard the latter said:
"Corporal, here's the Cap'n, and he wants to get in! He hain't got the countersign; shall I pass him?"
"Good evening. Corporal!" said the Captain, as Si came up, at the same time extending his hand.
Si was thrown completely off his guard. Dropping the butt of his gun carelessly to the ground he replied cheerily, "Good evening, Cap'n," touching his hat by way of salute. Then he took the proffered hand, pleased at the Captain's mark of kindly recognition. He didn't understand the scheme then. "How are you getting on, Mr. Klegg?" "First rate!" said Si, with the air of one conscious that he had done his duty well. "I capchered a forager a little bit ago and took him to headquarters!"
"Well done, Corporal I have no doubt you will honor the good name of the 200th Ind. in general and Company Q in particular, I got caught outside to night, and I want to get back into camp. Of course, you know me and it's all right!"
"Certainly, sir!" said Si, as he stood leaning on his gun and allowed the officer to pass the magic line. "Good night, Cap'n!"
"Good night, Corporal! By the way," said the Captain, retracing his steps, "I notice that you do not carry your gun just right. Let me show you how to handle it!"
Si didn't know what a flagrant offense it was for a soldier on guard to let his gun go out of his hands; nor had he the faintest suspicion that the Captain was playing it on him. So he promptly handed his picee to the Captain, who immediately brought it down to a "charge," with the bayonet at Si's breast.
"Suppose, now, I was a rebel in disguise," said the Captain, "what kind of a fix would you be in?"
Light began to dawn upon Si, and he started back in terror at the thought of the mistake he had made.
"Of course, I wouldn't let anybody else have it," he stammered; "but I knew you, Cap'n!"
"That makes no difference to a man on duty. Corporal. You hang on to your gun the rest of the night, and if anybody—I don't care if it's Gen. Buell himself—insists on your giving it to him, let him have two or three inches of the point of your bayonet. Don't let anybody pass without the countersign, either! Come to my quarters when you are relieved tomorrow."
All this illustrates the way the officers had of testing new soldiers and teaching them a thing or two, when, as was frequently the case, they were not yet up to the mark. A trick of extra duty for the hapless novitiate was generally the penance for his simplicity.
The cold chills ran up and down Si's back as he took his gun and slowly returned to the guard fire. He felt that he had utterly spoiled his good record.
"Lieutenant," he said to the officer, "I wish you'd please detail a man to kick me for about an hour."
The Lieutenant wanted to know what the matter was, and Si told him all about it, ending with:
"So now I s'pose the Cap'n 'll yank the stripes off'n my blouse!"
The officer quieted his fears by assuring him that there was no cause for alarm. The Captain knew that he was trying to do his duty, and what he had done was for Si's own good.
Si sat down by the fire and was thinking it over when there was another call, "Corporal of the guard!" He was soon at the point indicated and found two officers on horseback, whom he recognized as the Colonel and Adjutant of the 200th Ind. Si's friend Shorty was the guard who had halted them.
"Now, Corporal Klegg," said Si to himself, laying his finger alongside his nose, "you jist watch out this time. Here's big game! Shouldn't wonder if them ossifers had bin out skylarkin', and they're tryin' to git in. Don't ye let 'em fool ye as the Cap'n did!"
Si was right in his surmise. The Colonel and Adjutant had been enjoying a good supper at a house half a mile away, and had not the slightest idea what the countersign was.
Si was determined not to "get left" this time. As he approached, the Colonel saw that it was soldier he had commended for his gallantry at the time of the skirmish.
"Ah, Corporal Klegg, I'm glad to see you so prompt in your duty. I was sure we had made no mistake when we promoted you. Of course, you can see who I am. I'm your Colonel, and this is the Adjutant. We are, unfortunately, outside without the countersign; but you can just let us through."
The Colonel's taffy had no effect on Si. He just brought himself into a hostile attitude, with his bayonet in fair range of the Colonel, as he replied:
"Colonel, my orders is to pass no livin' man unless he says 'Bunker Hill.' I'd be glad to do ye a good turn, but there's no use talkin'. I'm goin' to obey orders, and ye can't pass here."
The Colonel chuckled softly as he dismounted and came up to Si.
"It's all right," he said, "of course I know what the countersign is. I was only trying you."
"Hold on there," said Si, "don't come too close. If you've got the countersign, advance and give it. If ye ain't got it, I'll jest call the Officer of the Guard!"
Leaning over the point of Si's bayonet the Colonel gently whispered "Bunker Hill".
"Correct!" said Si, and bringing his gun to a shoulder, he respectfully saluted the Colonel. The latter started to remount, but turned back as he said:
"Just let me show you how to hold your gun. You don't—"
"Not if the court knows herself," said Si, again menacing the Colonel with his bayonet. "That's bin played on me once to-night, and if anybody does it again my name ain't Si Klegg!"
"That's right, Corporal," said the Colonel as he sprang into the saddle; "but don't tell anybody what the countersign is again! Good night!"
"Good night. Colonel," said Si, touching his hat. As the officers rode away Si began to think he had put his foot in it again. He was confirmed in this opinion by seeing Shorty sit down on a log in a paroxysm of laughter.
"You give yerself away bad this time!" said Shorty, as soon as he could speak. "What did ye tell him the countersign for?"
"Whew-w-w-w!" observed Si, with a prolonged whistle. "Shorty," said he, "I wish you'd take a club and see if you can't pound a little sense into me; I don't believe I've got any!" Without another word he shouldered his gun and returned to the guard headquarters. "Now I'm a goner, sure!" he said to himself.
On his way he found a guard sitting by a tree, sound asleep. Carefully taking away his gun Si awoke him, and frightened him half to death by telling him that he would report him and he would be shot for sleeping on post. Si finally said he wouldn't tell on him this time, but he must never do so again, or he would be a dead man.
"Corporal of the guard!" was heard again, sometime after midnight. "If they try any more measly tricks on me to-night somebody 'll git hurt!" thought Si as he walked briskly along the line in response to the call.
This time it was a "contraband"—an old negro, who stood shivering with terror as the guard held him at the point of the bayonet. Recalling the unlucky adventures of the night. Si imagined that it was one of the officers, who had blackened himself like a minstrel, and had come there purposely to "catch him."
"Ye can't get through unless ye've got the counter sign," said he, decisively; "and I shan't give it to ye, nuther! And ye needn't try to show me how to hold my gun! I can handle it well enough to shoot and punch the Bayonet!"
"Don't know what dat all means, boss," said the frightened negro; "but fer de good Lawd's sake don't shove dat t'ing frew me. I've only bin ober to de nex' place to a 'possum roast and I'se jist gwine home. I didn't know dese yer ge-yards was heah!"
Si didn't propose to take any chances, and so he marched the old contraband back and delivered him to the officer, who kept him till morning and then suffered him to go on his way.
Once more that night Si was called, in addition to his tramps with the "reliefs" and the "grand rounds." It was, perhaps, an hour before daylight, and Shorty was the guard who called him. He told Si there was something walking around in the woods, and he believed it was a rebel trying to creep up on them. He had challenged two or three times, but got no answer. The moon had gone down, and in the dark woods objects at any distance could not be distinguished.
"There, d'ye hear that?" said Shorty, as there came a sound of crackling sticks and rustling leaves.
"Halt!" exclaimed Si. "Who comes there?"
There was no response, and Si challenged again with like result.
"Shorty," said Si, "let's fire both together," and crack went their muskets.
For a moment there was a great floundering, and then all was still. As soon as it was light, and Shorty was relieved, he and Si went out to see the result of their fire. To their astonishment they found the prowler cold and stiff in death—they had shot a big gray mule.
On the whole, it was a busy and interesting night for Si. He did not lose his chevrons on account of his mistakes. But he learned something, and the lesson was impressed upon his mind by a few kindly words of caution and advice from the Captain of Co. Q.
THE long chase after Bragg from Louisville to the mountains of southeastern Kentucky was rough on the new troops. It weeded them out very fast, and in every town through which Buell's army passed the buildings were turned into hospitals and filled with sick and crippled soldiers, who had found out early that they were not physically able to endure the hardships of an active campaign. At the end of two or three weeks some of the new regiments were as much reduced in numbers as most of those that went out in '61 were during their first six months.
The 200th Ind. jogged along bravely, but its ranks had suffered the common skage. Not less than 400 of its men had fallen by the wayside, and were taking quinine and blue-mass and rubbing arnica on their legs all along the tortuous route.
Corporal Si Klegg and his friend Shorty proved to be "stayers." Full of life and ambition, they were always prompt for duty and ready for a fight or a frolic. No one was more quick than Si to offer a suffering comrade the last drop of fresh water in his canteen or give him a lift by carrying his gun a piece.
One day the regiment started out for an easy, comfortable day's march. The coast was clear of rebels, and there being no excuse for crowding on the steam, the boys were allowed to take their own gait, while the horses of the officers and cavalry had a chance to recover their wind.
It was a warm day late in October. The nights at this time were keen and frosty, but the sun at mid-day still showed much of his Summer vigor. Perspiration flowed freely down the faces of those wandering Hoosiers—faces that were fast assuming the color of half-tanned leather under the influence of sunshine and storm.
Once an hour there was the customary halt, when the boys would stretch their legs by the roadside, hitching their knapsacks up under their heads. When the allotted time had expired the bugler blew "Fall in," the notes of which during the next two years became so familiar to the ears of the 200th. Later in '64, the Indiana boys mingled their voices with the rest of Sherman's hundred thousand veterans as they sang:
"I know you are tired, but still you must go
Down to Atlanta to see the big show."
The soldiers were in good spirits. As they marched they fired jests at one another, and laughter rippled along the line.
The only thing that troubled them was the emaciated condition of their haversacks, with a corresponding state of affairs in their several stomachs. The Commissary Department was thoroughly demoralized. The supply train had failed to connect, and rations were almost exhausted. There was no prospect that the aching void would be filled, at least, in the regular way, until they reached a certain place, which would not be until the following day.
Strict orders against foraging were issued almost daily under the Buell dispensation. These were often read impressively to the new troops, who, in their simplicity, "took it all in" as military gospel.
The effect was somewhat depressing upon the ardor with which otherwise they would have pursued the panting pig and the fluttering fowl, and reveled in the orchards and potato-fields. A few irrepressible fellows managed to get a choice meal now and then—just enough to show that the 200th Ind. was not without latent talent in this direction, which only needed a little encouragement to become fruitful of results.
But these orders against foraging didn't hold the soldiers of the crop of 1861. It was like trying to carry water in a sieve. When rations were short, or if they wanted to vary the rather monotonous bill of fare, they always found a way to make up any existing deficiency.
On the day in question a few hints were thrown out which resulted in a tacit understanding that, in view of the actual need of the soldiers, if they got a good chance to pick up something the eyes of the officers would be closed. In fact, the officers were as hungry as the men, and hoped to come in for a "divide."
Soon after starting in the morning a persimmon tree, well laden with fruit, was seen in a field not far from the road. About fifty men started for it on a run, and in five minutes it was as bare as the barren fig tree.
The persimmon has some very marked peculiarities. It is a toothsome fruit when well ripened by frost, but if eaten before it has reached the point of full maturity, the effect upon one's interior is unique and startling. The pungent juices take hold of the mouth and pucker it up in such manner as to make even speech for a time impossible. The tongue seems as if it were tied in a knot. If the juice be swallowed, similar results follow all along its course. But the novice does not often get far enough for that.
The boys soon found that the 'simmons, although they looked very tempting, were too green to be eaten with any degree of enjoyment. So they filled their pockets with them to pucker up the regiment.
Shorty had joined in the scramble, telling Si he would bring him a good supply.
"Ain't them nice?" he said to Si, holding out three or four of the greenest ones he could find. "Eat 'em; they're jest gorjus! You can't help likin' 'em."
Si had never seen any persimmons before. They were certainly tempting to the eye, and he thought they were sent as manna was supplied to the children of Israel in the wilderness.
Eagerly seizing them, Si tossed one into his mouth and began to chew it with great vigor. The persimmon got in its work at once. It took hold with a mighty grip, wrinkling him up like the skins on scalded milk.
After sputtering vigorously a few minutes, while Shorty laughed at him. Si managed to get his tongue untwisted.
"Yes," said he, "them things is nice—in a horn! 'Twouldn't take many of 'em to make a meal!"
A little farther on Si's quick eye noticed a row of beehives standing on a bench in the yard of one of the natives. Si had a weakness for honey.
"Shorty," said he, "see them hives over there? How'd ye like to have some honey for supper?"
Shorty "allowed" that it would be a good thing. Si stopped and waited a few minutes until his own regiment got past, thinking his plan would be less liable to interruption. Then he leaped over the fence, went up to the hives, and boldly tipped one of them over, hoping he could get out a comb or two, fill up his coffee-kettle, and effect his retreat before the bees really found out what he was up to.
But the bees instantly rallied their forces and made a vigorous assault upon the invader. Si saw that it would be too hot for him, and without standing upon the order of his going he went at once, in a decidedly panicky state of mind. The bees made the most of their opportunity, using their "business ends" on him with great activity and zeal. They seemed to fully' share the common feeling in the South toward the "Yanks."
A pretty woman, standing on the porch, had watched Si's raid from the doorway. As he fell back in utter rout she screamed "Sarves ye right!" and then sat down on the doorstep and laughed till she cried. She enjoyed it as much as the bees did.
The latter took hold of Si in various places, and by the time he had caught up with the regiment one eye was closed, and there was a big lump on his nose, besides several more stings which the bees had judiciously distributed about his person. It was very evident that he had been overmatched and had come out second best in the encounter.
Corporal Klegg presented a picturesque appearance as he reached Co. Q. The boys fairly yelled with delight.
"Whar's yer honey?" said Shorty. "Pears like ye waked up the wrong passenger that time!"
Si laughed with the rest, rubbed salt on his stings, and plodded on, consoling himself with the thought that his was not the only case in which the merit of earnest effort had gone unrewarded.
Soon after noon the 200th came to a large patch of sweet potatoes. Si and Shorty, as well as a good many of the rest, thought it would be a good place to lay in a supply for supper, as they might not have another So good a chance. From all parts of the column the men, by dozens dashed into the field. In a moment there was a man at every hill, digging away with his bayonet, and chucking the tempting tubers into his haversack.
THERE WAS A MAN AT EVERY HILL
Two hours before going into camp the regiment passed a small spring, around which a crowd of soldiers were struggling to fill their canteens. There had been a long stretch without fresh water, and Si thought he would supply himself.
"Gimme your canteen, too, Shorty, and I'll fill it!" he said.
"Here, Si, you're a bully boy, take mine!" "Mine, too!" "And mine!" said one after another of his comrades. Si good naturedly complied and they loaded him down with about 20 canteens.
"All right," said Si, "I'll be along with 'em full d'reckly!"
He had to wait for his turn at the spring, and by the time he had filled all the canteens he was half an hour behind. Slinging them around his neck he started on, with just about as big a load as he could carry.
Si forged ahead, gradually gaining a little, through the tardy movement of the column that generally preceded going into camp. The canteen straps chafed his shoulders, his back ached, and perspiration streamed from every pore. The smoke of the campfires ahead told that the end of the day's march was near. He kept on and finally came up with Co. Q just as the 200th was stacking arms on the bank of a clear stream.
Si threw down his burdens of canteens, himself thoroughly blown and well-nigh exhausted.
"Purty good load, wasn't it, Si?" said Shorty. "But what made ye lug all that water in here? When ye saw they was goin' into camp ahead ye might ha' knowed there was plenty o' water. Why in blazes didn't ye turn the water out o' them 'ere canteens?"
"I'll be hanged if I thought o' that!" said Si, while the boys joined in a hearty laugh.
At the command "Break ranks" there was a general scamper to engage in the work of getting supper and preparing to spend the night with as much comfort as possible. The members of each mess scattered in all directions for water, rails, straw, etc., while some went out to scour the adjacent region for edibles.
These exercises the soldiers always entered into with the heartiest gusto, and the scene will be well remembered by all those who marched.
Si threw off his traps and dropped on the ground to rest a few minutes. He got up presently to scratch around with the rest. As he took hold of his haversack he was surprised at its lightness. When he laid it down it was bulging out with sweet potatoes, and a glance showed him that these were all gone.
"Dern my buttons!" exclaimed Si, as he forgot his weariness, and his eyes flashed fire. "If I am a Corporal, I kin jest mash the feller that stole my 'taters, I don't keer if he's ten foot high. Won't somebody show 'im to me? There won't be 'nuff of 'im left to hold a fun'ral over?"
Si pranced around in a high state of inflammation, and it is probable that if he had found the purloiner of his provender there would have been a harder fight than any that occurred between Buell and Bragg.
The boys winked slyly at one another, and all said it was too bad. It was a startling case of turpitude, and Si determined to have revenge by getting even with some other fellow, without pausing to consider the questions of moral philosophy involved.
"Come 'long with me. Shorty!" he said to his friend, and they strode away. Just outside the camp they came upon two members of some other new regiment coming into camp with a fine pig slung over a pole and two or three chickens in their hands. Shorty suggested to Si that this was a good chance for him to even up.
"Halt, there!" shouted Si to the foragers. "We're sent out to pick up such fellows as you!"
The effect was like a discharge from a masked battery. The men dropped their plunder and fled in wild confusion.
"Take hold 'o that pole, Shorty!" said Si, and laying it upon their shoulders they made a triumphant entry into camp.
There seemed to be no danger of immediate starvation in the ranks of the 200th. Each man appeared to have supplied himself during the day. On every hand fires gleamed brightly in the gathering twilight, and around them crowded the hungry soldiers, intent upon the simple culinary processes incident to the evening meal.
"YOU can take it easy to-day, boys, for we ain't goin' to move!" said the Orderly of Co. Q one morning at roll-call. "The orders is for to put the camp in nice shape, and for the men to wash up. We're goin' to have an extra ration of soap this mornin', and you fellows want to stir around lively and fix yerselves as if it was Sunday and ye was goin' to meetin'. The fust thing after breakfast all hands 'll turn out and p'leece ther camp."
"What in the world does he mean by p'leecin' the camp?" Corporal Klegg asked Shorty, as they stood by the fire making coffee and warming up the fragments of chicken that had been left over from supper the night before. "I didn't c'pose," said Si, "that we 'listed to be p'leecemen!"
Shorty replied that he didn't know, but he reckoned they'd find out soon enough. The 200th Ind. had been on the jump every day since leaving Louisville, and this was the first time it had been called on to "police" a camp.
As soon as breakfast was over the Orderly directed each man to provide himself with a small bundle of sticks, made by putting together a dozen bits of brush or "switches" three or four feet long, such as are used to rural pedagogs to enforce discipline. These, he said, were the implements used in policing camp, which meant brushing the leaves and loose debris outside the grounds.
"Does Corprils have to do that sort o' thing?" asked Si. He thought army regulations and camp usage ought to show some consideration for his rank. "What's the use of bein' a Corporil," he said to himself, "if it don't give a feller a chance to play off once in a while?"
"Corporals ain't no better'n anybody else," replied the Orderly, "'n' you can jist git some brush and go to work, 'long with the rest!"
Si was disposed to grumble a little, but he obeyed orders and was soon scratching up the leaves and dust with great zeal. He did not find it a particularly pleasant occupation, but the camp looked so much better when the job was done, that he thought it was not a bad thing, after all.
"Now, Shorty," said Si, "let's go down to the creek and do our washin'. My clothes has got to be biled, and I shouldn't wonder if yourn had, too."
"Yes, that's a fact!" said Shorty.
They got a big camp-kettle that had been used, and would be again, for making bean-soup, and started for the stream back of the camp. They had no change of clothing with them. Some days before, in order to lighten their knapsacks, they had taken out their extra shirts and drawers, tied them in a bundle, and put them on the company wagon, and this was somewhere back in the rear, owing to the confusion of the campaign.
"Seems to me," observed Si, "it ain't hardly a fair shake for Uncle Sam to make us do our washin'. They ought to confiscate the niggers 'n' set them at it; or I don't see why the Guvyment can't furnish a washin' masheen for each comp'ny! 'Twouldn't be no more'n the square thing!"
"The wimmen does the washin', ye know, Si, up where we live," said Shorty, "'n' I don't quite like the notion o' doin' that kind o' workt, but I can't jest see how we're goin' to git out of it. It's got to be done, that's sure!"
On the bank of the stream they quickly threw off their clothes for a bath. Si cast rueful glances at his nether garments as he laid them on the ground.
"Hadn't we better pile some rocks on 'em, Shorty?" said he. I'm affeared if we don't they'll crawl off into the bush.
"Guess we had," replied Shorty. "I b'lieve mine's started already!"
Having made sure of them, they plunged into the water. Far up and down the stream were hundreds of men, swimming and splashing about.
The soldiers availed themselves of every opportunity to enjoy this luxury.
Having thoroughly performed their ablutions. Si and Shorty turned their energies toward the clothes, which were in such sore need of soap and hot water. Putting their garments into the kettle and filling it with water, they built a fire under it. After half an hour of vigorous boiling they concluded they were "done." Plenty of soap, rubbing and rinsing finished the work, and the clothes sure presented a remarkable appearance, particularly the blue trousers.
"How're we going to git 'em dry?" asked Si, as he wrung out the last of his "wash."
"Hang 'em on the fence in the sun!" replied Shorty.
"But what'll we wear while they're dryin'?"
"Nothin', I reckon!"
So they spread out their garments, and then dashed again into the water. After splashing awhile they came out and drew on their half-dried trousers. Shorty lighted his pipe as they sat down to wait for the sunshine to do its perfect work. All along the stream were soldiers in similar stages of dishabille. It seemed like the Garden of Eden.
"Say, Shorty," said Si, "'taint very wicked to smoke, is it?"
"Guess not!" was the reply.
"That's the way it 'pears to me, 'n' I've been kinder thinkin' lately that I'd learn how. The soljers all seem to enjoy their smokin' so much. You know. Shorty, that I was always a reel good boy—never smoked, nor chawed terbacker, nor cussed, nor done nothin' that was out o' the straight an' narrer way. When I jined the regiment my good old mother says to me: 'Now, Si,' says she, 'I do hope ye'll 'member what I've always taught ye. I've beam 'em tell that they does dretful things in the army, and I want ye to see if ye can't be as good a boy as ye've been at home.' Of course, I told her I would, 'n' I mean, ter stick to it; but I don't b'lieve there's any harm in smokin'. Is it hard to learn?"
"Wall, I dunno; I reck'n ye can't most always tell till ye try. Take a whiff, 'nd see how she goes!" And Shorty handed him his pipe, which he had just refilled with whittlings of black "navy plug."
"Derned if I don't try it!" said Si, as he took the pipe and began to puff with great energy. He made a few wry faces at first, but Shorty told him to stick to it, and he bravely pulled away while the clouds of smoke curled above him.
It was not long till the color left his face, his head was in a whirl, and his stomach began to manifest eruptive symptoms.
"Shorty," he gasped, "I'm awful sick. If smokin' makes a feller feel like this I don't want any more of it in mine."
"Where's all yer sand ye brag so much about?" said Shorty, laughing. "You're mighty poor timber for a soljer if ye can't stand a little pipe o' terbacker like that. You'll get over it purty soon, and it won't bother ye any next time ye try it."
Si found that he had on hand about as much as he could manage with his dizzy head and the rebellion that was so actively going on at a point a little lower in his physical system. The feeling wore gradually off, however, and by the time he was able to walk their clothes were well dried. They proceeded to "dress up," and then returned to camp.
During the afternoon the camp was visited by natives, black and white, from the region round about, with corn "pones," alleged pies, boiled eggs, and truck of various kinds, which they sought to dispose of for a valuable consideration. They struck a bad crowd, however, in a financial sense. The members of the 200th Ind. were not at this time in a condition of opulence. Most of them had spent what money they brought from home, and they had not been out long enough yet to receive a visit from the Paymaster. The lank men and scrawny women cried their wares vociferously, but with indifferent results. The boys wanted the stuff, but they were "busted," and trade was dull.
Si looked wistfully at the "pies," and suggested to Shorty a joint investment. Their purses were nearly empty, but the temptation was too strong to be resisted.
"Them looks nice," said Si. They were the first pies he had seen since leaving home, and his judgment was a little "off." As a matter of fact, it was only by the greatest stretch of courtesy that they could be called pies at all. But the word touched Si in a tender spot, and he only thought of such as his mother used to make.
Si and Shorty "pooled in" and bought a pie. Impatiently whipping out his pocket knife Si tried to cut it in two. It was hard work, for the "crust"—so called—was as tough as the hide of a mule. By their united efforts they at length succeeded in sawing it asunder. It was a fearful and wonderful specimen of culinary effort. It was made of two slabs of sodden, leathery dough, with a very feeble layer of dried apples sandwiched between them.
Si tried his teeth on the pie, but it was like trying to chew an old boot-leg.
"I say, old lady," said he, turning to the female of whom he had bought it, "is these pies pegged or sewed?"
"Look a hyar, young feller," said the woman, with considerable vinegar in her tone, "p'raps you-uns-all thinks it's right smart to insult we-uns; it shows how yer wuz broughten up. I don't 'low yer ever seed any nicer dog-g-goned pies 'n them is. Ye needn't try ter argify 'long 'th me, fur I kin jest knock the spots off'n any woman there is 'round here in cookin'."
Si saw that it would be profitless to discuss the matter, and concluded to make the best of a bad bargain. But he wouldn't eat the pie.
On the whole, the hucksters fared rather badly. The boys confiscated most of the stuff that was brought in, promising to pay next time they came that way. There was a good deal of grumbling, but the trouble always ended in the soldiers getting the plunder.
The climax was reached when a putty-faced citizen drove into camp a bony mule tied with straps and ropes and strings to a crazy cart, on which was a barrel of cider, which he "allowed" to sell out to the boys at 10 cents a drink, or a quarter a canteen full. He had a spigot rigged up in one end and an old tin cup, with which he dealt out the seductive beverage to such as would pay.
A thirsty crowd gathered around him, but sales were slow, on account of the scarcity of money. Si and Shorty mingled with the boys, and then drew aside and engaged in a whispered consultation.
"That'll be jest bully!" said Shorty. "If you can raise an auger somewhere we'll git the bulge on that old chap."
Si returned after a brief absence, with an auger which he had borrowed from the driver of an ammunition wagon.
"Now, Shorty," said Si, "you git the boys to stand around and keep up a racket, and I'll crawl under the cart and bore a hole into that 'ere barrel. Then pass in yer canteens and army kettles 'n' we'll show the old man a trick!"
Shorty quietly broached the scheme to a few of his comrades, who fell in with it at once. Gathering around the cart, they cheered and chattered so as to drown any noise Si might make while carrying out his plan, and which would "give it away."
It was not more than a minute till a gurgling sound was heard, and Si began to pass out to the boys the buckets and canteens which they so freely furnished him, filled with the fast-flowing contents of the barrel. It didn't take long to empty it entirely, nor did the citizen discover the state of affairs until the cider no longer ran from the spigot.
He had not sold more than a gallon or two, and he was amazed when the liquid ceased to respond. Then he resolved himself into an investigating committee, and after a protracted search he discovered the trick that had been played on him.
"Wall, I'll be gosh-durned!" he exclaimed. "I've hearn tell 'bout Yankee tricks, but dog my cats if this 'ere don't beat 'em all! I'd like to cut the gizzard outen the rascal that bored the hole in that bar'l!"
"I declare, old pard; that was mean!" said Si, who stood looking on, with his hands in his trousers pockets, the very picture of innocence. "I'm jist goin' to flax 'round 'n' help ye find that feller. If I was you I'd pound the stuffin' out of him—when ye cotch him!"
"COMPANY Q's bin detailed to go out 'n' help guard a forage train to-morrow," said the Orderly one evening at roll-call. "You fellers wants to all be up 'n' dressed bright 'n' early, with yer cartridge-boxes full 'n' a day's rations in yer haversacks. Be sure yer guns is in good order, fer likely's not we'll have a squirmish afore we git back."
The 200th Ind. had been lying in camp for two or three days, and the ambitious heroes who composed that regiment were getting tired of loafing about. Nothing chafed the raging patriotism of the new troops like a condition, however brief, of masterly inactivity. They refused to be comforted unless they were on the warpath all the time. Their ideal of a soldier's life was to take a rebel battery every morning before breakfast, storm a line of works to give them an appetite for dinner, and spend the afternoon charging with cold steel the serried columns of the foe and wading around through seas of gore.
So Corporal Klegg and Shorty and the rest of the boys betook themselves with alacrity to the work of preparation for the duties of the morrow. Members of the other companies watched the proceedings with jealous eye. They almost turned green with envy because they were not detailed for the expedition instead of Co. Q.
"Say, Si," remarked Shorty, thoughtfully, "hadn't we better write a letter home? Who knows but we'll be as dead as mackerels to-morrer night!"
"Fiddlesticks!" said Si. "What's the use o' havin' a funeral afore there's any corpse! We've bin through one fight 'n' didn't git hurt, 'n' I've made up my mind there's no use gittin' into a stew over a thing that may hap'n 'n' may not. Time 'nuff to fret 'bout it when it comes. I recolleck one thing I learned in Sunday-school—let's see, it was 'S'ficient unto the day is the evil thereof,' or suthin' like that. Strikes me that's a good passidge o' Scripter fer a soldier to keep pasted in his hat. I ain't goin' ter hang back fer fear a billit 'll hit me, nuther. If we're going to be killed we can't help it, so let's not fret our gizzards out!" And Si crammed a handful of hardtack into his haversack.
Si's cheery view of the case was not without its effect upon Shorty. Indeed, it cannot be denied that there was a great deal of common sense in his homely, good-natured philosophy. Sooner or later every soldier who did not "peter out" came gradually to adopt Si's idea as the governing principle of his military career.
"Shouldn't wonder if you was 'bout right, after all," said Shorty, as he sliced up some bacon to have it ready for an early breakfast. "You're better'n medicine, Si, to a feller w'at gits the blues sometimes!"
The preparations were soon made, and Co. Q went to bed early. In the morning the Orderly came around and stirred the boys up an hour before reveille, as they were ordered to be ready to start at daylight. The primary object of the expedition was forage for the animals, the supply of which had run short. Besides this, each man had a secondary purpose, and that was to gather in something on his own hook that would satisfy his longing for a change from the regulation diet. This was always the unwritten part of the order to "go out foraging." Daylight was just streaking over the camp when Co. Q, equipped in light marching order, leaving knapsacks behind, moved out to where the half dozen wagons detailed from the regimental transportation were ready for the start. Each regiment in the brigade furnished a company and the same number of wagons. The impatient mules were braying and flapping their ears, as if they understood that they were to be the chief beneficiaries of the raid.
"Pile in, boys!" said the Orderly, and they clambered into the wagons. The guards were permitted to ride until there were symptoms of danger.
Then the muleteers, bestriding the big "wheelers," cracked their long whips like pistol-snots, addressed to the mules the usual words of exhortation, and the long procession drew out upon the stony pike and took a brisk trot. Considerable foraging had already been done in the vicinity, and it was expected the train would have to go out several miles in order to fully accomplish its object. The boys were in fine spirits and enjoyed their morning ride, albeit the jolting of the wagons gave them a thorough shaking up.
"I guess they forgot to put any springs in when they built these wagons!" said Shorty, as he shifted his position so that he might catch the bumps in a new place for a while.
"Jest thinkin' that way myself," replied Si; "but all the same, it beats travelin' on the hoof all holler!"
Three or four miles out from camp the train was halted while the officers in command made inquiries of a cadaverous native who was sunning himself on the fence and whose principal occupation seemed to be chewing tobacco and distributing the resultant liquid around in a promiscuous way.
"Good morning, stranger," said the officer, "have you any corn on your place?"
"Haint got a dog-goned ear left!" was the surly answer. "Some o' you-unses men wuz out here yisterdy 'n' tuk every bit I hed."
This may or may not have been true. Inquiries of this nature always developed the fact that it was a man's neighbors who had plenty of corn; he never had any himself.
"There's ole man Scroggs," he continued; "he lives a matter of two miles from hyar. I 'low ye'll git sum if ye go thar. He growed a power o' cawn this yeah; he sold a heap, but I reckon he's got a right smart left."
During this time a couple of men had been making a hasty examination of the outbuildings on the place. They reported that they could find nothing in the way of forage. If the man had any corn he had carefully concealed it. The train started on to pay a visit to old man Scroggs.
"Say, old pard," asked Si as his wagon drove past, "is there any rebs 'round here?"
"There wuz a few Confedrit critter-men ridin' 'bout hyar this mawnin';—mebby ye'll run agin 'em 'afore night."
"How many o' your boys is among em?"
"We'uns is all Union."
"Jest as long as we're 'round, I s'pose!" said Si.
A mile further on those who were in the lead, rising to the crest of a hill, saw—or thought they saw a few vagrant cavalrymen far ahead. The train was halted and dispositions were made to meet any emergency likely to arise. The men were ordered to "tumble out" of the wagons. The main body was formed in advance. A line of skirmishers was deployed in front and flankers were thrown out on either side. Thus protected, the mule drivers again cracked their whips and the procession moved cautiously forward.
"Now keep yer eyes skinned," said Si to Shorty as they trailed along through the woods and fields and over fences, on one of the flanks. "If any of them raskils comes dodgin' 'round here let's try 'n' have the first crack at 'em 'n' git the bulge on the rest o' the boys!"
Keenly alert, with muskets loaded and capped, they crept carefully along, poking their noses into every thicket and peering around every building. It was clear that there would not be anything in the nature of a surprise if the whole line was as well taken care of as the particular point guarded by Corporal Klegg and his faithful friend Shorty.
"It's some like huntin' squirrels up in the woods of Posey County," said Si, as they forced their way through a patch of brambles.
"'Pears to be rayther more excitin' than huntin' squirrels," said Shorty. "Ye know squirrels doesn't shute back at a feller as them pesky rebbles does, an' the fun 's all on one side. I reckon ef squirrels c'd shute there wouldn't be so much huntin' of 'em!"
It was really a disappointment to Si that he found no opportunity to squint along the barrel of his musket in range of a foe. If any of his misguided fellow-citizens were in the neighborhood they considered discretion the better part of valor and kept out of harm's way.
In due time the Scroggs plantation was reached. A hasty examination showed that there was an abundance of corn on the place to load the wagons, and arrangements for a sudden transfer of the property were quickly made. A third of the force established a cordon of picket-posts around the marauding party, covering all the avenues of approach, with re serves at convenient points. The remainder of the troops stacked arms and entered briskly upon the work of confiscation.
Part of the harvest had already been gathered, and the first assault
was made on a well-filled cornhouse—one of a group of dilapidated out-buildings a little way from the dwelling. "Old man" Scroggs protested with profane vehemence, reinforced by the "old woman" and the entire family of children. We say "entire family," because there could not well have been a more numerous progeny in one household anywhere outside of Utah.
The head of the family cursed and swore, and his wife and the big girls looked as if they wanted to do the same thing, as they stood wringing their hands, their eyes flashing fire while the small-fry stood around and sobbed with a vague idea that some dire calamity had befallen them.
The old Kentuckian declared that he was a "Union man," and that he would demand of the Government full revenge for this outrage. It was noticed that there were no young men around as there should be according to the economy of nature, to preserve the balance of sex in so large a family. The officer in command asked him where all his sons were.
"Wall, I kaint tell yer 'zactly whar they is," was the reply. "They ain't to hum jest now. I 'low they've got a right to g'way ef they want ter."
The officer had been informed that there were several representatives of the Scroggs family in the rebel army. The old man's avowal of loyalty was taken for what it was worth. That it was not rated at a high figure was well attested by the appearance of the plantation a few hours later.
Meanwhile the soldiers kept right along in the duty assigned them. The corn-house was surrounded by wagons, the roof was gently lifted off, and in scarcely more time than it takes to tell the story six or eight of the wagons were heaped with the contents. The mules wagged their tails and brayed in anticipation of the picnic they would have when they got back to camp.
Then the force moved some distance and attacked a large field of standing corn. The stalks had been "topped," but the ears were yet ungathered. The men started in between the rows and swept through that field like a cyclone, plucking the ears right and left. Bags, baskets and boxes were pressed into the service, and as there were not enough of these to go' round many bore the corn to the wagons by armfuls. It did not take more than two or three hours to strip every ear from the field. A visitation of overgrown Kansas grasshoppers could not have done a more thorough job.
"Fo' de Lawd, boss," said an old darky who had been roosting on the fence watching the spoilers, "I nebber seed de crap gaddered so quick since I'se bawn. You'uns all is powerful smart, da't shuah!"
But where were Corporal Klegg and his comrade. Shorty, while all this was going on?
They had been stationed as sentinels near a house, half a mile beyond, on the pike. They were cautioned to keep a sharp lookout, and for a time they obeyed their instructions to the letter. Their vigilant eyes swept the surrounding country, and no rebel could have crept up on them without getting a pair of bullets from their ready muskets. They saw no signs of an enemy, and after a while it began to grow monotonous.
"Shorty," said Si, "I don't b'lieve there's any seceshers in these parts, an' there ain't any use'n us both keepin' this thing up. You jest watch out awhile 'n' I'll skin around 'n' see what I kin find."
Shorty agreed to this, taking it as an order from his superior officer. Si threw his gun up to a "right shoulder shift" and started off, after again urging upon his companion the importance of attending strictly to business.
Si had not gone far till he saw, penned in a corner of the barnyard, a cow with a full udder, from which a frisky young calf was busily engaged in pumping nourishment. A violent feeling of envy toward that calf began immediately to rage in the 'breast of Si. He had not had a draft of fresh milk since he had left home, and he felt that a little refreshment of that kind would be particularly gratifying to his interior organism. It would strengthen him and give him new courage to stand up to the rack if they should happen to get into a fight.
"I say. Shorty," he called, "cum 'ere a minnit, quick!"
Si's conscience smote him for calling Shorty from his duty and leaving the post unguarded, but the temptation was too strong for him to resist, and he yielded to the impulse to take the chances. Shorty came on the run, with eyes wide open, thinking his comrade had discovered some rebels hanging around.
"Look there!" said Si, pointing to the maternal scene that has been alluded to. "Let's have some o' that. We'll git over the fence 'n' you jest hold the calf while I milk our canteens full. 'Twont take more'n a jiffy!"
"We ort n't to leave the post, ort we?" suggested Shorty.
"Oh, there ain't no danger," Si replied; "an' besides, you can keep lookin' out while you're hangin' on to the calf. I was alters a good milker 'n' I'll fill up these canteens in a couple o' minnits." So they climbed over and leaned their muskets against the fence. Shorty seized the calf and held it with a firm grip, in spite of its struggling and bleating. The cow seemed disposed at first to resent the interference, but Si's persuasive "So, bossy" proved effectual in calming her fears, and she stood placidly chewing her cud while Si, spurred on by a guilty conscience, milked with all his might.
The canteens were soon filled, and, with out stopping to drink. Si and Shorty hurried back to their post of duty. All was quiet, and no harm had resulted from their brief absence.
"I told ye 'twould be all right," said Si. "Now, we'll jest empty one o' these canteens—here, take a swig—'n' we'll carry the other to camp. It'll be jest bully to have milk in our coffee agin!"
Then they betook themselves to duty with redoubled vigilance, to atone for their derelictions. After watching for an hour without seeing anything, Si said he would take another little turn around the place.
Boldly advancing to the house, which was some distance in front of their post, he was met by a girl of about 18. She was rather pretty, but to Si's ardent imagination she was like a vision of surpassing loveliness. She greeted him pleasantly—for Si was a comely youth—and, if the truth must be told, he actually forgot for the moment all about his duty. When she said she would get him a good dinner, and invited him into the house to sit while she prepared it, he just went right along.
But his conscience began to thump so loudly that after a few minutes he told her he guessed he'd have to go, but would be delighted to return in an hour and partake of her hospitality.
"May I bring Shorty—he's my pard—'long with me?" he timidly asked.
"Certainly!" she replied, with a sweet smile; and Si went away, his nerves tingling with pleasant emotions to the very tips of his fingers.
"Shorty," he said, as he came up to "I've struck it this time. Over to that house there's the purtiest gal I ever see."
"Wha-a-a-a-t!" interjected Shorty, with a look of astonishment; for he knew something about Si and Annabel—the girl he left behind him—and he was both surprised and pained at Si's treasonable enthusiasm.
Si easily divined his thoughts, for something of the same nature had already caused his own heart to palpitate in a reproving way.
"Of—c-c-course—I d-d-don't—mean th-th-that. Shorty," he stammered "but she's a nice girl, anyhow, 'n' she's gittin' up a dinner fer me 'n' you. Bet ye it'll be a nice lay-out, too!"
Shorty did not feel quite at ease in his mind about leaving the post again, but Si assured him it would be all right. The peculiar circumstances of the case had sadly warped Si's judgment.
So they went to the house and were cordially greeted by their fair young hostess, who was flying around, putting the finishing touches to the meal she had prepared for them.
"Jiminy, don't that smell good?" said Si to Shorty in an undertone, as his sensitive nostrils caught the savory odors that arose from the nicely-spread board.
The young soldiers stood their guns on the floor in a corner of the room, preliminary to an assault on the edibles.
"Ugh!" exclaimed the young woman, with a coquettish shiver, "be them awful things loaded?"
"N—no!" said Si; "they won't hurt ye if ye don't touch 'em!"
Si was learning to fib a little, and he wanted to quiet the girl's fears.
The boys were soon seated at the table, bountifully supplied with ham, chicken, eggs, bread and butter, honey, and all the accessories of a well-ordered repast. They fell to with an eagerness that was, perhaps, justified by the long time that had elapsed since they had had a "square meal." Si thought that never in his life had anything tasted so good.
While they were thus engaged, without a thought of impending danger, the girl suddenly opened the door, leading to the dining room. A wild-eyed man—who proved to be her brother—in the uniform of a rebel soldier, dashed in, and, presenting a cocked revolver, demanded their unconditional and immediate surrender.
They were in a tight place. But Si proved equal to the sudden and appalling emergency. It flashed through his mind in an instant how the girl had "played it" on him. He made up his mind that he would rather be shot than be captured under such circumstances.
Si sprang up, and the rebel, true to his word, fired. Si dodged, and the ball only chipped a piece from his left ear. There was not time to get and use his gun. With the quickness of a cat Si sprang upon him, and with a blow of his fist laid him sprawling upon the floor. Disarming him, he placed the revolver at his head and triumphantly exclaimed:
"Now, gol durn ye, you're my prisoner. I'd like to blow the top o' yer head off fer spilin' my dinner, but I won't do it this time. But you jist git up 'n' come 'long with me!"
With his complete mastery of the situation, Si's confidence returned, and Shorty, who had been dazed and helpless at first, recovered himself and came to his assistance.
But at this instant their ears caught the sound of horses' hoofs galloping down the pike. Si's quick perception told him that is was a dash of rebel cavalrymen, and that a few moments later escape would be impossible.
"Grab yer gun an' git!" he said to Shorty, at the same time casting one ferocious glance at the terrified girl, who stood, white and speechless, contemplating the scene.
Si and Shorty dashed out of the house and started for the reserve, at the highest speed of which their legs were capable. On clattered the horses, and a few shots from the carbines of the swift-riding horsemen whistled through the air.
Six feet at a jump, with thumping hearts and bulging eyes, the fugitives almost flew over the ground, throwing quick glances at their pursuers, and then ahead, in the hope of catching a glimpse of succor.
"Shorty, if we only git out o' this—" but Si found he hadn't any wind to spare to finish the sentence. We must leave to the reader's imagination the good resolutions as to his future conduct that were forming in Si's mind at this critical juncture. He saw the awful consequences of yielding to the influence of that alluring young woman and her seductive dinner. What he had read about Adam and the trouble Eve got him into, in pretty much the same way, flashed before him. It was a good time to resolve that he wouldn't do so any more.
Shorty, long and lank, was swifter on his feet than Si. Hardtack and bacon had not yet reduced the latter's surplus flesh to a degree that enabled him to run well. Shorty kept ahead, but would not desert his comrade, slowing up for an instant now and then to give Si, who was straining to the utmost every nerve, and puffing like a locomotive on an upgrade, a chance to keep within supporting distance.
The soldiers of the reserve taking the alarm, came out at a double-quick and were fortunately able to cover the retreat of Si and Shorty. The half dozen cavalrymen, upon the appearance of so large a force, turned their horses and galloped away.
"Hello, Si," said the Orderly of Co. Q, "yer ear's bleedin'. What hurt ye?"
"Fell down and scratched it on a brier!" said Si, as soon as he was able to speak.
That night Si and Shorty sat on a log by the campfire talking over the events of the day.
"Don't ye never blow on this thing," said Si. "It'll be a cold day for us if they'd find it out."
"There ain't no danger o' my tellin'," replied Shorty. "But, say, ain't that a nice girl out there?"
"She's a mean rebel, that's what she is! But that was a smart trick o' her'n, wasn't it?"
"Come mighty near bein' too smart fer us!" replied Shorty. "I don't want no more such close shaves in mine. You 'member the story of the spider and the fly, don't ye? Well, she was the spider 'n' we was two poor little fool flies!"
"Shorty," said Si, "I'd a mighty sight ruther be an angel an' have the daisies a-bloomin' over my grave, than to have been tuk a prisoner in that house. But that dinner was good, anyhow—what we got of it!"
"TOMORROW'S Sunday, ye know," said the Orderly of Company Q one Saturday night at roll-call.
This was in the nature of news to the boys. But for the announcement very few of them would have known it. The Orderly was not distinguished for his piety, and it is not likely that the approach of Sunday would have occurred to him if the Sergeant-Major had not come around with orders from the Colonel for a proper observance of the day. The Colonel himself would not have thought of it either, if the Chaplain had not reminded him of it. Everybody wondered how even the Chaplain could keep track of the days well enough to know when Sunday came—but that was chiefly what he wore shoulder-straps and drew his salary for. It was the general impression that he either carried an almanac in his pocket, or else a stick in which he cut a notch every day with his jack-knife, and in that way managed to know when a new week began.
"There'll be guard-mountin' at 9 o'clock," continued the Orderly, "regimental inspection at 10, preachin' at 11, an' dress-parade at 5 in the evenin'. All of ye wants to tumble out right promptly at revellee an' git yer breakfast, an' then clean up yer guns an' put all yer traps in apple-pie order, 'cause the Colonel's goin' to look at 'em. He's got sharp eyes, an' I reck'n he'll be mighty pertickler. If there's anything that ain't jest right he'll see it quicker'n litenin'. Ye know we hain't had any inspections yet, an' the Cap'n wants us to be the boss company. So ye've got to scratch around lively in the mornin'."
"Say," said Corporal Klegg, after the company had broken ranks, "seems to me there wa'n't no use in the Orderly tellin' us to 'scratch around,' fer we're doin' that purty much all the time, now that the graybacks is gittin' in their work on us."
Shorty smiled faintly at what he seemed to consider a rather feeble joke, even for Si.
The 200th Ind. had now been in the field for many weeks, but it had been continually cantering about the country, and the Generals had kept it particularly active on Sundays. Probably this regiment did not manifest any more than the average degree of enthusiasm and fervor in religious matters, but there were many in its ranks who, at home, had always sat under Gospel ministrations, and to tramp on Sundays, the same as other days, was, at first, a rude shock to their moral sensibilities. These were yet keen, the edges had not been worn off and blunted and battered by the hard knocks of army life. True, they could scarcely tell when Sunday came, but they knew that they kept right along every day.
"Shorty," said Si, after they had curled up under the blanket for the night, "'pears to me it'll seem sort o' nice to keep Sunday agin. At the rate we've bin goin' on we'll all be heathens by the time we git home—if we ever do. Our Chaplain haint had no chance to preachify yet. The boys of Comp'ny X, w'at knows him, says he's a staver, 'n' I b'lieve it'll make us all feel better to have him talk to us once. 'Twont do us no harm, nohow, I'd like to be home to-morrer 'n' go to church with mother, 'n' sister Marier, 'n'—er—I mean the rest of the folks. Then I'd jest eat all the afternoon. I ain't goin' ter git homesick, Shorty; but a feller can't help feelin' a little streaked once 'n' a while. Mebbe it's a good idee fer 'em to keep us on the jump, fer then we don't git no chance to think 'bout it. I don't suppose I'm the only boy 'n the regiment that 'd be glad to git a jest fer to-morrer. I sh'd want ter be back bright 'n' arly to fall in Monday mornin', fer I'm goin' to stick to the 200th through thick 'n' thin, if I don't git knocked out. Say, Shorty, how d'ye feel, any way?"
But Shorty was already fast asleep. Si spooned up to him and was soon, in his dreams, away up in Posey County.
The sound of the bugle and drum, at daylight, fell upon unwilling ears, for the soldiers felt the same indisposition to get up early Sunday morning that is everywhere One of the characteristics of modern civilization. Their beds were hard, but to their weary limbs no couch of down ever gave more welcome rest than did the rough ground on which they lay. But the wild yell of the Orderly, "Turn out for roll-call!" with the thought of the penalties for non-obedience—which some of them had abundant reason to remember—quickly brought out the laggards.
Si and Shorty were, as usual, among the first to take their places in line. They were pleasantly greeted by the Captain, who had come out on the run at the last moment, and wriggled himself into his coat as he strode along the company street. The Captain did not very often appear at morning rollcall. But one officer of the company was required to be present, and the Captain generally loaded this duty upon the Lieutenants "turn about." If he did show up, he would go back to bed and snooze for an hour while the cook was getting breakfast. If one of the men did that he would soon be promenading with a rail on his shoulder or standing on a barrel with a stick or a bayonet tied in his mouth.
"I think that's a fust rate notion to mount the guards," said Si to Shorty as they sat on a rail by the fire making coffee and frying bacon. "It'll be so much better 'n walkin' back 'n' forrard on the beats. Wonder 'f they'll give us bosses or mules to ride."
"I'd like to know what put that idee into yer head," said Shorty.
"Whydn't the Ord'ly say last night there 'd be guard-mountin' at 9 o'clock this mornin'? I s'posed that fer a man to be mounted meant straddlin' a boss or s'mother kind of an animal."
"Ain't ye never goin' to larn nuthin'," said Shorty, with a laugh. "Guard-mountin' don't mean fer the men to git on hosses. It's only the name they gives it in the Army Reggelations. Dunno why they calls it that, 'nless it's 'cause the guards has to 'mount' anybody that tries to pass 'thout the countersign. But don't ye fool yerself with thinkin' yer goin' to get to ride. We'll keep pluggin' along afoot, on guard or anywhere else, same's we have all the time."
Thus rudely was shattered another of Si Klegg's bright illusions.
The whole regiment turned out to witness the ceremony of guard-mounting. It was the first time the exigencies of the campaign had permitted the 200th Ind. to do this in regular style. The Adjutant was the most important personage, and stood so straight that he narrowly escaped falling over backward. In order to guard against making a mess of it, he had spent half the night rehearsing the various commands in his tent. Thus prepared, he managed to get through it in very fair shape.
The next thing on the program for the day was the inspection. The boys had been industriously engaged in cleaning up their muskets and accouterments, and putting their scanty wardrobes in presentable condition. In arranging his knapsack for the Colonel's eye, each man carefully laid a clean shirt, if he had one, on the top. The garments that were not clean he either stowed away in the tent or put at the bottom of the knapsack. In this he was actuated by the same principle that prompts the thrifty farmer to put the biggest apples and strawberries at the top of his measure.
The clothing of the regiment was already in an advanced stage of demoralization. It was of the "shoddy" sort that a good hard wind would almost blow to pieces.
Corporal Klegg was anxious that not only his person, but all his belongings, should make as good an appearance as possible. He put on the best and cleanest garments he had, and then betook himself to fixing his knapsack so it would pass muster.
"Them duds is a bad lot," he said to Shorty, casting rueful glances at the little heap of soiled and ragged clothes. "Purty hard to make a decent show with them things."
"Wait a minute," said Shorty, "an' I'll show ye a little trick."
Taking his poncho under His arm. Shorty went to the rear of the camp, where the mules were feeding, and presently returned with a bunch of hay.
"What ye goin' to do with that?" asked Si.
"You jest do 's I tell ye, and don't ask no questions. Cram some o' this hay into yer knapsack 'n' fill 'er up 'n' then put a shirt or suthin', the best ye kin find, on top, 'n' the Colonel 'll think she's full o' clothes right from the laundry. I'm goin' to fix mine that way."
"Shorty, you're a trump!" said Si, approvingly. "That 'll be a bully scheme."
It required but a few minutes to carry out the plan. The hay was stuffed into the knapsack, and all vagrant spears were carefully tucked in.
Then a garment, folded so as to conceal its worst features, was nicely spread over the hay, the flaps were closed and buckled, and the young Hoosiers were ready for inspection.
"S'posen the Colonel sh'd take a notion to go pokin' down into them knapsacks," said Si; "don't ye think it'd be purty cold weather for us?"
"P'r'aps it mout," answered Shorty; "but we've got ter take the chances. He's got seven or eight hundred knapsacks to 'nspect, 'n' I don't b'lieve he'll stick his nose down into very many on 'em!"
At the appointed time the battalion was formed and the inspection was gone through with in good style. The Colonel and the field and staff officers, escorted by the Captain of each successive company, moved gradually between the ranks, their swords dangling around and getting mixed up with their legs. The soldiers stood facing inward like so many wooden men, with their open knapsacks lying upon the ground at their feet. The Colonel looked sharply right and left, stopped now and then to commend a soldier whose "straps" were in particularly good condition, or to "go for" another whose slouchy appearance betokened untidy habits. If a button was missing, or a shoe untied, his eye was keen to detect it, and a word of reproof was administered to the delinquent.
As the Colonel started down the line of Company Q Si watched him out of the corners of his eyes with no little anxiety. His heart thumped as he saw him occasionally stoop and fumble over the contents of a knapsack, evidently to test the truth of Longfellow's declaration that "things are not what they seem." What if the Colonel should go down into the bowels of Si's knapsack! Si fairly shuddered at the thought.
Si, being the shortest of the Corporals, was at the foot of the company, while Shorty, on account of his hight, was well up toward the head. Si almost fainted when he saw the Colonel stop in front of his "pard" and make an examination of his fatlooking knapsack. Military official dignity gave way when the removal of the single garment exposed the stuffing of hay. The officers burst into a laugh at the unexpected revelation, while the boys on either side almost exploded in their enjoyment of Shorty's discomfiture.
"Captain," said the Colonel, with as much sternness as he could command, "as soon as your company is dismissed detail a guard to take charge of this man. Have him take the hay out of his knapsack and fill it with stones—and see that it is filled full. Have this man put it on and march him up and down the company street till church-call, and then take him to hear the Chaplain. He needs to be preached to. Perhaps, between the knapsack-drill and the Chaplain, we can straight him out."
Corporal Klegg heard all this, and he wished the ground might open and swallow him. "These stripes is gone this time, sure!" he said to himself, as he looked at the chevrons on his arm. "But there's no use givin' yourself away, Si. Brace up, 'n' mebbe the Colonel 'll skip ye."
Si had been badly shaken up by the Colonel's episode with Shorty, but by a great effort he gathered himself together and was at his best, externally, when the Colonel reached him, though his thoughts were in a raging condition. His face was clean and rosy, and his general make-up was as good as could be expected under the circumstances.
The Colonel had always remembered Si as the soldier he had promoted to be a Corporal for his gallantry in the little skirmish a few days before. As he came up he greeted the Corporal with a smile and a nod of recognition. He was evidently pleased at his tidy appearance. He cast a glance at the voluptuous knapsack, and Si's heart seemed to sink away down into his shoes.
But the fates smiled on Si that day. The Colonel turned to the Captain and told him that Corporal Klegg was the model soldier of Company Q. Si was the happiest man in the universe at that precise moment. It was not on account of the compliment the Colonel had paid him, but because his knapsack had escaped a critical inspection of its contents.
The inspection over, Company Q marched back to its quarters and was dismissed. Poor Shorty was soon tramping to and fro, under guard, humping his back to ease the load that had been put upon it. Si was very sorry for him, and at the same time felt a glow of pleasure at the thought that it was not his own knapsack instead of Shorty's that the Colonel had examined. He could not help feeling, too, that it was a great joke on Shorty to be caught in his own trap.
Shorty took his medicine like a man, marching up and down the row of tents bravely and patiently, unheeding the gibes and jeers of his hard-hearted comrades.
The bugle sounded the call for religious services. Shorty was not in a frame of mind that fitted him for devout worship. In fact, few in the regiment had greater need of the regenerating influence. He had never been inside of a church but two or three times in his life, and he really felt that to be compelled to go and listen to the Chaplain's sermon was the hardest part of the double punishment the Colonel had inflicted upon him.
The companies were all marched to a wooded knoll just outside the camp. Shorty went by himself, save the companionship of the guard, with fixed bayonet. He had been permitted to leave his knapsack behind. He was taken to a point near the Chaplain, that he might get the full benefit of the preacher's words.
Under the spreading trees, whose foliage was brilliant with the hues of Autumn, in the mellow sunshine of that October day the men seated themselves upon the ground to hear the Gospel preached. The Chaplain, in his best uniform, stood and prayed fervently for Divine guidance and protection and blessing, while the soldiers listened, with heads reverently bowed. Then he gave out the familiar Methodist hymn,
"Am I a soldier of the cross,"
and all joined in the old tune "Balerma," their voices swelling in mighty chorus. As they sang,
"Are there no foes for me to face?"
there came to the minds of many a practical application of the words, in view of the long and fruitless chase after the rebels in which they had been engaged for nearly a month.
The Chaplain had formerly been an old-fashioned Methodist circuit-rider in Indiana. He was full of fiery zeal, and portrayed the terrors of eternal punishment so vividly that His hearers could almost feel the heat of the flame and smell the fumes of brimstone that are popularly believed to roll out unceasingly from the mouth of the bottomless pit. It ought to have had a salutary effect upon Shorty, but it is greatly to be feared that he steeled his stubborn heart against all that the Chaplain said.
It was always difficult not to feel that there was something contradictory and anomalous about religious services in the army. Grim-visaged, hideous war, and all its attendant circumstances, seemed so utterly at variance with the principles of the Bible and the teachings of Him who was meek and lowly, that few soldiers had philosophy enough to reconcile them.
The soldiers spent the afternoon in reading what few stray books and fugitive, well-worn newspapers there were in camp, mending their clothes, sleeping, and some of them, we are pained to add, in playing eucher, old sledge, and other sinful games. Dress parade closed the day that had brought welcome rest to the way-worn soldiers of the 200th Ind..
"Shorty," said Si, after they had gone to bed that night, "I sh'd be mighty sorry if I'd ha' got up that knapsack trick this mornin', 'cause you got left on it so bad."
"There's a good many things," replied Shorty, "that's all right when ye don't git ketched. It worked tip top with you, Si, 'n' I'm glad of it. But I put ye up to it, 'n' I shouldn't never got over it if the Colonel had caught ye, on account of them stripes on yer arm. He'd ha' snatched 'em baldheaded, sure's yer born. You're my pard, 'n' I'm jest as proud of 'em as you be yerself. I'm only a privit,' 'n' they can't rejuce me any lower! Besides, I 'low it sarved me right 'n' I don't keer fer the knapsack drill, so I didn't git you into a scrape."
THAT IN THE ARMY THE MOST LIKELY THING TO HAPPEN IS SOMETHING ENTIRELY UNLIKELY.
COL. TERRENCE P. McTARNAGHAN, as his name would indicate, had first opened his eyes where the blue heavens bend over the evergreen sod of Ireland. Naturally, therefore, he thought himself a born soldier, and this conviction had been confirmed by a year's service as Second Lieutenant of Volunteers in the Mexican War, and subsequent connection with the Indiana Militia. Being an Irishman, when he went in for anything, and especially soldiering, he went in with all his might. He had associated with Regular Army officers whenever there was an opportunity, and he looked up to them with the reverence and emulation that an amateur gives to a professional. Naturally he shared their idea that an inspection and parade was the summit of military art. Consequently, the main thing to make the 200th Ind. the regiment it should be were frequent and rigid inspections.
Fine weather, two days of idleness, and the prospect that the regiment would remain there some time watching the crossing of the Cumberland were enough and more than enough to set the Colonel going. The Adjutant published the following order:
Headquarters 200th Indiana,
In the Field, on the Cumberland,
Nov. 25, 1862.
I. The Regiment will be paraded for inspection tomorrow
afternoon at 4 o'clock.
II. Captains will be expected to parade the full strength of
their companies.
III. A half hour before the parade. Captains will form their
companies in the company streets and inspect every man.
IV. The men will be required to have their clothes neatly
brushed, blouses buttoned up, clean underclothes, shoes
blacked, letters and numbers polished, and arms and
accouterments in best condition. They will wear white
gloves.
V. The man who has his clothes, arms and accouterments in
the best order will be selected for the Colonel's Orderly.
By command of
Attest: COL. TERRENCE P. McTARNAGHAN, Colonel.
B. B. LAUGHLIN, Adjutant.
When Capt. McGillicuddy marched Co. Q back to its street, he called attention to the order with a few terse admonitions as to what it meant to every one.
"Get at this as soon as you break ranks, boys," urged the Captain. "You can do a whole lot between now and tattoo. The others will, and you must not let them get ahead of you. No straw in knapsacks this time."
Company spirit was high, and it would be little short of a calamity to have Co. Q beaten in anything.
There was a rush to the Sutler for white gloves, blacking, needles, thread, paper collars, sweet oil and rotten stone for the guns.
That genial bird of prey added 50 per cent to his prices, because it was the first business he had done for some weeks; 50 per cent more for keeping open in the evening, another 50 per cent for giving credit till pay day, and still another for good will.
The Government had just offered some very tempting gold-interest bonds, of which he wanted a swad.
"'Tain't right to let them green boys have their hull $13 a month to waste in foolishness," he said. "Some good man should gather it up and make a right use of it."
Like Indiana farmer boys of his class. Si Klegg was cleanly but not neat. Thanks to his mother and sisters, his Sunday clothes were always "respectable," and he put on a few extra touches when he expected to meet Annabel. He took his first bath for the year in the Wabash a week or two after the suckers began to run, and his last just before the water got so cold as to make the fish bite freely.
Such a thing as a "dandy" was particularly distasteful to him.
"Shorty," said Si, as he watched some of the boys laboring with sandpaper, rotten stone and oil to make the gunbarrels shine like silver, "what's the cense o' bein' so partickler about the outside of a gun? The business part's inside. Making them screw heads look like beads don't make it no surer of gitting Mr. Butternut."
"Trouble about you folks on the Wabash," answered Shorty, as he twisted a screw head against some emery paper, "is that you don't pay enough attention to style. Style goes a long ways in this vain and wicked world," (and his eyes became as if meditating on worlds he had known which were not so vain and wicked), "and when I see them Kokomo persimmon knockers of Co. B hustling to put on frills, I'm going to beat 'em if I don't lay up a cent."
"Same here," said Si, falling to work on his gunbarrel. "Just as' nice people moved into Posey County as squatted in Kokomo. Gang o' hoss thieves first settled Howard County."
"Recollect that big two fister from Kokomo who said he'd knock your head off if you ever throwed that up to him again?" grinned Shorty. "You invited him to try it on, an' he said your stripes stopped him. You pulled off your blouse, and you said you had no stripes on your shirt sleeves. But I wouldn't say it again until those Co. B fellers try again to buck us out of our place in the ration line. It's too good a slam to waste."
Tattoo sounded before they had finished their guns and accouterments. These were laid aside to be completed in the full light of day.
The next morning work was resumed with industry stimulated by reports of the unusual things being done by the other companies.
"This Tennessee mud sticks closer'n a $500 mortgage to a 40-acre tract," sighed Si, as he stopped beating and brushing his blouse and pantaloons.
"Or,
"'Aunt Jemima's plaster,
"The more you try to pull it off the more it sticks
the faster."
hummed Shorty, with what breath he had left from his violent exercise.
So well did they work that by dinner time they felt ready for inspection, careful reconnoissances of the other companies showing them to have no advantages.
Next to the Sutler's for the prescribed white gloves.
Si' had never worn anything on his hands but warm, woolen mittens knit for him by his mother, but the order said white gloves, and gloves they must have. The accommodating sutler made another stoppage in their month's pay of $1 for a pair of cheap, white cotton gloves. By this time the sutler had accumulated enough from the 200th Ind. to secure quite a handful of gold interest-bearing bonds.
"Well, what do you think of them. Si?" said Shorty, as he worked his generous hands into a pair of the largest sized gloves and held them up to view.
"If they were only painted yaller and had a label on them," said Si, "they could be issued for Cincinnati canvas covered hams."
Shorty's retort was checked by hearing the bugle sound the officers' call. The Colonel announced to them that owing to the threatening look of the skies the parade and inspection would take place in an hour.
There was feverish haste to finish undone things, but when Capt. McGillicuddy looked over his men in the company street, he declared himself proud to stack up Co. Q against any other in the regiment. Gun barrels and bayonets shone like silver, rammers rang clear, and came out without a stain to the Captain's white gloves.
The band on the parade ground struck up the rollicking
"O, ain't I glad to git out of the wilderness,
Out of the wilderness-Out of the wilderness,"
and Capt. McGillicuddy marched proudly out at the head of 75 broad-shouldered, well-thewed young Indianians, fit and fine as any south of the Ohio.
The guides, holding their muskets butts up, indicated where the line was to form, the trim little Adjutant, glorious as the day in a new uniform and full breasted as a pouter-pigeon, was strutting over toward the band, and the towering red-headed Colonel, martial from his waving plume to his jangling spurs, stood before his tent in massive dignity, waiting for the color company to come up and receive the precious regimental standard.
This scene of orderly pomp and pageantry was rudely disturbed by an Aid dashing in on a sweating horse, and calling out to the statuesque commander:
"Colonel, a train is stalled in the creek about three miles from here, and is threatened with capture by Morgan's cavalry. The General presents his compliments, and directs that you take your regiment on the double-quick to the assistance of the train. You v'e not a moment lose."
"Tare and 'ounds!" swore the Colonel in the classic he used when excited, "am I niver to have a dacint inspection? Orderly, bring me me harse. Stop that band's ijiotic blatting. Get into line there, quick as love will let you, you unblessed Indiana spalpeans. Without doubling; right face! Forward, M-a-r-c-h!"
Col. McTarnaghan, still wearing his parade grandeur, was soon at the head of the column, on that long-striding horse which always set such a hot pace for the regiment; especially over such a rough, gullied road as they were now traveling.
Still, the progress was not fast enough to suit the impatient Colonel, who had an eye to the report he would have to make to the Brigadier General, who was a Regular.
"Capt. McGillicuddy," commanded he, turning in his saddle, "send forward a Corporal and five men for an advance guard."
"Corporal Klegg, take five men and go to the front," commanded the Captain.
"Now you b'yes, get ahead as fast as you can. Get a move on them durty spalpanes of tamesters. We must get back to camp before this storm strikes us. Shove out, now, as if the divil or Jahn Morgan was after yez."
It was awful double-quicking over that rocky, rutty road, but taking Shorty and four others. Si went on the keen jump to arrive hot and breathless on the banks of the creek. There he found a large bearded man wearing an officer's slouched hat sitting on a log, smoking a black pipe, and gazing calmly on the ruck of wagons piled up behind one stalled in the creek, which all the mules they could hitch to it had failed to pull out.
It was the Wagon Master, and his calmness was that of exhaustion. He had yelled and sworn himself dry, and was collecting another fund of abuse to spout at men and animals.
"Here, why don't you git a move on them wagons?" said Si hotly, for he was angered at the man's apparent indifference.
"'Tend to your own business and I'll tend to mine," said the Wagon Master, sullenly, without removing his pipe or looking at Si.
"Look here, I'm a Corporal, commanding the advance guard," said Si. "I order you!"
This seemed to open the fountains of the man's soul.
"You order me?" he yelled, "you splay-footed, knock-kneed, chuckled-headed paper-collared, whitegloved sprat from a milk-sick prairie. Corporal! I outrank all the Corporals from here to Christmas of next year."
"The gentleman seems to have something on his mind," grinned Shorty. "Mebbe his dinner didn't set well."
"Shorty?" inquired Si, "how does a Wagon Master rank? Seems to me nobody lower'n a Brigadier-General should dare talk to me that way."
"Dunno," answered Shorty, doubtfully. "Seems as if I'd heard some of them Wagon Masters rank as Kurnels. He swears like one."
"Corporal!" shouted the Wagon Master with infinite scorn. "Measly $2-a-month water toter for the camp-guard, order me!" and he went off into a rolling stream of choice "army language."
"He must certainly be a Kurnel," said Shorty.
"Here," continued the Wagon Master, "if you don't want them two shoat-brands jerked offen you, jump in and get them wagons acrost. That's what you were sent to do. Hump yourself, if you know what's good for you. I've done all I can. Now it's your turn."
Dazed and awed by the man's authoritativeness the boys ran down to the water to see what was the trouble.
They found the usual difficulty in Southern crossings. The stupid tinkerers with the road had sought to prevent it running down into the stream by laying a log at the edge of the water. This was an enormous one two feet in diameter, with a chuckhole before it, formed by the efforts of the teams to mount the log. The heavily laden ammunition wagon had its hub below the top of the log, whence no amount of mule-power could extricate it.
Si, with Indiana commonsense, saw that the only help was to push the wagon back and lay a pile of poles to make a gradual ascent. He and the rest laid their carefully polished muskets on dry leaves at the side, pulled off their white gloves, and sending two men to hunt thru the wagons for axes to cut the poles. Si and Shorty roused up the stupid teamsters to unhitch the mules and get them behind the wagon to pull it back. Alas for their carefully brushed pantaloons and well-blackened shoes, which did not last a minute in the splashing mud.
The Wagon Master had in the meanwhile laid in a fresh supply of epithets and had a fresh batch to swear at. He stood up on the bank and yelled profane injunctions at the soldiers like a Mississippi River Mate at a boat landing. They would not work fast enough for him, nor do the right thing.
The storm at last burst. November storms in Tennessee are like the charge of a pack of wolves upon a herd of buffalo. There are wild, furious rushes, alternating with calmer intervals. The rain came down for a few minutes as if it would beat the face off the earth, and the stream swelled into a muddy torrent. Si's paper collar and cuffs at once became pulpy paste, and his boiled shirt a clammy rag. In spite of this his temper rose to the boiling point as he struggled thru the sweeping rush of muddy water to get the other wagons out of the road and the ammunition wagon pulled back a little ways to allow the poles to be piled in front of it.
The dashing downpour did not check the Wagon Master's flow of profanity. He only yelled the louder to make himself heard above the roar. The rain stopped for a few minutes as suddenly as it had begun and Col. McTarnaghan came up with all his parade finery drenched and dripping like the feathers of a prize rooster in a rainy barnyard. His Irish temper was at the steaming point, and he was in search of something to vent it on.
"You blab-mouthed son of a thief," he shouted at the Wagon Master, "what are you ordering my men around for? They are sent here to order you, not you to order them. Shut that ugly potato trap of yours and get down to work, or I'll wear my saber out on you. Get down there and put your own shoulders to the wheels, you misbegotten villain. Get down there into the water, I tell you. Corporal, see that he does his juty!"
The Wagon Master slunk down the hill, where Shorty grabbed him by the collar and yanked him over to help push one of the wagons back. The other boys had meanwhile found axes, cut down and trimmed up some pine poles and were piling them into the chuckhole under Si's practical guidance. A double team was put on the ammunition wagon, and the rest of Co. Q came up wet, mad and panting. A rope was found and stretched ahead of the mules, on which the company lined itself, the Colonel took his place on the bank and gave the word, and with a mighty effort the wagon was dragged up the hill. Some other heavily loaded ammunition wagons followed. The whole regiment was now up, and the bigger part of it lined on the rope so that these wagons came up more easily, even tho the rain resumed its wicked pounding upon the clay soil.
Wading around thru the whirling water. Si had discovered, to his discomfiture, that there was a narrow, crooked reef that had to be kept to. There were deep overturning holes on either side. Into one of these Si had gone, to come again floundering and spurting muddy water from his mouth.
Shorty noted the place and took the first opportunity to crowd the Wagon Master into it.
A wagon loaded with crackers and pork missed the reef and went over hopelessly on its side, to the rage of Col. McTamaghan.
"Lave it there; lave it there, ye blithering numbskulls," he yelled, "Unhitch those mules and get 'em out. The pork and wagon we can get when the water goes down. If another wagon goes over Oi'll rejuce it every mother's son of yez, and tie yez up by the thumbs besides."
Si and Shorty waded around to unhitch the struggling mules, and then, taking poles in hand to steady themselves, took their stations in the stream where they could head the mules right.
Thru the beating storm and the growing darkness, the wagons were, one by one, laboriously worked over until, as midnight approached, only three or four remained on the other side. Chilled to the bone, and almost dropping with fatigue from hours of standing in the deep water running like a mill race. Si called Al Klapp, Sib Ball and Jesse Langley to take their poles and act as guides.
Al Klapp had it in for the sutlers. He was a worm that was ready to turn. He had seen some previous service, and had never gone to the Paymaster's table but to see the most of his $13 a month swept away by the sutler's remorseless hand. He and Jesse got the remaining army wagons over all right. The last wagon was a four-horse team belonging to a sutler.
The fire of long-watched-for vengeance gleamed in Al's eye as he made out its character in the dim light. It reached the center of the stream, when over it went in the rushing current of muddy water.
Al and Jesse busied themselves unhooking the struggling mules.
The Colonel raged. "Lave it there! Lave it there!" he yelled after exhausting his plentiful stock of Irish expletives. "But we must lave a guard with it. Capt. Sidney Hyde, your company has been doing less than any other. Detail a Sergeant and 10 men to stand guard here until tomorrow, and put them two thick-headed oudmahouns in the creek on guard with them. Make them stand double tricks.
"All right. It was worth it," said Al Klapp, as the Sergeant put him on post, with the water running in rivulets from his clothes. "It'll take a whole lot of skinning for the sutlers to get even for the dose I've given one of them."
"B'yes, yoi've done just splendid," said the Colonel, coming over to where Si and Shorty were sitting wringing the water and mud from their pantaloons and blouses. "You're hayroes, both of yez. Take a wee drap from my canteen. It'll kape yez from catching cold."
"No, thankee, Kurnel," said Si, blushing with delight, and forgetting his fatigue and discomfort, in this condescension and praise from his commanding officer. "I'm a Good Templar."
"Sinsible b'y," said the Colonel approvingly, and handing his canteen to Shorty.
"I'm mightily afraid of catching cold," said Shorty, reaching eagerly for the canteen, and modestly turning his back on the Colonel that he might not see how deep his draft.
"Should think you were," mused the Colonel, hefting the lightened vessel. "Bugler, sound the assembly and let's get back to camp."
The next day the number of rusty muskets, dilapidated accouterments and quantity of soiled clothes in the camp of the 200th Ind. was only equaled by the number of unutterably weary and disgusted boys.
IT WAS Sunday again, and the 200th Ind. still lingered near Nashville. For some inscrutible reason known only to the commanding officers the brigade had been for nearly a week in camp on the banks of the swift running Cumberland. They had been bright, sunshiny days, the last two of them. Much rain in the hill country had swollen the swift waters of the Cumberland and they fiercely clamored their devious way to the broad Ohio. The gentle roar as the rippling wavelets dashed against the rock bound shores sounded almost surf-life, but to Si, who had never heard the salt waves play hide-and-go-seek on the pebbly beach, the Cumberland's angry flood sang only songs of home on the Wabash. He had seen the Wabash raging in flood time and had helped to yank many a head of stock from its engulfing fury. He had seen the Ohio, too, when she ran bank full with her arched center carrying the Spring floods and hundreds of acres of good soil down to the continent-dividing Mississippi, and on out to sea. His strong arms and stout muscles had piloted many a boat-load of boys and girls through the Wabash eddies and rapids during the Spring rise, and as he stood now, looking over the vast width of this dreary waste of waters, a great wave of home-sickness swept over him.
After all, Si was only a kid of a boy, like thousands of his comrades.' True, he was past his majority a few months, but his environment from youth to his enlistment had so sheltered him that he was a boy at heart.
"The like precurse of fierce events and prologue to the omen coming on" had as yet made small impression upon him. Grim visaged war had not frightened him much up to that time. He was to get his regenerating baptism of blood at Murfreesboro a few weeks later. Just now Si Klegg was simply a boy grown big, a little over fat, fond of mother's cooking, mother's nice clean feather beds, mother's mothering, if the truth must be told. He had never in his life before been three nights from under the roof of the comfortable old house in which he was born. He had now been wearing the blue uniform of the Union a little more than three months, and had not felt mother's work-hardened hands smoothing his rebellious hair or seen her face or heard a prayer like she could make in all that three months.
"Shucks!" he said fretfully to himself as he looked back at the droning, half asleep brigade camp, and then off to the north, across the boiling yellow flood of waters that tumbled past the rocks far below him.
"A feller sure does git tired of doin' nothin'."
Lusty, young, and bred to an active life, Si, while he did not really crave hustle and bustle, was yet wedded to "keeping things moving." He had already forgotten the fierce suffering of his early marching—it seemed three years to him instead of three months back; he had forgotten the graybacks, the wet nights, the foraging expeditions, the extra guard duty and all that. There had been two days of soft Autumn sunshine in a camp that was almost ideal. Everything was cleaned up, mended up, and the men had washed and barbered themselves into almost dude-like neatness. Their heaviest duties had been lazy camp guard duty, which Shorty, growing indolent, had declared to be "dumned foolishness," and the only excitement offered came from returning foraging parties. There was no lurking enemy to fear, for the country had been cleared of guerrillas, and in very truth the ease and quietness of the days of inactivity was almost demoralizing the men.
There had been no Sunday services. The 200th Ind. was sprawled out on the ground in its several hundred attitudes of ease, and those with whom they were brigaded were just as carelessly disposed.
As Si sauntered aimlessly back to look for Shorty, the early twilight began to close in as the sun slid down behind the distant hills. Campfires began to glow as belated foragers prepared their suppers, and the gentle hum of voices came pleasantly to the ear, punctuated by laughter, often boisterous, but quite as often just the babbling, cheery laugh of carefree boys.
Si felt—well, Si was just plain homesick for mother and the girls, and one particular girl, whose front name was Annabel, and he almost felt as though he didn't care who knew it.
The air was redolent with the odor of frying meat. Mingled with this were vagrant whiffs of cooking potatoes, onions, chickens, and the fragrance of coffee steaming to blackest strength, all telling tales of skillful and successful foraging, and it all reminded Si of home and the odors in his mother's kitchen.
Si couldn't find Shorty, so he hunched down, silent and alone, beside his tent, a prey to the blue devils. It would soon be Christmas at home. He could see the great apple bins in the cellar; the pumpkins in the hay in the barn; the turkeys roosting above the woodshed; the yards of encased sausages in the attic; he could even smell the mince meat seasoning in the great stone jar; the honey in the bee cellar; the huge fruit cake in the milk pan in the pantry; since he could remember he seen and smelled all these, with 57 varieties of preserves, "jells," marmalades, and fruit-butters thrown in for good measure at Christmas time. He had even contemplated with equanimity all these 21 Christmases, the dose of "blue pills" that inevitably followed over-feeding at Mother Klegg's, and now on his 22d Christmas he might be providing a target for a rebel bullet.
Suddenly Si noticed that the dark had come; the fragrance of tobacco from hundreds of pipes was filling the air, and from away off in the distance the almost Indian Summer zephyrs were bringing soft rythmic sounds like—surely—yes, he caught it now, it was that mighty soother of tired hearts—
"Jesus, lover of my soul,
Let me to Thy bosom fly.
While the billows near me roll.
While the tempest still is high."
Si shut his eyes lest the tear drops welling suddenly up fall on his uniform, not stopping to think that in the gloom they could not be seen.
Miles away the singers seemed to be when Si caught the first sounds, but as the long, swinging notes reached out in the darkness, squad after squad, company after company, regiment after regiment took up the grand old hymn until Si himself lifted up his not untuneful voice and with the thousands of others was pleading—
"Hide me, oh, my Savior hide,
'Till the storm of life is past;
Safe into the haven guide.
Oh, receive my soul at last."
and the song rose and swelled out and up toward heaven, and stole away off to the horizon till the whole vast universe seemed filled with the sacred melody. As the last words and their music faded out in space. Shorty lunged down beside Si.
"Say, Pard," he began banteringly, "you've missed yer callin'. Op'ry oughter have been yer trade."
"Oh, chop off yer chin music for a minute. Shorty," broke in Si. "In the dark here it seemed most as though I was at home in the little old church with Maria and Annabel and Pap and Mother, and us all singing together, and you've busted it—ah! listen!"
From not far away a bugler had tuned up and through the fragrant night came piercingly sweet—
"I will sing you a song of that beautiful land—"
Then near at hand a strong, clear, musical tenor voice took up the second line,
"The far away home of the soul,"
and almost instantly a deep, resonant bass voice boomed in—
"Where no storms ever beat on that glittering strand
While the years of eternity roll,"
and soon a hundred voices were making melody of the spheres as they sang Philip Phillips's beautiful song.
"That was Wilse Hornbeck singin' tenor," said Si, as the song ended.
"And it was Hen Withers doin' the bass stunt," returned Shorty.
"You just oughter hear him do the ornamental on a mule whacker. Why, Si, he's an artist at cussing. Hen Withers is. Sodom and Gomorrah would git jealous of him if he planted himself near 'em, he's that wicked."
"Well, he can sing all right," grunted Si.
Just then Hen Withers, in the squad some 50 feet away broke into song again—
"Oh, say, can you see by the dawn's early light"
It welled up from his throat like the pipe from a church organ, and as mellow as the strains from a French horn. When the refrain rolled out fully 3,000 men were singing, yelling and shouting in frenzied fervor—
"And the Star Spangled banner.
In triumph shall wave,
O'er the land of the free,
And the home of the brave."
While Hen Withers rested on his well-earned laurels, a strong, clear voice, whose owner was probably thinking of home and the shady gloom of the walk through the grove to singing school with his sweetheart, trilled an apostrophe to the queen of light.
"Roll on, silvery moon,
Guide the traveler on his way,"
but he had it pretty much to himself, for not many knew the words, and he trailed off into
"I loved a little beauty, Bell Brandon,"
then his music died out in the night.
It was now the "tenore robusto" who chimed in bells, on a new battle song that held a mile square of camp spellbound:
"Oh, wrap the flag around me, boys,
To die were far more sweet
With freedom's starry emblem, boys.
To be my winding sheet.
In life I loved to see it wave
And follow where it led,
And now my eyes grow dim, my hands
Would clasp its last bright shred.
Oh, I had thought to meet you, boys,
On many a well-worn field
When to our starry emblem, boys,
The trait'rous foe should yield.
But now, alas, I am denied
My dearest earthly prayer,
You'll follow and you'll meet the foe,
But I shall not be there."
Wilse Hornback knew by the hush of the camp as the sound of his wonderful voice died on the far horizon that he had his laurels, too, and so he sang on while the mile square of camp went music-mad again as it sang with him—
"We are springing to the call of our brothers gone before,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom.
And we'll fill the vacant ranks with a million freemen more.
Shouting the battle cry of freedom."
Chorus:
"The Union forever! Hurrah, boys. Hurrah;
Down with the traitor and up with the Star,
While we rally 'round the Flag, boys,
We'll rally once again,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom.
We will welcome to our numbers the loyal, true and brave.
Shouting the battle cry of freedom,
And although they may be poor, not a man shall
be a slave.
Shouting the battle cry of freedom.
So we're springing to the call from the East and from the West,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom,
And we'll hurl the rebel crew from the land we love the best,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom."
In the almighty hush that followed the billows of sound, some sweet-voiced fellow started Annie Laurie, and then sang—
"In the prison cell I sit"
with grand chorus accompaniment. Then Wilse Hornback started and Hen Withers joined in singing the Battle Hymn—
"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord,"
and oh, God of Battles! how that army of voices took up the refrain—
"Glory, glory, hallelujah,"
and tossed and flung it back and forth from hill to hill and shore to shore till it seemed as though Lee and his cohorts must have heard and quailed before the fearful prophecy and arraignment.
Then the "tenore robusto" and the "basso profundo" opened a regular concert program, more or less sprinkled with magnificent chorus: singing, as it was easy or difficult for the men to recall the words. You must rummage in the closets of memory for most of them! The Old Oaken Bucket; Nellie Gray; Anna Lisle; No, Ne'er Can Thy Home be Mine; Tramp, Tramp, Tramp; We are Coming, Father Abraham; Just as I Am; By Cold Siloam's Shady Rill—how those home-loving Sunday school young boys did sing that! It seemed incongruous, but every now and then they dropped into these old hymn tunes, which many a mother had sung her baby to sleep with in those elder and better days.
The war songs are all frazzled and torn fragments of memory now, covered with dust and oblivion, but they were great songs in and for their day. No other country ever had so many.
Laughter and badinage had long since ceased. Flat on their backs, gazing up at the stars through the pine and hemlock boughs, the boys lay quietly smoking while the "tenore robusto" assisted by the "basso profundo" and hundreds of others sang "Willie, We Have Missed You," "Just Before the Battle, Mother," "Brave Boys Are They," and the "Vacant Chair."
In a little break in the singing. Hen Withers sang a wonderful song, now almost forgotten. It was new to the boys then, but the bugler had heard it, and as Hen's magnificent voice rolled forth its fervid words the bugle caught up the high note theme, and never did the stars sing together more entrancingly than did the "wicked mule whacker" and that bugle—
"Lift up your eyes, desponding freemen.
Fling to the winds your needless fears.
He who unfurled our beauteous banner
Says it shall wave a thousand years."
On the glorious chorus a thousand voices took up the refrain in droning fashion that made one think of "The Sound of the Great Amen."
"A thousand years, my own Columbia!
Tis the glad day so long foretold!
'Tis the glad mom whose early twilight
Washington saw in times of old."
By the time Hen had sung all of the seven verses the whole brigade knew the refrain and roared it forth as a defiance to the Southern Confederacy, which took on physical vigor in the days that came after, when the 200th Ind. went into battle to come off victorious on many a fiercely contested field.
Then the tenor sang that doleful, woe begone, hope effacing, heart-string-cracking "Lorena." Some writer has said that it sung the heart right out of the Southern Confederacy.
"The sun's low down the sky, Lorena,
The snow is on the grass again."
As Wilse Hornbeck let his splendid voice out on the mournful cadences, Si felt his very heart strings snap, and even Shorty drew his breath hard, while some of the men simply rolled over, and burying their faces in their arms, sobbed audibly.
Wilse had not counted on losing his own nerve, but found his voice breaking on the melancholy last lines, and bounding to his feet with a petulant,
"Oh, hang it!"
"Say, darkies, hab you seen de Massa"
came dancing up from the jubilating chords of that wonderful human music box, and soon the camp was reeling giddily with the jolly, rollicking,
"Or Massa ran, ha! ha!!
The darkies stay, ho! ho!!"
Then, far in the distance a bugle sounded "lights out," and the songfest was at an end; as bugler after bugler took it up, one by one the campfires bAlinked out, and squad after squad sank into quiet.
"I feel a heap better somehow," remarked Si, as he crawled under his blanket.
"Dogged if I hain't had a sort of uplift, too," muttered Shorty, as he wrapped his blanket round his head. In the distance a tenor voice was singing as he kicked out his fire and got ready for bed—
"Glory, glory, hallelujah."
CONTENTS
PREFACE
SI KLEGG
CHAPTER I. THROUGH MUD AND MIRE
CHAPTER II. SECOND DAY'S MARCH
CHAPTER III. STILL ON THE MARCH
CHAPTER IV. THE SUNSHINE OF LIFE
CHAPTER V. LINING UP FOR BATTLE
CHAPTER VI. BATTLE OF STONE RIVER
CHAPTER VII. AFTER THE FIRST DAY
CHAPTER VIII. A GLOOMY NEW YEAR'S DAY
CHAPTER IX. VICTORY AT LAST
CHAPTER X. THE VICTORIOUS ARMY
CHAPTER XI. WINTER QUARTERS
CHAPTER XII. ADDING TO THEIR COMFORT
CHAPTER XIII. "HOOSIER'S REST"
CHAPTER XIV. DEACON KLEGG'S SURPRISE
CHAPTER XV. DEACON KLEGG'S ARRIVAL IS MISTAKEN
CHAPTER XVI. IN A NEW WORLD
CHAPTER XVII. THE DEACON'S INITIATION
CHAPTER XVIII. THE DEACON IS SHOCKED
CHAPTER XIX. THE DEACON IS TROUBLED
CHAPTER XX. THE DEACON BUTTS IN
CHAPTER XXI. THE PERPLEXED DEACON
CHAPTER XXII. TRYING TO EDUCATE ABRAHAM LINCOLN
ILLUSTRATIONS
The Adjutant Smiled on si and Shorty 49
Earning Thirteen Dollars a Month 57
A Disagreeable Awakening for Shorty and Si. 94
Si Klegg Fell Without a Groan 113
Shorty Thinks si Does Not Look Like a Ghost. 118
"Am I a Soldier of the Cross?" 139
Shorty Confiscates the Caboose Door. 143
Si Floors the Wagonmaster. 154
A Stoutly-built, Farmer-looking Man Entered the Train 164
Mr. Klegg Ready for Action. 172
Deacon Klegg and the Knight of The Golden Circle.
The General Interrupts the Game 184
Meeting Between si and his Father. 189
His Honor and the 'attorney' Bucked And Gagged.
Shorty Admonishes the Orderly 198
Trying to Conquer the Deacon's Scruples. 212
'How Much'd You Give for This?' 216
Deacon Klegg Looks over the Larder. 220
Hit My Jug a Welt With his Sword 231
'Pulled out a Fat Roll of Greenbacks. 235
I'm Gwine Ter Kill Ye, Right Here 246
Do You Hear? Git on Your Mule at Onct.'
"I'll Invite Your Attention to the Emancipation Proclamation 264 "
"Si Klegg, of the 200th Ind., and Shorty, his Partner," were born years ago in the brain of John McElroy, Editor of THE NATIONAL TRIBUNE.
These sketches are the original ones published in THE NATIONAL TRIBUNE, revised and enlarged some what by the author. How true they are to nature every veteran can abundantly testify from his own service. Really, only the name of the regiment was invented. There is no doubt that there were several men of the name of Josiah Klegg in the Union Army, and who did valiant service for the Government. They had experiences akin to, if not identical with, those narrated here, and substantially every man who faithfully and bravely carried a musket in defense of the best Government on earth had some times, if not often, experiences of which those of Si Klegg are a strong reminder.
THE PUBLISHERS. THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO THE RANK AND FILE
OF THE GRANDEST ARMY EVER MUSTERED FOR WAR.
"SHORTY" said Si Klegg, the morning after Christmas, 1862, as the 200th Ind. sullenly plunged along through the mud and rain, over the roads leading southward from Nashville, "they say that this is to be a sure-enough battle and end the war."
"Your granny's night-cap they do," answered Shorty crossly, as he turned his cap around back ward to stop the icy current from chasing down his backbone. "How many thousand times 's that bin stuffed into your ears? This is the forty-thousandth mile we've marched to find that battle that was goin' to end the war. And I'll bet we'll march 40,000 more. This war ain't goin' to end till we've scuffed the top off all the roads in Kentucky and Tennessee, and wore out God's patience and all the sole-leather in the North. I believe it's the shoe-makers that's runnin' this war in the interest o' their business."
The cold, soaking rain had reduced the most of the 200th Ind. to a mood when they would have 16disputed the Ten Commandments and quarreled with their mothers.
"There's no use bein' crosser'n a saw-buck, if you are wet, Shorty," said Si, walking to the side of the road and scraping off his generous-sized brogans several pounds of stiff, red mud. "They say this new General with a Dutch name is a fighter from Wayback, an' he always licks the rebels right out of their boots. I'm sure, I hope it's so. I like huntin' ez well ez anybody, an' I'll walk ez fur ez the next man to find something to shoot. But I think walkin' over two States, backward and forward, is altogether too much huntin' for so little shootin'. Don't you?"
"Don't worry," snapped Shorty. "You'll git all the shootin' you want before your three years are up. It'll keep."
"But why keep it so long?" persisted Si. "If it can be done up in three months, an' we kin git back home, why dribble it out over three years? That ain't the way we do work back home on the Wabash."
"Confound back home on the Wabash," roared Shorty. "I don't hear nothin' else, day and night, but 'back home on the Wabash.' I've bin on the Wabash, an' I don't want to never see the measly, muddy, agery ditch agin'. Why, they have the ager so bad out there that it shakes the buttons off a man's clothes, the teeth out of his head, the horns off the cows. An' as for milk-sickness."
"Shorty!" thundered Si, "stop right there. If you wasn't my pardner I'd fight you this minute. I kin join in jawin' about the officers an' the 17Government. A great deal of your slack that I can't agree with I kin put up with, but you mustn't say nothin' against my home in the Wabash Valley. That I won't stand from no man. For fear that I may lose my temper I'm goin' away from you till you're in better humor."
With that Si strode on ahead, feeling as cross and uncomfortable internally as he was ill-at-ease externally. He hated above all things to quarrel with Shorty, but the Wabash Valley, that gardenspot of earth, that place where lived his parents, and sister, and Annabel but the subject was too sore to think about.
Presently an Aid came galloping along the middle of the road, calling upon the men to make way for him. His horse's hoofs threw the mud in every direction, and Si caught a heavy spatter directly in his face.
"Confound them snips of Aids," said he angrily, as he wiped the mud off. "Put on more airs than if they was old Gen. Scott himself. Always pretend to be in such a powerful hurry. Everybody must hustle out of their way. I think that fool jest did that on purpose."
The rain kept pouring down with tormenting persistence. Wherever Si looked were drenched, de pressed-looking men; melancholy, steaming horses; sodden, gloomy fields; yellow, rushing streams, and boundless mud that thousands of passing feet were churning into the consistency of building-mortar.
Si had seen many rainy days since he had been in the army, but this was the first real Winter rain 18he had been out in.
Jabe Belcher, the most disagreeable man in Co. Q, was just ahead of him. He stepped into a mudpuddle, slipped, threw the mud and water over Si, and his gun, which he flung in the effort to save himself, struck Si on the shoulder.
"Clumsy lunkhead!" roared Si, as ill-tempered now as anybody. "Couldn't you see that puddle and keep out of it? You'd walk right into the Cumberland River if it was in front of you. Never saw such a bat-eyed looney in my life."
"If the Captain wasn't lookin'," retorted Belcher, "I'd shut up both of them dead-mackerel eyes o' your'n, you backwoods yearlin'. I'll settle with you after we git into camp. Your stripes won't save you."
"Never mind about my stripes, old Stringhalt. I kin take them off long enough to wallop you."
Si was in such a frame of mind that his usual open-eyedness was gone. The company was wading across a creek, and Si plunged in without a thought. He stepped on a smooth stone, his feet went from under him and he sat 'down hard and waist-deep in much the coldest water that he ever remembered.
"O, Greenland's icy mountains," was all that he could think to say.
The other boys yelled:
"Come on to camp, Si. That's no place to sit down."
"Feet hurt, Si, and goin' to rest a little?"
"This your day for taking a bath, Si?"
"Thinks this is a political meetin', and he's to take the chair."
"Place Rest!"
"When I sit down, I prefer a log or a rail; but some men's different."
"See a big bass there, Si, an' try to ketch him by settin' down on him?"
"Git up, Si; git up, an' give your seat to some lady."
Si was too angry to notice their jibes. He felt around in the icy water for his gun, and clambered out on the bank. He first poured the water out of his gun-barrel and wiped the mud off. His next thought was the three days' rations he had drawn 20 that morning. He opened his haversack, and poured out the water it had caught. With it went his sugar, coffee and salt. His hardtack was a pasty mess; his meat covered with sand and dirt. He turned the haversack inside out, and swashed it out in the stream.
Back came Capt. McGillicuddy, with water streaming from the down-turned rim of his hat, and his humor bad. He was ignorant of Si's mishap.
"Corporal Klegg, what are you doing back here? Why aren't you in your place? I've been looking all around for you. The company wagon's stalled back somewhere. That spavin-brained teamster's at his old tricks. I want you to take five men off the rear of the company, go back and find that wagon, and bring it up. Be smart about it."
"Captain," remonstrated Si, "I'm wetter'n a drowned rat!"
"Well, who in thunder ain't?" exploded the Captain. "Do I look as dry as a basket of chips? Am I walking around in a Panama and linen clothes? Did you expect to keep from getting your feet wet when you came into the army? I want none of your belly-aching or sore-toeing. You take five men and bring up that wagon in a hurry. Do you hear me?"
And the Captain splashed off through the red mud to make somebody else still more miserable.
Si picked up his wet gun from the rain-soaked sod, put it under his streaming overcoat, ordered the five drenched, dripping, dejected boys near him to follow, and plunged back into the creek, which had by this time risen above his knees. He was past the stage of anger now. He simply wished that he was dead and out of the whole business. A nice, dry grave on a sunny hillock in Posey County, with a good roof over it to keep out the rain, would be a welcome retreat.
In gloomy silence he and his squad plodded back through the eternal mud and the steady downpour, through the miry fields, through the swirling yellow floods in the brooks and branches, in search of the laggard company wagon.22
Two or three miles back they came upon it, stuck fast in a deep mud-hole. The enraged teamster was pounding the mules over the head with the butt of his blacksnake whip, not in the expectation of getting any further effort out of them he knew better than that but as a relief to his overcharged heart.
"Stop beatin' them mules over the head," shouted Si, as they came up. Not that he cared a fig about the mules, but that he wanted to "jump" somebody.
"Go to brimstone blazes, you freckle-faced Posey County refugee," responded Groundhog, the teamster, in the same fraternal spirit. "I'm drivin' this here team." He gave the nigh-swing mule a "welt" that would have knocked down anything else than a swing mule.
"If you don't stop beatin' them mules, by thunder, I'll make you."
"Make's a good word," responded Groundhog, giving the off-swing mule a wicked "biff." "I never see anything come out of Posey County that could make me do what I didn't want to."
Si struck at him awkwardly. He was so hampered by his weight of soggy clothes that there was little force or direction to his blow. The soaked teamster returned the blow with equal clumsiness.
The other boys came up and pulled them apart.
"We ain't no time for sich blamed nonsense," they growled. "We've got to git this here wagon up to the company, an' we'll have the devil's own time doin' it. Quit skylarkin' an' git to work."
They looked around for something with which to make pries. Every rail and stick within a quarter of a mile of the road was gone. They had been used up the previous Summer, when both armies had passed over the road.
There was nothing to do but plod off through mud and rain to the top of a hill in the distance, where there was a fence still standing. A half an hour later each of the six came back with a heavy rail on his shoulder. They pried the wagon out and got it started, only to sink again in another quagmire a few hundred yards further on.
Si and the boys went back to get their rails, but found that they had been carried off by another squad that had a wagon in trouble. There was nothing to do but to make another toilsome journey to the fence for more rails.
After helping the wagon out they concluded it24 would be wiser to carry their rails with them a little way to see if they would be needed again.
They were many times that afternoon. As dark ness came on Si, who had the crowning virtue of hopefulness when he fully recognized the unutterable badness of things, tried to cheer the other boys up with assertions that they would soon get into camp, where they would find bright, warm fires with which to dry their clothes, and plenty of hot coffee to thaw them out inside.
The quick-coming darkness added enormously to the misery of their work. For hours they struggled along the bottomless road, in the midst of a ruck of played-out mules and unutterably tired, disgusted men, laboring as they were to get wagons ahead.
Finally they came up to their brigade, which had turned off the road and gone into line-of-battle in an old cotton-field, where the mud was deeper, if possible, than in the road.
"Where's the 200th Ind.?" called out Si.
"Here, Si," Shorty's voice answered.
"Where's the fires, Shorty," asked Si, with sinking heart.
"Ain't allowed none," answered his partner gloomily. "There's a rebel battery on that hill there, and they shoot every time a match is lighted. What've you got there, a rail? By George, that's lucky! We'll have something to keep us out of the mud."
They laid down the rail and sat upon it.
"Shorty," said Si, as he tried to arrange his aching bones to some comfort on the rail, "I got mad at you for cussin' the Wabash this morning. I ain't a fluid talker such as you are, an' I can't find words to say25 what I think. But I jest wisht you would begin right here and cuss everybody from Abe Lincoln down to Corporal Si Klegg, and everything from the Wabash in Injianny down to the Cumberland in Tennessee. I'd like to listen to you."
SI KLEGG was generous with his rail, as he was with all things among his comrades. He selected the softest part, in the center, for him self and Shorty, and then invited the other boys to share its hospitalities. They crowded up close to him and Shorty on either side, and there seemed to come a little warmth and dryness from the close contact of their bodies.
Si was so mortally tired that it seemed a great relief just to sit still and rest, though the rain continued to pour down.
Shorty fished some hardtack and fried pork out of his haversack, and also gave him a handful of ground coffee. Si munched the crackers and meat, with an occasional nip at the coffee. His spirits began to rise just a trifle. He was too healthy in body and mind to be totally downcast for long.
"'Tis n't much of a supper," he said to himself, "but it beats nothin' at all miles and miles. Besides, I was mighty lucky in gettin' the biggest rail. Some that the other boys has are no good at all. They'll let 'em right down in the mud. And most o' the boys has no rails at all. I'm awfully sorry for 'em."
Then he began to wonder if they were not 27overcautious about the nearness of the enemy. He had been in the army just long enough to have contempt for the stories that were always current with a certain class about the proximity and strength of the enemy. Shorty was not of that kind; but, then, Shorty was as liable to be imposed upon as anybody.
"How do you know there's a rebel battery on the hill out there?" he finally asked Shorty.
"They belted into the Oshkosh Terrors, out there to our right, killed a mule, scared two teamsters to death, and knocked over three or four kittles of coffee. It was awful unlucky about the coffee," an swered Shorty.
"How long ago was that?"
"O, several hours ago. Just after we turned into the field, and long before you come up."
"Mebbe they've gone off now. Mebbe, if they're there yet, their ammynition's so soaked that they can't shoot. What do you say to startin' a little fire? It'd be an immense comfort. Unless we can dry out a little we'll be soaked into such mush before morning that we can't keep our shape, and they'll have to ladle us up with dippers."
"It's strictly against orders."
"You mean it was against orders several hours ago. I can't see nothin' on that hill over there. I've been watchin' for half an hour. There's nothin' movin'. Mebbe the orders has been changed, an' you haint heard about it," persisted Si. "Mebbe the Orderly that was bringing 'em 's stuck in the mud. Mebbe the rain's soaked 'em so's they can't be read. If anybody's got any dry matches I'm goin' to chance28 it."
Word was passed along the rail, and at length one of the boys was found to have some matches in a tin box which was proof against the rain.
Si got out his knife and whittled down a corner of the rail until he came to the dry part, and got off some shavings. Splinters were contributed by the others, and after several failures a small flame was started.
"Here, what in the world are you men doing there?" came in the stentorian tones of the Colonel, who it startled Si to discover was sitting a short distance behind him. "Put that light out this instant."
Even before the command could be obeyed, four great flashes burned out like lightning in the murky darkness on the hill-top. Four cannon roared, and four shells screeched toward Si and his companions, who instinctively toppled over backward into the mud. One of the shells struck in the mud a few yards in front, burst with a deafening report, and sent over them a deluge of very wet Tennessee real estate.
"The battery's out there yit, Si," said Shorty, as they gathered themselves up and carefully stamped out every spark of fire.
"It's 'tendin' strictly to business," remarked Wes Williams.
"Its ammynition don't seem to be a mite wet," added Jim Hutchinson.
"There, you see, now," said the Colonel sternly. "I'll tie up by the thumbs the next man that dares scratch a match."
"You jest kin if I do," muttered Si, scraping off some of the superabundant mud, and resuming his29 seat on the rail. "This dog's cured of suckin' eggs." He set the butt of his gun down in front of him, clasped his hands around the barrel, leaned his head on them, and went to sleep.
He was so tired that he could have slept anywhere and in any position. He was dimly conscious during the night that the rain ceased and that it turned bitter cold. He was not going to wake up for trifles like that, though. When Si went to sleep he devoted himself entirely to that and nothing else. It 30 was one thing that he never allowed any interference with.
But with the first gray streaks of dawn in the east some uneasy, meddlesome spirit in the 200th Ind. happened to be awake, and he awakened the Adjutant, who cuffed and shook the headquarters drummer until he awakened and beat the reveille. This aroused the weary Orderly-Sergeants, who started upon the task of getting up the bone-wracked, aching-muscled men. In 10 minutes there was enough discontent and bitter grumbling in the 200th Ind. to have furnished forth a new political party.
The awakening process finally reached those of Co. Q who had roosted on Si's rail all night.
Si vigorously insisted on being let alone; that he hadn't been asleep five minutes, and that, anyhow, it was not his turn to go on guard. But the Orderly-Sergeant of Co. Q was a persistent fellow, and would not be denied.
When Si finally tried to rise he found that, in addition to the protests of his stiff legs, he was pinned firmly down. Feeling around to ascertain the cause, he discovered that the tail of his overcoat and his shoes had become deeply imbedded in the mud, and frozen solidly there. Shorty was in the same fix.
"Got to shuck yourself out o' your overcoat, and leave them gunboats anchored where they are," remarked Shorty, doing as he said, and falling in for roll-call in his stocking feet.
After roll-call Si got a hatchet from one of the boys and chopped his and Shorty's shoes out. The overcoats were left for subsequent effort, for the first thing was to get some wood and water and cook breakfast.31
The morning was bitter cold and the sky overcast, but Si felt that this was a thousand times better than the cheerless rain, which seemed to soak his very life out of him.
He pounded most of the frozen mud off his shoes, picked up the camp-kettle, and started off for wood and water, broke the ice on the creek, took a good wash, and presently came back with a load of dry pine and a kettle full of water.
"My joints feel like I think an old wagon does after it's gone about a year without greasing," he remarked to Shorty, who had a good fire going; "but I think that after I get about a quart o' hot coffee, inside of me, with a few pounds o' pork and crackers, I'll be nearly as good as new again. My, how good that grub does smell! An' did you ever see such a nice fire?"
He chopped his and Shorty's overcoats out while Shorty was cooking breakfast, and when at last he sat down on one end of his rail and ate enough toasted hard bread and crisp fried side-meat to feed a small family for a week, washing it down with something near a quart of black coffee sweetened with coarse brown sugar, life began again to have some charms for him.
"You're sure that dumbed battery's gone that shot at us last night, are you, Shorty?" he said, as he drained his cup, fastened it again to the strap of his haversack, and studied the top of the hill with a critical eye.
"They say it is," said Shorty, between bites. "While you was down at the crick a man come over from the camp o' the Oshkosh Terrors, and said two o' their32 companies 'd been onto the hill, and the rebels had gone."
"I wish them Oshkosh fellers'd mind their own business," said Si, irritably, as he picked up his gun and began rubbing the mud and rust off. "They're entirely too fresh for a new regiment. That battery was none of theirs. It was ours, right in our front, an' if they'd let it alone till after breakfast we'd gone up and taken it. It was just the right size for the 200th Ind., and we wanted a chance at it. But now they've had to stick in and run it off."
"Don't worry," said Shorty, fishing out another cracker; "it hasn't gone too far. 'Taint lost. You'll have a chance at it some other time. Mebbe to-day yet."
The army began to move out very promptly, and soon the 200th Ind. was called to take its place in the long column that crawled over the hills and across the valleys toward Murfreesboro, like some gigantic blue serpent moving toward his prey.
Miles ahead of the 200th Ind.'s place in the column the rebels were offering annoying disputation of farther progress. Lines as brown as the dried leaves on the oak trees would form on the hilltops, batteries would gallop into position, and there would be sharp bangs by the cannon and a sputter of musketry-fire.
Then the long, blue serpent would wriggle out of the road into the fields, as if coiling to strike. Union batteries would rush on to hilltops and fire across valleys at the rebel cannon, and a sputter of musketry would answer that from the leaf-brown ranks on the hilltops, which would dissolve and march back33 to the next hilltop, where the thing would be gone over again. The 200th Ind. would occasionally see one of these performances as it marched over and down one of the hills.
As the afternoon was wearing away the 200th34 Ind. kept nearing the front, where this was going on. Finally, when the dull day was shading into dusk, and the brigade ahead of it was forming in the field at the foot of a hill to open a bickering fire against the dun line at the top, the 200th Ind. was taken off the road and marched away over to the left, where it was put into line in front of a dense grove of cedars.
"Capt. McGillicuddy," commanded the Colonel to the Captain of Co. Q, "advance your company as skirmishers to the edge of the cedars, and send a Corporal and five men into the thicket to see if there is anything there."
"Corporal Klegg," said the Captain, "take five men off the left of the company and go in and see what's in there."
Si was instantly fired with the importance of the duty assigned him. He sent two of his men to the left, two to the right, while he and Shorty, a little distance apart, struck for the heart of the thicket. They made their way with difficulty through the dense chaparral for some minute's, and then stopped, as they heard voices and the crashing of branches in front.
Si's heart thumped against his ribs. He looked over to his left, and saw Shorty standing there peering earnestly into the brush, with his gun cocked and ready to fire. He ran over to him and whispered:
"What do you see, Shorty?"
"Nothin' yit, but I expect to every minute," replied Shorty, without turning his intent eyes. Si's gun was already cocked, and he bent his head 35forward eagerly, to get a better view. But he could see nothing, except that the tops of the bushes were shaking.
"Shall we skip back an' report?" asked Si.
"I ain't goin' till I see something," said Shorty, stoutly.
"Nor me," echoed Si, rather ashamed that he had suggested it.
"Steady, there; steady, on the right! Come for ward with that left company," called out a stern voice in front.
"Must be a full regiment in there," whispered Si, craning his neck still farther. The tramping and crashing increased.
"Steady, men, I tell you! Steady! Press on the center," commanded the unseen Colonel. "Forward! Forward!"
In spite of his perturbation, Si noticed that the sounds did not seem to be coming any nearer.
"We must get a squint at 'em," he said, desperately, to Shorty. "Let's git down an' crawl forward. There must be an openin' somewhere."
They got down on their hands and knees, so as to avoid as many as possible of the thickly-interlaced branches. Soon they came to a rift which led to an opening of some rods in circumference. Raising their heads cautiously above a moss-covered log, they saw in the opening a stalwart Sergeant with five or six men. The Sergeant was standing there with his eyes fixed on the tops of the trees, apparently thinking of the next series of commands he was to give, while the men were busy breaking limbs off the cedars.
Si and Shorty immediately grasped the situation.36
"Forward, Co. Q!" yelled Si at the top of his lungs. "Surrender, you consarned rebels, or we'll blow your heads off," he added, as he and Shorty jumped forward into the opening and leveled their guns on the squad.
"What'n thunder was you fellers makin' all that racket fur," Si asked the Sergeant as he was marching him back to the skirmish-line.
"Ouah Cunnel," explained the Sergeant, "wuz afeared you'ns 'd try to flank us through the thicket, and sent me down to make a rumpus and hold you back while he fit you in front. But whar's your company?"
"We'll come to it soon," said Si.
SI CALLED out to the other boys by name to come up and join him.
The rebel Sergeant mentally tallied off each name as it was called. A flush of shame and anger mounted to his face as Si concluded.
"Gol darn hit," he said, "you'uns hain't got ez many ez we'uns; they hain't nigh ez good men ez we'uns, an' they'uns ain't heah. We'uns air Tennesseans, an' you'uns hain't."
"We've got enough, an' they're good enough," said Si sententiously. "Injianny turns out better men than Tennessee ever dreamed o' doing."
"I don't believe hit a mite," said the Sergeant, stooping down and picking up a piece of cedar, which made a formidable club. "We'uns is not a-gwine back with yo'uns nary a step. By rights, we'uns orter take yo'uns back with we'uns. But I'm willin' to call hit off, and let yo'uns go ef yo'uns 'll let we'uns go. Is hit a bargain?"
"Not by 40 rows o' apple trees it ain't," said Si, stepping back a little to get a better range, and fixing his bayonet. "I've set my heart on takin' you back to Co. Q, an' back to Co. Q you'll go, if Si Klegg knows himself."38
"And you'll go in a hurry, too," said Shorty. "It's gettin' late, and I'm always afraid to be out after dark. Mosey, now!"
The other rebels were picking up clubs similar to the Sergeant's and casting their eyes on him for the signal to attack.
"See here," said Si desperately, cocking his gun. "Don't waste no more time in words. This hain't a debatin' society. You're goin' back to Co. Q or going somewhere else thunderin' quick. Sergeant, if you make a move agin me I'll surely blow your head off en you, an' jab my bayonet through the next man. My partner, Shorty, is a worse man than I am, an' I can't tell how many of you he'll kill. He's awful quick-tempered, too, towards evening, an' liable to begin shooting any minute without warnin'. It'll save several lives if you start right off on the jump, straight toward the rear, an' keep it up, with out looking to the right or left, until you reach Co. Q. You'll find the trail we made comin' in. Take it this minute."
The rebel Sergeant's eyes looked directly into the dark muzzle of Si's gun. They glanced along the barrel, and met one eye looking directly through the sights, while the other was closed, in the act of taking deliberate aim. He decided with great promptness that there were many reasons why he should prefer to be a live rebel in a Yankee prison, rather than a badly-disfigured dead one in a lonely cedar thicket. He dropped his club, turned around, and made his way along the path over which Si had come. The rest followed, with Si and Shorty a few paces in the rear.
Palpitating with pride, Si marched his prisoners up to the company, who gave him three cheers. The Captain ordered him to report with his prisoners to the Colonel.
The Colonel praised him with words that made his blood tingle.40
The skirmishing off to the right had now ceased. The rebels had fallen back to the next hilltop, and the 200th Ind. was ordered to go into camp where it stood.
It was a fine place for a camp. The mud of the day before was frozen into stony hardness. The wagons had no difficulty in coming up. There was wood and water in abundance, and it seemed that the command "Break ranks March!" had hardly been uttered when great, bright, comfort-giving fires of fragrant cedar rails flashed up all along the line.
Si and Shorty found several cedar stumps and logs, which they rolled together, and made a splendid fire. They cooked themselves an ample supper of fried pork, toasted hardtack, and strong, fragrant coffee, which they devoured with an appetite and a keen enjoyment only possible to healthy young men who have had a day of active manuvering and marching in the crisp, chill air of December.
Then they gathered a lot of cedar branches, and made a thick mattress of them near the fire, upon which to spread their blankets for the night.
This was a new suggestion by Shorty, and an amazing success.
"I declare, Shorty," said Si, as he lay down on the bed to try it, "I often wonder where you get all your ideas. For a man who wasn't raised on the Wabash you know an awful sight. Mebbe, if you'd actually been born in Posey County you'd a-knowed enough to be a Jigadier-Brindle. Then I'd a lost you for a pard. This's a great invention. Why, it's softer and comfortabler than one of mother's feather beds. When I get out of the army, I'm going to sleep on nothin' but cedar boughs."
"There, you're at it again the Wabash forever," returned Shorty, good-humoredly. "They raise the finest corn and cattle in the world on the Wabash, I'll admit, and some fairly good soldiers. But where'll you get any cedars there to make beds with? You'll have to go back to sleepin' on wheat straw and corn husks, with chicken-feather pillers. But after42 the way you stood up to that rebel Sergeant to-day I'll never say another word about ager and milk-sick en the Wabash, and I'll lick any other feller that does. There wasn't a speck of ager in your gizzard when you ordered him forward, or you'd blow his Southern Confederacy head off."
"There was more ager there than you thought, Shorty," Si admitted softly. "I was awfully scared, for there was six to us two, and if that feller 'd had the right kind of sand he'd a-jumped me at once, before I could get my gun up. The moment he began to palaver I knowed I had him. But I'd 'a' died in my tracks before I'd let him go, and I knowed you would, too. You're the best pard a feller ever had."
And he reached over and took Shorty's rough hand and squeezed it affectionately.
"I can bet on you every time, even when I don't think it's quite safe to bet on myself. And, Shorty," he continued, with his eyes kindling, "it was worth all that we've gone through since we've been in the army, even all that time in the rain, to have the Colonel speak as he did to us before the rest of the boys. I'd be willing to enlist three years more if father and mother and sisters, and and Annabel could have heard him. I tell you, war has some glorious things in it, after all."
He sat there on his bed before the fire, with his feet curled up under him in the comfortable way that it takes months of field service to acquire, and gazed steadily into the bank of glowing coals. They suffused his face and body with their generous warmth, and helped lift his soul toward the skies.43
He was much happier than he had ever been before in his life. The trials of the day before were hardly more than a far-away dream. The fears and anxieties of the coming battle were forgotten. The ruddy embers became a radiant vista, which Pride and Hope and Joy filled with all that he wanted to see. He saw there the dear old home on the Wabash, his father seated by the evening lamp reading the paper, while his mother knit on the other side of the table. His sisters were busy with some feminine trifles, and Annabel had come in to learn the news. They would hear what he had done, and of the Colonel's words of praise before the regiment, and his father's heart would glow with pride and his mother's eyes suffuse with tears. And Annabel but it passed words, passed thought, almost, what she would say and think.
Just then tattoo rang out clear and musical on the chill night air. The rattling military "good night" had never before had any special charms for Si. But now he thought it an unusually sweet composition.
"I declare," he said to Shorty, "that sheepskin band of our'n is improving. They're getting to play real well. But I ought to write a few lines home before taps. Got any paper. Shorty?"
"Much paper you'll find in this regiment after that rain," said Shorty contemptuously, as he knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and started to fall in for roll-call. "Every mite of paper anybody has was soaked to spitwads. But mebbe the Orderly might have a sheet."
After roll-call Si went to the Orderly-Sergeant.44
Nothing in reason could then be refused Si, and the Orderly tore a couple of leaves out of the back of his treasured diary, which had escaped the rain, and handed them to him. Si fished his stub of a pencil out of his blouse-pocket, laid the paper on the back of a tin plate, and began:
"Somewhere in Tennessee,
December the 27th, 1862.
"Dere Annabel: We're movin' on Murphysboro,
where we expect a big fite. There's bin fitin' goin'
on ever since we left Nashville, but the 200th Ind.
hain't had no hand in it so far, except this after
noon me and Shorty"
He stopped, stuck his pencil in his mouth, and began to study just what words he should use to describe the occurrence. He wanted to tell her all that was bubbling in his heart, and yet he was afraid she would think him an intolerable boaster, if he told it in just the words that came to him. He was more afraid of that little country girl's disapproval than of all the rebels in Murfreesboro.
There were yells, the rattling of chains, and the sound of galloping hoofs coming toward him.
"Hi, there; stop them condemned mules!" shouted the voice of a teamster.
Si jumped to his feet, for the mules were charging directly for his fire, and were almost upon him. He dropped paper, pan and pencil, and jumped to one side, just in time to avoid a rush which scattered his fire, his carefully-prepared bed, and all his be longings under 24 flying, hard-pounding hoofs.
"Blast mules, anyhow," said the driver, coming up with his whip in his hand. "I didn't hev nothin' for them to eat but a cottonwood pole that I cut down in the bottom. But they must have smelt fodder over there somewhere, and they broke for it like the devil beatin' tanbark. Hope you weren't hurt, pard."
Si and Shorty fixed up their fire again, rearranged46 their scattered cedar boughs, and did the best they could with their torn blankets.
Si found that a mule's hoof had landed squarely on his tin plate, mashed all future usefulness out of it, and stamped his letter to Annabel into unrecognizability.
He threw the rent fragments into the fire, sighed deeply, and crawled under the blankets with Shorty, just as three sounding taps on the bass-drum commanded silence and lights out in the camp.
THERE come times in every man's life when he feels himself part of the sunshine that illumines and warms the earth:
The lover, after he has won his best girl's consent.
The candidate, after he has been elected by a big majority.
The valedictorian, after his address has been received with bursts of ringing applause.
The clerk, after he has been admitted into partnership.
The next morning the camp of the 200th Ind. seemed to Si Klegg one of the most delightful places on earth.
The sun shone brightly and cheerily through the crisp December air. The fires of cedar rails sent up a pungent, grateful fragrance. Hardtack, pork and coffee tasted better than he had ever known them.
Everybody noticed him and spoke pleasantly to him. The other boys of Co. Q called out cheerily to him from their fires. Those from other companies would stroll over to take a look at him and Shorty, and his comrades would point them out proudly as fair specimens of Co. Q, and what it was capable of doing when called upon in an emergency.
The Captain spoke very cordially to him and Shorty, the busy Adjutant stopped and greeted them smilingly, and even the grave Colonel singled them out for a pleasant "Good morning" and an inquiry as to whether they had everything they wanted. It did not seem to Si that there was anything more on earth just then for which he could ask.
The 200th Ind. having been at the head of the 49column when it halted, was to take the rear for that day's march, and so remained in camp for a while to let the rest pass on.
After getting things ready for the march Si and Shorty took a stroll through the camp to see what was to be seen. They came across their prisoners seated around a fire, under guard.
How different they looked from what they did the evening before, when the two partners encountered them in the depths of the cedar brake. Then they seemed like fierce giants, capable of terrible things, such as would make the heart quail. Now, powerless of harm, and awed by the presence of multitudes of armed men in blue filling the country in every direction that they looked, they appeared very commonplace, ignorant, rough men, long-haired, staring-eyed, and poorly-clad in coarse, butternut-dyed homespun, frayed and tattered.
"Father gits better men than them to work on the farm for $8 a month," Si remarked to Shorty, after a lengthened survey of them.
"Eight dollars a month is Congressman's wages to what they git for fightin' for the Southern Confederacy," answered Shorty. "I don't s'pose any one of 'em ever had eight real dollars in his pocket in his life. They say they're fightin' to keep us from takin' their niggers away from 'em, and yit if niggers wuz sellin' for $1 a-piece not one of 'em could buy a six-months'-old baby. Let's go up and talk to 'em."
"I don't know 'bout that," said Si, doubtfully. "Seems to me I wouldn't be particularly anxious to see men who'd taken me prisoner and talked very cross about blowin' my blamed head off."50
"O, that's all right," answered Shorty confidently. "Words spoken in the heat of debate, and so on. They won't lay them up agin us. If they do, and want any satisfaction, we can give it to 'em. I kin lick any man in that crowd with my fists, and so kin you. We'll jest invite 'em to a little argyment with nature's weepons, without no interference by the guard. Come on."
The prisoners returned their greetings rather pleasantly. They were so dazed by the host of strange faces that Si and Shorty seemed, in a measure, like old acquaintances.
"Had plenty to eat, boys," asked Shorty, familiarly, seating himself on a log beside them and passing his pipe and tobacco to the Sergeant.
"Plenty, thankee," said the Sergeant, taking the pipe and filling it. "More'n we'uns 've had sence we left home, an' mouty good vittles, too. You Yanks sartinly live well, ef yo'uns don't do nothin' else."
"Yes," said Shorty, with a glance at his mud-stained garments, "we're bound to live high and dress well, even if we don't lay up a cent."
"You sartinly do have good cloze, too," said the Sergeant, surveying the stout blue uniforms with admiration. "Yo'uns' common soldiers 've better cloze than our officers. We'uns got hold o' some o' yo'uns' overcoats, and they wear like leather."
"There's leather in 'em," said Shorty unblushingly. "I tell you, old Abe Lincoln's a very smart man. He saw that this war was costin' a heap of money, especially for clothes. He got a bright idee that by soaking the clothes when they were new and green in the tan-vats, jest after the leather wuz taken out, they'd take up the strength o' the leather out o' the juice, and wear always. The idee worked bully, and now old Abe goes every morning to where they're makin' clothes and sees that every stitch is put to soak."
"Nobody but a Yankee'd thought o' that," said the rebel reflectively.52
"You bet," assented Shorty. "Jeff Davis'd never think of it if he lived to be as old as Methuselah. But that's only the beginnin' of Abe Lincoln's smartness."
"He's a durned sight smarter man than we'uns thought he wuz when we begun the war," admitted the Sergeant. "But we'uns 'll wollop him yit, in spite of his smartness."
"We kin tell more about that a few months later," returned Shorty. "It's never safe to count the game until the last hand's played. We hain't fairly begun to lead trumps yit. But what are you fellers fighting for, anyhow?"
"We'uns foutin' for our liberty, and t' keep yo'uns from takin' our niggers away."
The reply that came to Shorty's lips was that they seemed to be losing a great deal of liberty rather than gaining it, but he checked this by the fear that it would be construed as an ungentlemanly boast of their capture. He said, instead:
"I never knowed as any of us wanted your niggers—me particularly. I wouldn't take a wagon load of 'em, even if the freight was prepaid. But, let me ask you, Sergeant, how many niggers do you own?"
"I don't own nary one."
"Does your father own any?"
"No, he don't."
"Does your mother, or brothers, uncles, aunts, or cousins own any?" persisted Shorty.
"No, thar ain't nary one owned in the hull family."
"Seems to me," said Shorty, "you're doin' a great deal of fightin' to keep us from takin' away from53 you something that we don't want and you hain't got. That's the way it looks to a man from north o' the Ohio River. Mebbe there's something in the Tennessee air that makes him see differently. I'll admit that I've changed my mind about a good many things since we crossed the river."
"I've alluz said," spoke another of the prisoners, "that this wuz a rich man's wah and a pore man's fout."
"Well," said Shorty, philosophically, "for folks that like that sort o' fightin,' that's the sort o' fightin' they like. I'm different. I don't. When I fight it's for something that I've got an interest in."
While the discussion was going on Si had been studying the appearance of the prisoners. In spite of their being enemies his heart was touched by their comfortless condition. Not one of them had an overcoat or blanket. The Sergeant and a couple of others had over their shoulders pieces of the State House carpet, which had been cut up into lengths and sewed together for blankets. Another had what had once been a gaudy calico counterpane, with the pat tern "Rose of Sharon" wrought out in flaming colors. It was now a sadly-bedraggled substitute for a blanket. The others had webs of jeans sewed to gether.
The buttons were gone from their garments in many essential places, and replaced by strings, nails, skewers and thorns. Worst of all, almost every one of them was nearly shoeless. A sudden impulse seized Si.
"Shorty," said he, "these men are going up where the weather is very cold. I wish I was able to54 give each of them a warm suit of clothes and a blanket. I ain't though. But I tell you what I will do; I'll go down to the Quartermaster and see if he'll issue me a pair of shoes for each of 'em, and charge it to my clothin' account."
"Bully idee," ejaculated Shorty. "I'll go you halves. Mebbe if they git their understandin' into Yankee leather it'll help git some Yankee idees into their understandin'. See?"
And Shorty was so delighted with his little joke that he laughed over it all the way to the Quarter master's wagon, and then rehearsed it for that officer's entertainment.
Fortunately, the Quartermaster had a box of shoes that he could get at without much trouble, and he was in sufficiently good humor to grant Si's request.
They added a warm pair of socks to each pair of shoes, and so wrought up the A. Q. M.'s sympathies that he threw in some damaged overcoats, and other articles, which he said he could report "lost in action."
They came back loaded with stuff, which they dumped down on the ground before the prisoners, with the brief remark:
"Them's, all yours. Put 'em on."
The prisoners were overwhelmed by this generosity on the part of their foes and captors.
"I alluz thought," said the Sergeant, "that you Yankees wuz not half so bad ez I believed that yo'uns wuz. Yo'uns is white men, if yo'uns do want to take away our niggers."
"Gosh," said the man who had uttered the opinion that it was a rich man's war and a poor man's fight,55 "I'd give all my interest in every nigger in Tennessee for that ere one pa'r o' shoes. They're beauties, I tell you. I never had so good a pa'r afore in all my life."
"RAIN agin to-day," said Shorty, disgustedly, as, on the morning of Dec. 30, 1862, he crawled out of the shelter which he and Si had constructed by laying a pole in the crotches of two young cedars, and stretching their ponchos and pup-tents over it. "Doggoned if I don't believe Tennessee was left out in the flood, and they've been tryin' to make up for it ever since. I'd rather have the flood at once, and be done with it, for then I'd join the navy instead of paddlin' 'round in this dirty glue that they call mud." "Never saw such a grumbler, Shorty," said Si cheerily, as he punched the soaked embers together to start a blaze to boil their coffee by. "Last Summer the dust and dry weather didn't suit you. Do you want to do your soldierin' in heaven?"
"Hurry up with your grub, boys," said the Orderly-Sergeant, who came spattering through the muck of leaves and mud into which the camping-ground had been trampled. "The regiment's to move in 15 minutes. The 200th Ind. guards wagon-trains to-day. Yesterday Wheeler's cavalry got in among our wagons and raised thunder—burnt about a mile of 'em."
Shorty grumbled: "That means a tough day's work pryin' wagons out of the mud, and restin' ourselves between times runnin' after a lot o' skippin', cavortin' cavalry that's about as easy to ketch as a half-bushel o' fleas. Anything I hate it's rebel cavalry58 all tear-around and yell, and when you git ready to shoot they're on the other side o' the hill."
"Well," said Si, removing a slab of sizzling fat pork from the end of his rammer, laying it on his hardtack, and taking a generous bite, "we mustn't allow them to take no wagons away from the 200th Ind., slosh around as they may. We want all that grub ourselves."
"Well, hump yourselves," said the Orderly-Sergeant, as he spattered on; "fall in promptly when assembly blows. Got plenty o' cartridges?"
Two or three hours later every man in the 200th Ind., wet to the skin, and with enough mud on him to be assessable as real estate, was in a temper to have sassed his gentle old grandmother and whipped his best friend. He believed that if there was any thing under heavens meaner than Tennessee weather it was an army mule; the teamsters had even less sense and more contrariness than the mules; the army wagon was a disheartening device of the devil, and Tennessee roads had been especially contrived by Jeff Davis to break the hearts of Union soldiers.
The rain came down with a steady pelt that drove right through to the body. The wagon wheels sank into every mud-hole and made it deeper. Prying out the leading ones seemed only to make it worse for the next. The discouraged mules would settle back in the breech ings, and not pull an ounce at the most critical moments. The drivers would become blundering idiots, driveling futile profanity. In spite of all the mud the striving, pushing, pulling, prying, lifting, shouting 200th Ind. gathered up on their hands and clothes, it increased momentarily in the road.59
The train had strung out over a mile or more of rocky ledges and abysses of mire. Around each wagon was a squad who felt deeply injured by the certainty that their infernal luck had given them the heaviest wagon, the worst mules, and the most exasperating driver in the whole division.
"I couldn't 've made a doggoneder fool than Groundhog, that teamster," said Shorty, laying down his rail for a minute's rest, "if I'd 'a' had Thompson's colt before my eyes for a pattern. That feller was born addled, on Friday, in the dark of the moon."
"Them mules," dolefully corroborated Si, scraping an acre, more or less, of red Tennessee soil from his overcoat with a stick, "need to be broke again with a saw-log. Luck for old Job that the devil didn't think o' settin' him to drive mules. He'd 'a-bin a-goner in less'n an hour."
"Doggone it, here they come," said Shorty, snatching up his gun.
Si looked in the direction of Shorty's glance. Out of the cedars, a mile or more away, burst a regiment of rebel cavalry, riding straight for the front of the train.
With his tribe's keen apprehension of danger, Groundhog had jumped from his saddle, nervously unhitched his mule, and sprung into the saddle again, ready for instant fight.
"Get off and hook that mule up agin," commanded Si sternly. "Now get on your mule and go to the head of your team, take the leaders by the bridles, and stay there."
"If you ain't standing there holding your mules when we come back I'll break your worthless neck."60
The bugle sounded "Rally on the right flank," and Si and Shorty joined the others in a lumbering rush over the miry fields toward the right. Their soaked clothes hung about them like lead. They had not a spoonful of breath left when they got to where, half-a-mile away, Co. A had taken a position in the briers behind a rail fence, and had opened a long-ranged fire on the cavalry, which was manuvering as if trying to discover a way to take the company in flank. Another fence ran at right angles away to the right of Co. A's position. The cavalry started for that.
"Capt. McGillicuddy," shouted the Colonel, "take your company back to that fence as quick as you can, run along back of it, and try to keep those fellows on the other side."
Away the panting company rushed for the fence. The field was overgrown with those pests of the Southern plowman, called locally "devil's shoe strings," which stretch from furrow-ridge to furrow-ridge, and are snares to any careless walker. The excited Indianians were constantly tripped on these, and fell headlong in the mud. Down Si and Shorty went several times, to the great damage of their tempers. But in spite of all rain, mud, lack of breath and devil's shoe-strings the company got to the fence in advance of the cavalry, and opened a scattering fire as each man could get his damp gun to go off. Si and Shorty ran back a little to a hillock, from which they could get long-distance shots on where the cavalry would probably try to tear down the fence.
"It's all of 600 yards, Si," said Shorty, as he leaned against a young oak, got his breath back in long gulps, and studied the ground. "We kin make it, though, with our Springfields, if they'll give us time to cool down and git our breaths. I declare I want a whole Township of fresh air every second. That last time I fell knocked enough breath out o' me to fill a balloon."
"There, they're sendin' out a squad now to go for the fence," said Si, putting his sight up to 600 yards. "I'll line on that little persimmon tree and shoot as they pass it. I'll take the fellow on the clay bank horse, who seems to be an officer. You take the next one on the spotted bay."
"Better shoot at the hoss," said Shorty, fixing his sight. "Bigger mark; and if you git the hoss you git the man."
The squad made a rush for the fence, but as the leader crossed the line Si had drawn on the persimmon tree through his sights, his musket cracked, and the horse reared and fell over in the mud. Shorty broke the shoulder of the next horse, and the rider had to jump off.
"Bully shots, boys. Do it again," shouted the Captain of Co. Q, hurrying some men farther to the right, to concentrate a fire upon the exposed point.
Si and Shorty hastily reloaded, and fired again at the rebels, who had pressed on toward the fence, in spite of the fall of their leader. But not having an object in line to sight on, Si and Shorty did not succeed in bringing anybody down. But as they looked to see the effect, they also saw a cannon-flash from a hill away off behind the cavalry, and the same instant its rifled shot took the top off the young oak about six feet above Si's head.62
Shorty was the first to recover his wits and tongue. "Doggoned if somebody else hain't been drawin' a bead on trees," he said, looking into Si's startled face. "Knows how to shoot, too."
"I didn't notice that measly gun come up there. Did you, Shorty?" said Si, trying to get his heart back out of his mouth, so that he could speak plainly.
"No. I didn't. But it's there all the same, and the fellers with it have blood in their eyes. Le's run over to where the other boys are. I'm a private citizen. I don't like so much public notice."
They joined the squad which was driving back the rebels who had started out to break the fence.
Presently the cavalry wheeled about and disappeared in the woods. The rear was scarcely out of sight, and the 200th Ind. was just beginning to feel a sense of relief, when there was a sputter of shots and a chorus of yells away off to the extreme left.
"Just as I expected," grumbled Shorty. "They are jumping the rear of the train now."
Leaving Co. A to watch the head of the train, the rest of the regiment bolted off on the double-quick for the rear. They did not get there a moment too soon. Not soon enough, in fact. As they came over the crest of the hill they saw Co. B, which had been with the rear, having more than it could attend to with a horde of yelling, galloping rebels, who filled the little valley. Co. B's boys were standing up manfully to their work, and popping away at the rebels from behind fences and rocks, but the latter had already gotten away from them a wagon which had been far to the rear, had cut loose the mules and run them off, and were plundering the wagon, and trying to start a fire under it.
The fusillade which the regiment opened as the men grained the crest of the hill, put a different64 complexion on the affair. The rebels recognized the force of circumstances, and speedily rode back out of range, and then out of sight. As the last of them disappeared over the hill the wearied regiment dropped down all around to rest.
"We can't rest long, boys," said the sympathetic Colonel; "we've got to start these wagons along."
Presently he gave the order:
"Go back to your wagons, now, and get them out as quickly as you can."
Si and Shorty took a circuit to the left to get on some sod which had not been trampled into mortar. They heard a volley of profanity coming from a cedar brake still farther to the left, and recognized the voice of their teamster. They went thither, and found Groundhog, who had fled from the scene, after the manner of his race, at the first sound of firing, but had been too scared to fasten up his traces when he unhitched his saddle mule. These had flapped around, as he urged his steed forward, and the hooks had caught so firmly into the cedars when he plunged into the thicket that he was having a desperate time getting them loose.
"You dumbed, measly coward," said Si. "I told you I'd blow your head offen you if you didn't stay by them mules. I ought to do it."
"Don't, Si," said Shorty. "He deserves it, and we kin do it some other time. But we need him now in our business. He hain't much of a head, but it's all that he's got and he can't drive without it. Le's git the mule loose first."
They got the mule out and turned him around toward the wagons.
"Now," said Shorty, addressing Groundhog, "you white-livered son-in-law of a jackass, git back to that wagon as fast as you kin, if you don't want me to run this bayonet through you."
There was more straining and prying in the dreary rain and fathomless mud to get the wagons started.66
"Shorty," said Si, as they plodded alongside the road, with a rail on one shoulder and a gun on the other, "I really believe that this is the toughest day we've had yet. What d'you s'pose father and mother'd say if they could see us?"
"They'd probably say we wuz earning our $13 a month, with $100 bounty at the end o' three years.," snapped Shorty, who was in no mood for irrelevant conversation.
So the long, arduous day went. When they were not pulling, pushing, prying, and yelling, to get the wagons out of mudholes, they were rushing over the clogging, plowed fields to stand off the nagging rebel cavalry, which seemed to fill the country as full as the rain, the mud, the rocks and the sweeping cedars did. As night drew on they came up to lines of fires where the different divisions were going into line-of-battle along the banks of Stone River. The mud became deeper than ever, from the trampling of tens of thousands of men and animals, but they at least did not have the aggravating rebel cavalry to bother them. They found their division at last in an old cottonfield, and were instantly surrounded by a crowd of hungry, angry men.
"Where in blazes have you fellers bin all day?" they shouted. "You ought to've got up here hours ago. We're about starved."
"Go to thunder, you ungrateful whelps," said Si. "You kin git your own wagons up after this. I'll never help guard another wagon-train as long as I'm in the army."
THE fagged-out 200th Ind. was put in reserve to the brigade, which lay in the line-of-battle. After having got the train safely into camp, the regiment felt that it was incapable of moving another foot.
While their coffee was boiling Si and Shorty broke off a few cedar branches to lay under them, and keep out the mud. The rain still drizzled, cold, searching and depressing, but they were too utterly tired to do anything more than spread their over coats on the branches, lay their blankets and ponchos over, and crawl in between.
In the few minutes which they allowed to elapse between getting into camp and going to sleep they saw and heard something of the preparations going on around them for the mighty battle, but body and brain were too weary to properly "sense" these. They hardly cared what might happen to-morrow. Rest for to-day was everything. They were too weary to worry about anything in the future.
"It certainly looks, Shorty," said Si, as he crawled in, "like as if the circus was in town, and the big show'd come off to-morrow, without regard to the68 weather."
"Let it come and be blamed to it," snorted Shorty. "They can't git up nothin' wuss'n we've bin havin' to-day, let them try their durndest. But I tell you, Mr. Si Klegg, I want you to lay mighty still to-night. If you git to rollin' around in your usual animated style and tanglin' up the bedclothes, I'll kick you out into the rain, and make you stay there. Do you hear me?"
"You bet I'll lay quiet," said Si, as together they gave the skillful little kick only known to veteran campaigners by which they brought the blankets snugly up around their feet. "You could sooner wake up a fence-rail than me. I want to tell you, too, not to git to dreamin' of pryin' wagons out of the mud, and chasin' rebel cavalry. I won't have it."
The reveille the next morning would have promptly awakened even more tired sleepers than Si and Shorty. Even before the dull, damp drums began rolling and the fifes shrieking the air of enforced gaiety along the sinuous line of blue which stretched for miles through red, muddy cottonfields and cedar tangles wet as bath-room sponges, there came from far away on the extreme right a deepening roll of musketry, punctuated with angry cannon-shots and the faint echo of yells and answering cheers.
"That's McCook opening the battle," said the officers, answering the anxious looks of the men. "He's to hold the rebels out there, while Crittenden sweeps around on the left, captures Murfreesboro, and takes them in the rear."
Miles away to the left came the sound of musketry and cannons, as if to confirm this. But the firing there died down, while that to the right increased69 with regular, crashing volleys from muskets and artillery.
The 200th Ind. was in that exceedingly trying position for soldiers, where they can hear everything but see nothing. The cedar thicket in which they stood shut off the view in every direction. The Colonel kept officers and men standing strictly in place, ready for any contingency. Si and Shorty leaned on their muskets and anxiously watched the regimental commander as he sat rigidly in his saddle, with his fixed gaze bent in the direction of the awful tumult. The Adjutant had ridden forward a little ways to where he could get a better view. The other officers stood stiffly in their places, with the points of their drawn swords resting on the ground, and their hands clasped on the hilts, and watched the Colonel intently. Sometimes they would whisper a few words to those standing near them. The Captain of Co. Q drew geometric figures in the mud with the point of his sword.
Constantly the deafening crash came nearer, and crept around farther to the right.
Si gave a swift glance at Shorty. His partner's teeth were set, his face drawn and bloodless, his eyes fixed immovably on the Colonel.
"Awful fightin' goin' on out there, Shorty," said Si, in hushed voice. "I'm afraid they're lickin' our fellers."
"Confound it!" snorted Shorty, "why in thunder don't they move us out, and give us something to do? This is hell standin' here listenin'."
A teamster, hatless and coatless, with his hair70 standing up, came tearing through the brush, mounted on his saddle-mule.
A chorus of yells and curses greeted his appearance. It was immense relief for the men to have something to swear at.
"Run, you egg-sucking hound.
"Run, you scald-headed dominie.71
"Somebody busted a cap in your neighborhood, old white-liver."
"Seen the ghost of a dead rebel, Pilgarlic?"
"Pull back your eyes, you infernal mulewhacker. A limb'll brush 'em off."
"Look at his hair standin' up stiffer'n bristles on a boar's back."
"Your mules got more sand 'n you. They're standing where you left 'em."
"Of course, you're whipped and all cut to pieces. You was that when you heard the first gun crack."
"Get out of the way, and let him run himself to death. That's all he's fit for."
"You've no business in men's clothes. Put on petticoats."
"Go it, rabbit; go it, cotton-tail you've heard a dog bark."
"Chickee chickee skip for the barn. Hawk's in the air."
"Let him alone. He's in a hurry to get back and pay his sutler's bill."
The teamster gasped out:
"You'd better all git out o' here as fast as the Lord'll let you. Johnson's Division's cut all to pieces and runnin'. There'll be a million rebels on top o' you in another minnit."
"Capt. McGillicuddy," said the Colonel sternly, but without turning his head, "either bayonet that cowardly rascal or gag him and tie him to a tree."
The Captain turned to give the order to Corp'l Klegg, but the teamster struck his mule with his whip, and went tearing on through the brush before the order could be given.72
Some severely-wounded men came slowly pushing their way through the chaparral.
"It's awful hot out there," they said. "The rebels got the start of us, and caught our battery horses off to water. They outflanked us bad, but the boys are standin' up to 'em and they're gettin' help, an 'll lick the stuffin' out of 'em yet."
The regiment gave the plucky fellows a cheer.
A riderless horse, frantic from his wounds and the terrific noise, tore through the brush, and threatened to dash over Co. Q. Si and Shorty saw the danger, and before the Captain could give an order they sprang forward, and, at considerable risk, succeeded in getting hold of the reins and partially calming the poor brute. The eagles on the saddle cloth showed that he belonged to a Colonel. He was led to the rear, and securely haltered to a young cedar. The incident served a purpose in distracting for awhile the attention of the regiment.
The noise in front and to the right swept farther away for a little while, and the men's hearts rose with a cheer.
"Now the reinforcements are getting in. Why in the world don't they send us forward?" they said.
The Colonel still sat rigidly, with his face straight to the front.
Then the noise began to roll nearer again, and the men's hearts to sink.
The wounded men coming back became a continuous procession. They spoke less confidently, and were anxious to know what was taking place on other parts of the line.
"The whole infernal Southern Confederacy's out73 there," said one boy, who was holding his shattered right hand in his left, with his thumb pressed hard on the artery, to stanch the blood, "in three lines-of-battle, stretching from daybreak to sunset. The boys have been standing them off bully, though, but I don't know how long they can keep it up. Thomas and Crittenden ought to be walking right over every thing, for there can't be anybody in front of them. They're all out there."
Two musicians came laboring through, carrying a stretcher on which was an officer with part of his face shot away. Si felt himself growing white around the mouth and sick at the stomach, but he looked the other way, and drew in a long, full breath.
The storm now seemed to be rolling toward them at railroad speed. Suddenly the woods became alive with men running back, some with their guns in their hands, many without. Some were white with fear, and silent; some were in a delirium of rage, and yelling curses. Officers, bareheaded, and wildly excited, were waving their swords, and calling regiments and companies by name to halt and rally.
The Adjutant came galloping back, his horse knocking the fugitives right and left. He shouted, to make himself heard in the din:
"The whole division is broken and going back. Our brigade is trying to hold the rebels. They need us at once."
The Colonel turned calmly in his saddle, and his voice rang out clear, distinct, and measured, as if on parade:
"Attention, 200th Indiana!"
"Load at will LOAD!"
A windrow of bright ramrods flashed and weaved in the air. A wave of sharp, metallic clicks ran from one end of the line to the other.
"Shoulder ARMS!"
"Right FACE!"
"Forward MARCH!"
What happened immediately after emerging from the cedars Si could never afterward distinctly recall. He could only vaguely remember as one does the impression of a delirium seeing, as the regiment swung from column into line, a surging sea of brown men dashing forward against a bank of blue running along a rail fence, and from which rose incessant flashes of fire and clouds of white smoke. The 200th Ind. rushed down to the fence, to the right of the others; the fierce flashes flared along its front; the white smoke curled upward from it. He did not remember any order to begin firing; did not remember when he began. He only remembered presently feeling his gun-barrel so hot that it burned his hand, but this made him go on firing more rapidly than before. He was dimly conscious of his comrades dropping around him, but this did not affect him. He also remembered catching sight of Shorty's face, and noticing that it was as black as that of a negro, but this did not seem strange.
He felt nothing, except a consuming rage to shoot into and destroy those billows of brown fiends surging incessantly toward him. Consciousness only came back to him after the billows had surged back ward into the woods, leaving the red mud of the field splotched with brown lumps which had lately been men.75
As his mind cleared his hand flinched from the hot gun-barrel, and he looked down curiously to see the rain-drops turn into steam as they struck it. His throat was afire from the terrible powder thirst. He lifted his canteen to his lips and almost drained it. He drew a long breath, and looked around to see what had happened since they left the cedars. Shorty was by his side, and unhurt. He now under stood why his face was so black. He could feel the thick incrustation of powder and sweat on his own. Several of Co. Q were groaning on the ground, and the Captain was detailing men to carry them back to where the Surgeon had established himself. Two were past all surgery, staring with soulless eyes into the lowering clouds.
"Poor Bill and Ebe," said Si, gazing sorrowfully at the bodies. "Co. Q will miss them. What good boys they—"
"Were" stuck in his throat. That those strong, active, ever-ready comrades of a few minutes before now merely "were" was unspeakable.
His thoughts were distracted by a rebel battery on the hill sending a volley of shells at the fence. Some went over, and tore gaps in the cedars beyond. One struck the corner of the fence near him, and set the rails to flying.
"I like fence-rails in their place as well as any man," said Shorty, as they dodged around; "but a fence-rail's got no business sailin' 'round in the air like a bird."
An Aid rode up to the Colonel.
"The General's compliments, Colonel. He directs me to express to you his highest compliments on the76 splendid manner in which you have defended your position. You and your men have done nobly. But we are outflanked, and it will be necessary to retire to a new position about a half-mile to the rear. You will withdraw your regiment by companies, so as to attract as little attention from the enemy as possible. As soon as they are under cover of the cedars you will move rapidly to the new position."
"Very well," said the Colonel, saluting. "You will be good enough to say to the General that my men and myself appreciate highly his praise. We are proud to receive it, and shall try to deserve it in the future. His orders shall be immediately obeyed."
"They call this a civil war," said Shorty, as an other volley of shells tore around. "Seems to me sometimes that it's too durned civil. If we're goin' to git out of here, we might save compliments for a quieter time."
One by one the companies filed back into the cedars, Co. Q being last. Just as they started the rebels on the opposite hill discovered the movement, raised a yell, and started across the field.
"Halt Front!" commanded the Captain. "Those fellows are too tumultuous and premature. We must check them up a little. Wait till they come to that little branch, then everybody pick his man and let him have it. Aim below the belt."
The frenzy of the first struggle was now gone from Si's mind; instead had come a deadly determination to make every shot tell.
"I'm goin' to fetch that mounted officer on their right," he said to Shorty and those around him.
"Very well," said Shorty. "I'll take that Captain77 near him who's wavin' his sword and yellin'. The rest o' you fellers pick out different men."
The rebel line was in the weeds which bordered the branch when the Captain gave the order to fire.
When the smoke arose the mounted officer and the yelling Captain were down.
"If somebody else didn't get them, we did," said Shorty, as they turned and rushed back into the cedars.
The rebels were only checked momentarily. They soon came swarming on, and as Co. Q crashed through the cedars the rebels were yelling close be hind. Fortunately, they could not do any effective firing, on account of the brush. But when they came to the edge of the thicket there was a long run across a furrowed, muddy cottonfield, to reach the knoll on which the brigade was re-forming. The battery was already in action there, throwing shells over the heads of Co. Q at the rebels swarming out of the cedars in pursuit.
Si and Shorty threw away overcoats, blankets, haversacks and canteens everything which would impede their running, except their guns and cartridge-boxes. Their caps were gone, and Si had lost one shoe in the mud. They all sat down on the ground for a minute and panted to get their breath.
The rebels were checked, but only temporarily. They were thronging out in countless multitudes, lining up into regiments and brigades, preparatory to a rush across the field upon the brigade. Away to the right of the brigade rebel batteries had been concentrated, which were shelling it and the ground to the rear, to prevent any assistance being sent it.78
"Captain," said the Colonel, riding up to Co. Q, "the General says that we have got to stay here and hold those fellows back until the new line can be formed along the pike. We haven't ammunition enough for another fight. You'll have to send a Corporal and a squad back to the pike to bring up some more. Pick out men that'll be sure to come back, and in a hurry."
"Corp'l Klegg," said the Captain, without an instant's hesitation, "you hear what's to be done. Take five men and go."
Si looked around to see if there was someone he could borrow a shoe from. But that was hardly a time when men were likely to lend shoes. He picked Shorty and four others. They flung down their guns and started on a run for the pike.
The batteries were sweeping the fields with shells, but they were so intent on their errand that they paid no attention to the demoniac shrieks of the hurtling pieces of iron.
They gained the other side of the field, but as they entered the welcome shelter of the woods they encountered an officer with a drawn sword, commanding a line of men.
"Stop there, you infernal, cowardly rascals," he yelled. "Pick up those guns there, and get into line, or I'll shoot you. You, Corporal, ought to be ashamed of yourself."
"We're after ammunition for the 200th Ind.," gasped Si. "We must have it right away. Where's the division ammunition train?"
"That ammunition story's played. Can't work it on me. Where's your regiment? Where's your79 caps? Where's your shoes? Where's your guns? You're rattled out of your senses. Stop here and cool off. Pick up guns there and fall into line."
"Name o' God, Lieutenant," said Shorty excitedly. "This's no time for any foolishness. Our regiment's out there on the hill without any ammunition. The rebels are gittin' ready to jump it, four or five to one. Don't fool, for heaven's sake. There's not a minute to waste. Come with us and help us git the ammunition. That's a blame sight more important than stoppin' these here runaways, who're no good when they are stopped. Come along, for God's sake."
His earnestness impressed the Lieutenant.
"Lieut. Evans," he called out, "take command of the line while I go back with these men to the ammunition-train. I can get it quicker for them than they can. Your Colonel should have sent a commissioned officer with you."
"The Colonel needs all the officers he has left with him," panted Shorty, running ahead of the rest. "Everybody back there's got all he can attend to, and we couldn't really be spared."
There was a crowd of similar men surging around the ammunition wagons, each eager to get his load and rush back. The covers of the wagons had been torn off, and a man stood in each, pitching the boxes to the clamoring details. All were excited and reckless. The pitching would be wild, or the catching bad, and occasionally a box would strike a man on the head or body and knock him down. He would scarcely stop to swear, but snatch up his precious box and rush off toward his regiment.80
"Open out here, let us in," commanded the Lieutenant, striking right and left with the flat of his sword. It was not a moment for gentle courtesies. The crowd opened up, and Si and Shorty pushed in near the wheels.
"Now give us six boxes in a hurry," commanded the Lieutenant.
Si caught the first box, Shorty the second, and before the Lieutenant was hardly done speaking the rest had theirs, and started back on the run, accompanied by the Lieutenant. The boxes were very heavy and the mud was deep, but they went faster than they had ever done, even when running from the rebels.
"I'm awfully afraid you'll have a time getting across the field there," said the Lieutenant, as they came to the edge, and he surveyed the ground in front doubtfully. "Lieut. Evans says they've moved a battery up closer, and are sweeping the field with canister."
"We don't care what they're shootn'," said Si resolutely. "We're goin' back to the regiment with these boxes, or die a-tryin'."
"Go on, then, and God help you," said the Lieutenant. "I'd go with you if I could do any good."
Si arranged his box for a desperate rush. A blast of canister swept through, cutting down shrubs, splattering the mud, and shrieking viciously.
"Let's get as far as we can before they fire again," he shouted, and plunged forward. Half-way across the field his foot caught in a devil's shoe-string, and down he went in the mud, with the heavy box driving him deeper.81
Just then another blast of canister hurtled across the field.
"Golly, it was lucky, after all, that I was tripped," said Si, rising, stunned and dripping. "That load of canister was meant for me personally."
Two minutes later he flung the box down before the company, and sank panting on the ground. The others came up after. Some had teen grazed by canister, but none seriously wounded. They arrived just in the nick of time, for the regiment had expended its last cartridge in repulsing the last assault, and was now desperately fixing bayonets to meet the next with cold steel. The lids of the boxes were pried off with bayonets, and the Sergeants ran along the companies distributing the packages. The assault was met with a stream of fire, given with steady deadliness, which sent the rebels back to their covert.
An Aid dashed across the field to the brigade commander.
"The line is now formed," he said. "Retire your command to it."
That night, after the battle had ceased, Si and Shorty were seated on a rail by the Nashville pike munching rations which they had luckily found in a thrown-away haversack. They were allowed no fires, they had no blankets nor overcoats, and it was bitter cold.
"Shorty, you said last night you was sure that they couldn't git up nothin' to-day that'd be as bad as what we had yesterday," said Si. "I bel'eve that I'd rather guard wagon-trains and fight cavalry than have such another day as this."
"I think the lake of brimstone'd be a pleasant change from this," snorted Shorty.
IT WAS so desperately cold and comfortless that Si and Shorty felt that they must do something or perish.
There were some fragments of cracker-boxes near. With these they dug a hole several inches deep, put some splinters in, and started a stealthy blaze. They were careful to sit on the side toward the rebels, the better to hide from them any sight of it. It was a very small fire, but there was more relief in it than Si had before gotten from those a thousand times larger. It kept his unshod foot from freezing, and brought the blood back to his numb hands.
"Just think, Shorty," said Si; "night before last we had a whole panel of fence on the fire, and all our blankets and overcoats, and yet you kicked. I believe this is a judgment on you for not being thankful for what you receive."
"Judgment be blowed," ejaculated Shorty. "This ain't no judgment; it's just durned luck that is, what isn't foolishness in sendin' a boy to mill. If we'd had only half as many men out there in the cedars as the rebels had we'd licked thunder out of 'em. We simply couldn't whip four or five to one. McCook didn't size up his job right."
"Well, we have something to be thankful for," said Si, determined to see the bright side of things. "Neither of us got hurt, which is a blessing."
"Don't know whether it is or not. If we are goin' to freeze to death before mornin' I'd rather've bin shot the first volley."
The misty darkness around them was filled with noise and motion. Men who had become separated from their regiments were wandering around trying to find them, in the bewildering maze of men, wagons and animals. Officers were calling aloud the names of regiments to bring together stragglers. Aids were rushing around to find Generals and Colonels to give and receive orders and instructions. Regiments and batteries were marching hither and yon to get into position and complete the formation of the line for the morrow's battle. The 200th Ind., which had fallen back in good order with its brigade, was well together, and made an island around which a restless sea of humanity flowed and eddied. Cheer less as was its bivouac in the cold mud, yet it was infinitely preferable to being lost in the inextricable confusion that reigned over those cottonfields on that sorrowful night of Dec. 31, 1862.
"I'm not goin' to freeze to death," said Si, starting up, at last. "I'm going to look around and see if I can't find something to make us more comfortable. Shorty, hold on to that hole in the ground. It's all that we've got left in the world, and if we lose that I don't know what'll become of us."
"Better stay here, and not go wanderin' off into that mob," remonstrated Shorty. "You'll git lost entirely, and never find your way back."85
"I'll not get lost," responded Si. "I've got the lay o' the ground in my mind. If I did," he continued proudly, "it'd be easy to find you agin. Everybody knows where the 200th Ind. is."
He went only a little ways, and carefully, at first.
He was rewarded by kicking against an object which upon examination proved to be a well-filled haver sack, which someone had flung away in his hurry. He carried it back, rejoicing, to Shorty.
"Finders is keepers," said Shorty, unbuckling the knapsack. "We'll just call this fair exchange for what we've throwed away in to-day's hustle. Let's open her up."
"Some new recruit's," said Si, as they examined the inside. "Looks like the one I packed from Injianny. What's this? I declare if it ain't a pair o' new shoes, and about my size; and some socks. I tell you, Shorty, I'm in luck."
He pulled the muddy socks off his shoeless foot, and drew on one of the warm, homemade affairs, and then the shoe. Both fitted well. He put on the other sock and shoe, and life at once seemed brighter.
"Shorty," said he, "I shouldn't wonder if I could find a blanket and an overcoat. You keep on holding that hole down, and I'll go out agin. I won't be gone long, for I'm dead tired. Just as soon as I find an overcoat or a blanket to put between us and the mud, I'll come back and we'll lay down. Every joint in me aches."
He started off less carefully this time. His new shoes made him feel more like walking. He was some distance from the regiment before he knew it. He found an overcoat. It had been trampled into the mud by thousands of passing feet, but still it was an overcoat, and it was not a time to be too nice about the condition of a garment. Presently he found a blanket in similar condition. He pulled on the overcoat, and threw the blanket over his 87shoulders. He felt warmer, but they were very heavy. Still, he thought he would go on a little ways farther, and perhaps he would find another overcoat and blanket, which would fix out both him and his partner.
All this time men were sweeping by him in companies, regiments and squads; batteries were moving in all directions, and mounted officers were making their way to and fro. Filling up the spaces between these were hundreds of men, single and in small groups, wandering about in search of their regiments, and inquiring of everyone who would stop to listen to them as to the whereabouts of regiments, brigades and divisions. No one could give any satisfactory information. Organizations which had formed a line two miles long in the morning had been driven back, frequently in tumult and disorder, for miles through the thickets and woods. Fragmentary organizations had been rallied from time to time. A fragment of a regiment would rally at one point with fragments of other regiments and make a stand, while other regiments would rally at widely-separated places and renew the fight, only to be pushed back again toward the Nashville Pike. Regiments and brigades that had remained nearly intact had been rapidly shifted from one point to another, as they were needed, until the mind could not follow their changes, or where nightfall had found them, or whither they had been shifted to form the new line.
At last Si succeeded in picking up another over coat and blanket out of the mud, and started to go back to the regiment.88
But where was the regiment? He had long since lost all track of its direction. He had been so intent upon studying the ground for thrown-away clothing that he had not noticed the course he had taken.
It suddenly dawned on him that he was but one drop in that great ocean of 35,000 men, surging around on the square miles lying between the Nashville Pike and Stone River. He looked about, but could see nothing to guide him. His eyes rested everywhere on dark masses of moving men. Those immediately around him were inquiring weariedly for their own regiments; they had no patience to answer inquiries as to his own. Discouraged, he determined to walk as straight ahead as possible in the direction which he had come, and see where that would bring him. He was so tired that he could scarcely drag one foot after another, but he plodded on. At length he drew out of the throng a little, and saw that he was approaching the banks of a large stream. This disheartened him, for they had not been within miles of Stone River during the day. He saw a group of men huddled around a larger fire than had been permitted near the front. This, too, was discouraging, for it showed that he had been forging toward the rear. But he went up to the group and inquired:
"Do any o' you know where the 200th Ind. is?"
The men had become wearied out answering similar questions, and were as cross as soldiers get to be under similar circumstances.
"The 200th Ind.," snapped one; "better go back to the rear-guard and inquire. The straggler-ketchers 've got 'em."89
"No," said another; "they skipped out before the rear-guard was formed, and were all drowned trying to swim the Cumberland."
"They say the Colonel went on foot," said a third, "and was the first man in the regiment to reach Nashville. Made the best long-distance run on record."
"You infernal liars," roared Si; "if I wasn't so tired I'd lick the whole caboodle of you. But I'll say this: Any man who says that the 200th Ind. run, or that our brave Colonel run, or that any man in it run, is a low-down, measly liar, and hain't a grain a' truth in him, and he daresn't take it up."
It was a comprehensive challenge, that would have met with instantaneous response at any other time, but now the men were too exhausted for such vanities as fisticuffs.
"O, go off and find your rattled, lousy Hoosiers," they shouted in chorus. "Go talk to the Provost-Marshal about 'em. He's got the most of 'em. The rest are breaking for the Wabash as fast as their legs can carry them. Don't be bothering us about that corn-cracking, agery crowd."
"Where'd you leave your regiment, you chuckle-headed straggler?"
"You were so rattled you couldn't tell which way they went."
"Where's your gun?"
"Where's your cartridge-box and haversack?"
"Where's your cap?"
"You were so scared you'd 'a' throwed away your head if it'd been loose!"
"Clear out from here, you dead-beat."90
Si was too sick at heart to more than resolve that he would remember each one of them, and pay them off at some more convenient time. He turned and walked back as nearly as possible in the direction in which he had come. He knew that his regiment was at the front, and he had been forging toward the rear. He knew vaguely that the front was some where near the Nashville Pike, and as he wearily wound around and through the bewildering masses, he inquired only for the Nashville Pike.
He reached the Pike, at last, just as he was sinking with fatigue. The dreary rain had set in again, and he had determined to give the thing up, and sit down, and wait for morning. He saw a feeble glimmer of light at a distance, and decided to make one more effort to reach it, and inquire for his regiment.
"Partner, have you any idee where the 200th Ind. is?" he said meekly to the man who was crouching over the fire in the hole.
"Hello, Si," said Shorty. "I had given you up long ago. Of course, you went off and got lost in that mob, as I told you you would. Next time you'll have sense enough to mind what I say."
"O, Shorty," groaned Si, "don't say nothing. I've nigh walked my legs offen me. I think I've tramped over every foot of ground betwixt here and Overall's Crick. But I've brought back two overcoats and two blankets."
"That's bully," answered Shorty, much mollified. "Say, I've got an idee. D'you see that white thing over there? That's a wagon. The mules 've been taken away, and it's been standing there for an hour. I've seen the Lieutenants and the Orderly-Sergeant sneak back there, and I know what they're up to. They're goin' to sleep in the wagon. Of course, they're officers, and got the first pick. But we kin92 lay down under it, and get out of the rain. Be sides, it looks as if the ground was drier up there than it is down here."
They slipped quietly back to the wagon, and were lucky enough to find a little hay in the feed-box, which they could lay down to spread their blankets upon. They pulled the tail-gate off and set it up on the side from which the rain was coming.
"There," said Shorty, as they crawled in. "Si, what'd you do without me? Ain't I a comfort to you every minute of your life?"
"You certainly are, Shorty," said Si, as he fell asleep.
SI WAS awakened the next morning by the rain dashing down squarely on his upturned face. He was lying on the flat of his back, sleeping the sleep of the utterly outworn, and he got the full force of the shower.
"Plague take it, Shorty," said he, kicking his snoring partner, "you're at your old tricks again scrougin' me out o' the tent while I'm asleep. Why can't you lay still, like a white man?"
"It's you, dod rot you," grumbled Shorty, half-awakening. "You're at your old tricks o' kickin' the tent down. You need a 10-acre lot to sleep in, and then you'd damage the fence-corners."
They were both awake by this time, and looked around in amazement.
"We went to sleep nice and comfortable, under a wagon last night," said Shorty, slowly recalling the circumstances. "The two Lieutenants and the Orderly had the upper berth, and we slept on the ground-floor."
"Yes," assented Si; "and someone's come along, hitched mules to our bedroom and snaked it off."
"Just the way in the condemned army," grumbled Shorty, his ill-humor asserting itself as he sat up and looked out over the rain-soaked fields. "Never kin git hold of a good thing but somebody yanks it94 away. S'pose they thought that it was too good for a private soldier, and they took it away for some Major-General to sleep under."
"Well, I wonder what we're goin' to do for grub?" said Si, as his athletic appetite began to assert itself.
"Our own wagons, that we had such a time guarding, are over there in the cedars, and the rebels are filling themselves up with the stuff that we were so good to bring up for them."
"It makes me jest sizzle," said Shorty, "to think of all we went through to git them condemned wagons up where they'd be handiest for them."
Si walked down the line toward where the Regimental Headquarters were established under a persimmon tree, and presently came back, saying:
"They say there's mighty small chance of gettin' any grub to-day. Wheeler burnt three or four miles of our wagons yesterday, and's got possession of the road to Nashville. We've got to fight the battle out on empty stomachs, and drive these whelps away before we kin get a square meal."
Jan. 1, 1863, was an exceedingly solemn, unhappy New Year's Day for the Union soldiers on the banks of Stone River. Of the 44,000 who had gone into the line on the evening of Dec. 30, nearly 9,000 had been killed or wounded and about 2,000 were prisoners. The whole right wing of the army had been driven back several miles, to the Nashville Pike. Cannon, wagon-trains, tents and supplies had been captured by the rebel cavalry, which had burned miles of wagons, and the faint-hearted ones murmured that the army would have to surrender or starve.
There was not ammunition enough to fight an other battle. The rebel army had suffered as heavily in killed and wounded, but it was standing on its own ground, near its own supplies, and had in addition captured great quantities of ours.96
The mutual slaughter of the two armies had been inconceivably awful inexpressibly ghastly, shuddering, sickening. They had pounded one another to absolute exhaustion, and all that sullen, lowering, sky-weeping Winter's day they lay and glared at one another like two huge lions which had fanged and torn each other until their strength had been entirely expended, and breath and strength were gone. Each was too spent to strike another blow, but each too savagely resolute to think of retreating.
All the dogged stubbornness of his race was now at fever point in Si's veins. Those old pioneers and farmers of the Wabash from whom he sprang were not particularly handsome to look at, they were not glib talkers, nor well educated. But they had a way of thinking out rather slowly and awkwardly it might be just what they ought to do, and then doing it or dying in the effort which made it very disastrous for whoever stood in their way. Those who knew them best much preferred to be along with them rather than against them when they set their square-cornered heads upon accomplishing some object.
Si might be wet, hungry, and the morass of mud in which the army was wallowing uncomfortable and discouraging to the last degree, but there was not the slightest thought in his mind of giving up the fight as long as there was a rebel in sight. He and Shorty were not hurt yet, and until they were, the army was still in good fighting trim.
The line of the 200th Ind. was mournfully shorter than it was two days before, but there were still several hundred boys of Si's stamp gathered resolutely97 around its flag, the game little Colonel's voice rang out as sharply as ever, and the way the boys picked up their guns and got into line whenever a sputter of firing broke out anywhere must have been very discouraging to Gen. Bragg and his officers, who were anxiously watching the Union lines through their glasses for signs of demoralization and retreat.
"We licked 'em yesterday, every time they come up squarely in front o' the 200th Ind.," Si said to Shorty and those who stood around gazing anxiously on the masses of brown men on the other side of the field. "We can do it again, every time. The only way they got away with us was by sneakin' around through the cedars and takin' us in the rear. We're out in the open ground now, an' they can't get around our flanks." And he looked to the extreme right, where every knoll was crowned with a battery of frowning guns.
"They got their bellies full o' fightin' yesterday," added Shorty, studying the array judicially. "They hain't none o' the brashness they showed yesterday mornin', when they were jumpin' us in front, right, left and rear at the same minute. They're very backward about comin' forward acrost them fields for us to-day. I only wish they'd try it on."
But the forenoon wore away without the rebels showing any disposition to make an assault across the muddy fields. Si's vigilant appetite took advantage of the quiet to assert its claims imperiously.
"Shorty," said he, "there must be something to eat somewhere around here. I'm goin' to look for it."
"You'll have just about as much chance of findin' it," said Shorty dolefully, "among that mob o' 98famished Suckers as you would o' findin' a straw-stack in the infernal regions. But I'll go 'long with you. We can't lose the regiment in the day time."
"By the way, Shorty," said Si, happening to glance at the sleeves of the overcoats which he had picked up, "we both seem to be Sergeants."
"That's so," assented Shorty. "Both these are Sergeant's overcoats. We'll take our guns along, and play that we are on duty. It may help us out somewhere."
Things looked so quiet in front that the Captain gave them permission, and off they started. It seemed a hopeless quest. Everywhere men were ravenous for food. They found one squad toasting on their rammers the pieces of a luckless rabbit they had cornered in a patch of briars. Another was digging away at a hole that they alleged contained a woodchuck. A third was parching some corn found in a thrown-away feed box, and congratulating themselves upon the lucky find.
Finally they came out upon the banks of Stone River at the place to which Si had wandered during the night. Si recognized it at once, and also the voices that came from behind a little thicket of paw paws as those of the men with whom he had had the squabble.
Si motioned to Shorty to stop and keep silent, while he stepped up closer, parted the bushes a little, looked through, and listened.
Two men were standing by a fire, which was concealed from the army by the paw-paws. Four others had just come up, carrying rolled in a blanket what seemed to be a dead body. They flung it down99 by the fire, with exclamations of relief, and unrolled it. It was the carcass of a pig so recently killed that it was still bleeding.
"Hello," exclaimed the others joyfully; "where did you get that?"
"Why," exclaimed one of the others, "we were poking around down there under the bank, and we happened to spy a nigger cabin on the other side of the river, hid in among the willers, where nobody could see it. We thought there might be something over there, so we waded across. There wasn't any thing to speak of in the cabin, but we found this pig in the pen. Jim bayoneted it, and then we wrapped it up in our blanket, as if we wuz taking a boy back to the Surgeon's, and fetched it along. We couldn't 've got a hundred yards through that crowd if they'd dreamed what we had. Jerusalem, but it was heavy, though. We thought that pig weighed a thousand pounds before we got here."
"Bully boys," said the others gleefully. "We'll have enough to eat, no matter how many wagons the rebels burn. I always enjoyed a dinner of fresh pork more on New Year's Day than any other time."
Si turned and gave Shorty a wink that conveyed more to that observant individual than a long telegram would have done. He winked back approvingly, brought up his gun to a severely regulation "carry arms," and he and Si stepped briskly through the brush to the startled squad.
"Here," said Si, with official severity; "you infernal stragglers, what regiments do you belong to? Sneaking out here, are you, and stealin' hogs instead of being with your companies. Wrap that pig up100 again, pick it up, and come along with us to Headquarters."
For a minute it looked as if the men would fight. But Si had guessed rightly; they were stragglers, and had the cowardice of guilty consciences. They saw the chevrons on Si's arms, and his positive, commanding air finished them. They groaned, wrapped up the pig again, and Si mercifully made the two who had waited by the fire carry the heaviest part.
Si started them back toward the 200th Ind., and he and Shorty walked along close to them, maintaining a proper provost-guard-like severity of countenance and carriage.
The men began to try to beg off, and make advances on the basis of sharing the pork. But Si and Shorty's official integrity was incorruptible.
"Shut up and go on," they would reply to every proposition. "We ain't that kind of soldiers. Our duty's to take you to Headquarters, and to Headquarters you are going."
They threaded through the crowds for some time, and as they were at last nearing the regiment a battery of artillery went by at as near a trot as it could get out of the weary horses in that deep mire. The squad took advantage of the confusion to drop their burden and scurry out of sight in the throng.
"All right; let 'em go," grinned Si. "I wuz jest wonderin' how we'd get rid o' 'em. I'd thought o' takin' them into the regiment and then givin' them a chunk o' their pork, but then I'd get mad at the way they talked about the 200th Ind. last night, and want to stop and lick 'em. It's better as it is. We need all that pig for the boys."101
Si and Shorty picked up the bundle and carried it up to the regiment. When they unrolled it the boys gave such lusty cheers that the rebels beyond the field rushed to arms, expecting a charge, and one of our impulsive cannoneers let fly a shell at them.
Si and Shorty cut off one ham for themselves and their particular cronies, carried the other ham, with their compliments, to the Colonel, and let the rest be divided up among the regiment.
One of their chums was lucky enough to have saved a tin box of salt, and after they had toasted and devoured large slices of the fresh ham they began to feel like new men, and be anxious for some thing farther to happen.
But the gloomy, anxious day dragged its slow length along with nothing more momentous than fitful bursts of bickering, spiteful firing, breaking out from time to time on different parts of the long line, where the men's nerves got wrought up to the point where they had to do something to get the relief of action.
Away out in front of the regiment ran a little creek, skirting the hill on which the rebels were massed. In the field between the hill and the creek was one of our wagons, which had mired there and been abandoned by the driver in the stampede of the day before. It seemed out of easy rifle-shot of the rebels on the hill.
Si had been watching it for some time. At length he said:
"Shorty, I believe that wagon's loaded with hard tack."
"It's certainly a Commissary wagon," said Shorty, after studying it a little.102
"Yes, I'm sure that it's one o' them wagons we was guardin', and I recollect it was loaded with hard tack."
The mere mention of the much-abused crackers made both their mouths water.
"Seems to me I recognize the wagon, too," said Shorty.
"Shorty, it'd be a great thing if we could sneak along up the creek, behind them bushes, until we come opposite the wagon, then make, a rush acrost the field, snatch up a box o' hardtack apiece, and then run back. We'd get enough to give each o' the boys a cracker apiece. The wagon'd shelter us comin' and goin', and we wouldn't get a shot."
"It might be," said Shorty, with visions of distributing hardtack to the hungry boys warping his judgment. "The fellers right back o' the wagon couldn't shoot to any advantage, and them to the right and left are too fur off. If you say so, it's a go."
"If the boys could only have one hardtack apiece," said Si, as his last hesitation vanished, "they'd feel ever so much better, and be in so much better shape for a fight. Come on, let's try it."
The rest overheard their plan, and began to watch them with eager interest. They made a circle to the right, got into the cover of the brush of the creek, and began making their way slowly and carefully up to a point opposite the wagon. They reached this without attracting notice, parted the bushes in front of them carefully, and took a good survey of the wagon and the hill beyond.
The wagon was a great deal nearer the hill than had appeared to be the case from where the103 regiment lay, and even where they stood they were in easy range of the rebels on the hill. But the latter were utterly unsuspicious of them. They were crouching down around fires, with their guns stacked, and the cannoneers of a couple of guns were at some distance from their pieces, under a brush shelter, before which a fire smoldered in the rain.
"It's awful short range," said Si dubiously. "If they were lookin' they'd tear us and the wagon all to pieces. But our boys is a-watchin' us, and I don't want to go back without a shy at it. Them fellers seem so busy tryin' to keep warm that we may get there without their noticin' us."
"I never wanted hardtack so much in my life as I do this minute," said Shorty. "I don't care to live forever, anyway. Let's chance it."
They pulled off their overcoats, carefully tied up their shoes, shifted around so as to be completely behind the wagon, and then started on a rush through the mud.
For several hundred steps nothing happened, and they began to believe that they would reach the wagon unnoticed. Then a few shots rang out over their heads, followed a minute later by a storm of bullets that struck in the mud and against the wagon. But they reached the wagon, and sat down, exhausted, on the tongue, sidling up close to the bed to protect them from the bullets.
Si recovered his breath first, caught hold of the front board and raised himself up, saw the boxes of coveted hardtack, and was just putting his hand on one of them when a shell struck the rear end and tore the canvas cover off. Si sank back again104 beside Shorty, when another shell burst under the wagon, and filled the air with pieces of wheels, bed, cracker-boxes and hardtack.
"I don't want no hardtack; I want to find the bank o' that crick," yelled Shorty, starting back on the jump, with Si just six inches behind.
The bullets spattered in the mud all around them as they ran, but they reached the creek bank with out being struck. They were in such a hurry that they did not stop to jump, but fell headlong into the water.
"Them hardtack wuz spiled, anyway," said Shorty, as they fished themselves out, found their overcoats, and made their way back to the regiment.
They received the congratulations of their comrades on their escape, and someone fished out all the consolation that the regiment could offer a couple of brierwood pipes filled with fragrant kinnikinnick. They sat down, smoked these, and tried to forget their troubles.
The cheerless night drew on. No fires were allowed, and the men huddled together on the wet ground, to get what comfort they could from the warmth of each other's bodies.
The temper of the rebels became nastier as the day wore away, and under the cover of the dark ness they pushed out here and there and opened worrying fires on the Union line. Suddenly a battery opened up on the 200th Ind. from a bare knoll in front. The rebels had evidently calculated the range during daylight, and the shells struck around them in the most annoying way. They threw up showers of mud, scattered the groups, and kept105 everybody nervous and alarmed. The regiment stood this for some time, when an idea occurred to Si and Shorty. They went up to the Colonel and explained:
"Colonel, we've studied the ground out there purty carefully, and we know that the knoll where that battery is is in close range o' that crick where we went up this afternoon. If you'll let a few of us go out there we kin stop them cannoneers mighty soon."
"Sure of that?" said the Colonel alertly.
"Dead sure."
"Very well, then," said the Colonel promptly. "I've been thinking of the same thing. I'll take the whole regiment out. Put yourselves at the head, and lead the way."
The regiment was only too eager for the movement. It marched rapidly after Si and Shorty up the creek bed, and in a very few minutes found itself on the flank of the obnoxious battery, which was still banging away into the line which the 200th Ind. had occupied. It was scarcely 200 yards away, and the men's hearts burned with a fierce joy at the prospect of vengeance. With whispered orders the Colonel lined up the regiment carefully on the bank, and waited until the battery should fire again, to make sure of the aim. Every man cocked his gun, took good aim, and waited for the order. They could distinctly hear the orders of the battery officers directing the shelling. Three cannon were fired at once, and as their fierce lights flashed out the Colonel gave the order to fire. A terrible simoon of death from the rifles of the 200th Ind. struck down everything in and around the battery.
"That dog's cured o' suckin' aigs," said Shorty, as the Colonel ordered the regiment to about face and march back.
The 200th Ind. heard no more from that battery that night.
ON THEIR way back from "settling the battery," Si and Shorty each broke off a big armful of cedar branches. These they spread down on the ground when the regiment resumed its place in the line-of-battle, and lay down on them to spend the rest of the night as comfortably as possible. The fire with which they had roasted the pig, and from which they had drawn much comfort during the day, had had to be extinguished when darkness came on. But it had dried out and warmed the ground for a considerable space around, and on this they made their bed.
"We seem to play in fair luck right along, Shorty," said the hopeful Si, as they curled up on the boughs. "Most of the boys 've got to lay down in a foot of mud."
"Don't get to crowin' too loud," grumbled Shorty. "If they find out what a good thing we have, some Jigadier-Brindle'll snatch it away for himself." But Si was fast asleep before Shorty finished speaking.
Sometime before midnight the Orderly-Sergeant came around, and after vigorous kicking and shaking, succeeded in waking them.
"Get up," he said, "and draw some rations. The wagons've got in from Nashville."108
"My gracious!" said Si, as soon as he was wide enough awake to understand the Orderly-Sergeant's words, "is it possible that we're going to have plenty of hardtack and pork and coffee again? Seems to me a hundred years since we drew a full ration."
He and Shorty jumped up and ran over to where the Quartermaster-Sergeant and his assistants were dealing out a handful of crackers and a piece of pork to each man as he came up.
"Mebbe I oughtn't to say it," said Si, as he munched away, taking a bite first off the crackers in his right and then off the meat in his left, "but nothing that ever mother baked tasted quite as good as this."
"This does seem to be a specially good lot," assented Shorty. "Probably a wagon load that they intended for the officers and give us by mistake. Better eat it all up before they find it out."
The morning of Jan. 2, 1863, dawned bleak and chill, but this at least brought the great comfort that the dreary rain was at last over. The sharp air was bracing, and put new life and hope into the hearts of the Union soldiers. Many wagons had been gotten up during the night, bringing food and ammunition for all. Soon after daylight cheerful fires were blazing everywhere, and the morning air was laden with the appetizing fragrance of boiling coffee and broiling meat. The sun began to rise over Murfreesboro' and the rebel camps, giving promise of a bright, invigorating day.
"I hope this thing'll be brought to a focus to-day, and the question settled as to who shall occupy this piece of real estate," said Shorty, as he and Si109 finished a generous breakfast, filled their boxes and pockets with cartridges, and began knocking the dried mud off their clothes and rubbing the rust from their guns. "I want them gents in brown clothes to clear out and leave. It frets me to see them hangin' 'round. They're bad neighbors."
"I hope," said Si, carefully picking out the tube of his gun with a pin, "we won't put in to-day as we did yesterday layin' 'round making faces an' shakin' our fists at one another. Let's have the thing out at once."
Evidently the rebels were of the same frame of mind. They saluted the dawn with a noisy fusillade that ran along the miles of winding line. It was spiteful, crashing and persistent, but as the Union lines lay beyond good musket range and the rebels showed no disposition to advance across the fields and come to close quarters, the noise was quite out of proportion to the harm done.
The two rebel batteries on the opposite side of the river opened up a terrific fire upon one of our batteries, and the air seemed torn to shreds by the storm of howling missiles.
The 200th Ind. was too far away to have more than a spectacular interest in this tempestuous episode. They stood around their gun-stacks and watched and listened while the hours passed in ineffective noise, and wondered when the crisis of action was going to arrive.
"They seem to have lost their appetite for close acquaintance with the 200th Ind.," remarked Shorty. "They found that Jordan was a hard road to travel whenever they came across the fields at us, and are110 tryin' to scare us by makin' a racket. I think we kin stand it as long as their powder kin. But I'm gittin' hungry agin. Let's have somethin' to eat."
"Good gracious, it is noon," answered Si, looking up at the sun. "I believe I do want some dinner."
They had scarcely finished dinner-eating when the 200th Ind. was ordered to move over toward Stone River. It halted on a little rise of ground on the bank, which commanded an extensive view on both sides of the river. There was a portentous flow in the great, dark-blue sea of men. The billows, crested with shining steel, were rolling eastward toward the river.
"Something's goin' to happen; meetin's about to break up; school's goin' to let out," said Shorty eagerly. "Isn't it a grand sight."
"Gracious me!" said Si, devouring the spectacle with his eyes. "How I wish that father and mother and sister could see all this. It's worth going through a great deal to see this."
It was by far the most imposing spectacle they had yet seen. The whole Army of the Cumberland was crowded into the narrow space between the Nashville Pike and Stone River. Its compact regiments, brigades, and divisions showed none of the tearing and mangling they had endured, but stood or moved in well-dressed ranks that seemed the embodiment of mighty purpose and resistless force.
Around its grand array, a half mile away, lay the somber, portentous line of brown-clad men. Beyond them rose the steeples and roofs of the sleepy old town of Murfreesboro', with crowds of men and women occupying every point of vantage, to witness the renewal of the awful battle.111
It was now long past noon. The bright sun had long ago scattered the chill mists of the morning, and radiated warmth and light over the dun landscape. Even the somber cedars lost some of the funereal gloom they wore when the skies were lowering.
"There go two brigades across the river," said Si. "We're goin' to try to turn their right."
They saw a long line of men file down the river bank, cross, and go into line on the high ground beyond. Their appearance seemed to stir the brown mass lying on the hights a mile in front of them to action. The rebels began swarming out of their works and moving forward into the woods.
Presently a thin line of men in butternut-colored clothes ran forward to a fence in front, and began throwing it down. Behind them came three long, brown lines, extending from near the river to the woods far away to the left. Batteries galloped in the intervals to knolls, on which they unlimbered and opened fire.
It was an overpowering mass of men for the two little brigades to resist. Si's heart almost stood still as he saw the inequality of the contest.
"Why don't they send us over there to help those men?" he anxiously asked. "They can't stand up against that awful crowd."
"Just wait," said Shorty hopefully. "Old Rosy knows what he's doin'. He's got enough here for the business."
The artillery all along the line burst out in torrents of shells, but Si's eyes were glued on the two little brigades. He saw the white spurts from the skirmishers' rifles, and men drop among the rebels,112 who yet moved slowly forward, like some all-engulfing torrent. The skirmishers ran back to the main line, and along its front sped a burst of smoke as each regiment fired by volley. The foremost rebel line quivered a little, but moved steadily on.
Then a cloud of white smoke hid both Union and rebel lines, and from it came the sound as of thousands of carpenters hammering away industriously at nails.
Presently Si was agonized to see a fringe of blue break back from the bank of smoke, and run rapidly to the rear. They were followed by regiments falling back slowly, in order, and turning at the word of command to deliver volleys in the faces of their yell ing pursuers.
Si looked at his Colonel, and saw him anxiously watching the brigade commander for orders to rush across the river to the assistance of the two brigades.
Suddenly there was a whirl in front. A battery galloped up, the drivers lashing the horses, the cannoneers sitting stolidly on the limbers with their arms folded. It swept by to a knoll in front and to the right, which commanded the other side of the river. Instantly the gunners sprang to the ground, the cannon were tossed about as if they were play things, and before Si could fairly wink he saw the guns lined up on the bank, the drivers standing by the horses' heads, and the cannons belching savagely into the flanks of the horde of rebels.
Then another battery swept up alongside the first, and another, until 58 guns crowned the high banks and thundered until the earth shook as with the ague. A deluge of iron swept the fields where the mighty113 host of rebels were advancing. Tops were torn out of trees and fell with a crash, fence-rails and limbs of oak went madly flying through the air, regiments and brigades disappeared before the awful blast.
For a few minutes Si and Shorty stood appalled at the deafening crash and the shocking destruction. Then they saw the rebels reel and fly before the tornado of death.114
A great shout arose from thousands of excited men standing near. Regiments and brigades started as with one impulse to rush across the river and pursue the flying enemy. The 200th Ind. was one of these. No one heard any orders from the officers. The men caught the contagion of victory and rushed forward, sweeping with them the lately-defeated brigades, hurrying over the wreckage of the cannon-fire, over the thickly-strewn dead and wounded, and gathering in prisoners, flags and cannon.
They went on so, nearly to the breastworks behind which the rebels were seeking shelter.
Si and Shorty were among the foremost. A few hundred yards from the rebel works Si fell to the ground without a groan. Shorty saw him, and ran to him. The side of his head was covered with blood, and he was motionless.
"Stone dead—bullet plum through his head," said the agonized Shorty. But there was no time for mourning the fallen. The pursuit was still hot, and Shorty's duty was in front. He ran ahead until the Colonel halted the regiment. Fresh rebels were lining up in the breastworks and threatening a return charge which would be disastrous. The Colonel hastily re-formed the regiment to meet this, and slowly withdrew it in good order to resist any counter-attack. After marching a mile or more the regiment halted and went into bivouac. The rejoicing men started great fires and set about getting supper. But the saddened Shorty had no heart for rejoicing over the victory, or for supper. He drew off from the rest, sat down at the roots of an oak, wrapped the cape of his overcoat about his face, and115 abandoned himself to his bitter grief. Earth had no more joy for him. He wished he had been shot at the same time his partner was. He could think of nothing but that poor boy lying there dead and motionless on the cold ground. He felt that he could never think of anything else, and the sooner he was shot the better it would be.
The other boys respected his grief At first they tried to tempt him to eat something and drink some coffee, but Shorty would not listen to them, and they drew away, that he might be alone.
He sat thus for some hours. The loss of their sturdy Corporal saddened the whole company, and as they sat around their fires after supper they ex tolled his good traits, recounted his exploits, and easily made him out the best soldier in the regiment.
Presently the fifes and rums played tattoo, and the boys began preparations for turning in.
Shorty had become nearly frozen sitting there motionless, and he got up and went to the fire to thaw out. He had just picked up a rail to lay it on the fire in better shape, when he heard a weak voice in quiring:
"Does anybody know where the 200th Ind. is?"
Shorty dropped the rail as if he had been shot, and rushed in the direction of the voice. In an instant he came back almost carrying Si Klegg.
There was a hubbub around the fire that kept everybody from paying the least attention to "taps."
"Yes, it's really me," said Si, responding as well as he was able to the hearty handshakings. "And I ain't no ghost, neither. I've got an appetite on me like a prairie fire, and if you fellers are really glad116 to see me you'll hustle up here all the grub in the Commissary Department. I can eat every mite of it. I was hit by a spent ball and knocked senseless. But I ain't going to tell you any more till I get something to eat."
THE BOYS were so glad to see Si back again alive that they robbed themselves of any choice morsel of food they might have saved for to-morrow's delectation.
"Here, Si," said one, "is a nice knuckle-bone o' ham, that I pulled back there at the General's when his cook returned to the tent for something. You ought t've heard the nigger cussing as I walked away, but he couldn't recognize the back o' my head, nor see under my overcoat. Me and my chum 've had supper off it, and we wuz saving the rest for breakfast, but I'll brile it for you."
"Some of them Kentucky fellers," said another, "found a sheep in the briars and killed it. I traded 'em my silk handkerchief for a hunk o' the meat. I'm going to cook a slice for you, Si."
"Si, I'll bile some coffee for you," said a third.
"I'll toast some crackers for you," added a fourth.
Shorty roused. He felt so much gladder than any of them, that he was jealous of their attentions.
"See here, you fellers," said he, "this is my partner, an' I'm able to take care of him. I'll bile all the coffee an' toast all the crackers he kin eat; though I'm much obliged to you, Jim, for your ham, and to you, Billy, for your mutton, though I'm afraid it'll taste too much of the wool for a wounded man."
"Don't mind about that," said Si; "I'm hungry enough to eat the wool on the sheep's back, even. Hand over your mutton, Billy, and thankee for it. My appetite's not delicate, I can tell you. Woolly mutton won't faze it more'n bark would a buzz-saw." Si didn't over-state the case. He ate everything119 that was cooked and offered him, until he declared that he was so full he "could touch it with his finger."
"I'm sure you're not a ghost, from the way you eat," said Shorty, who was beginning to recover his propensity for sarcasm. "If ghosts et like you there'd have to be a steam bakery an' a pork packery run in connection with every graveyard."
"And I'd never take no ghost to board," said Billy.
"Come, Si," said Jimmy Barlow, filling his briarwood pipe with kinnikinnick, lighting it from the fire, taking a few puffs to start it, and handing it to Si, "tell us just what happened to you. We're dyin' to hear."
"Well," said Si, settling down with the pipe into a comfortable position, "I don't know what happened. Last thing I knowed I wuz runnin' ahead on Shorty's left, loadin' my gun, an' tryin' to keep up with the Colonel's hoss. Next thing I knowed I wuz wakin' up at the foot of a black-oak. Everything was quiet around me, except the yellin' of two or three wounded men a little ways off. At first I thought a cannonball' d knocked my whole head off. Then it occurred to me that if my head was knocked off I couldn't hear nor see."
"Nor think, even," injected Shorty.
"No, nor think, even. For what'd you think with?"
"I know some fellers that seem to think with their feet, and that blamed awkwardly," mused Shorty.
"I kept on wakin' up," continued Si. "At first I thought I had no head at all, an' then it seemed to me I was all head, it hurt so awfully. I couldn't move hand nor foot. Then I thought mebbe only half my head was shot away, an' the rest was aching for all.120
"I tried shuttin' one eye an' then the other, an' found I'd at least both eyes left. I moved my head a little, an' found that the back part was still there, for a bump on the roots of the oak hurt it.
"By-and-by the numbness began to go out of my head an' arm, but I was afraid to put my hand up to my head, for I was afraid to find out how much was gone. Nearly the whole of the left side must be gone, an' all my schoolin' scattered over the ground. I lay there thinkin' it all over how awful I'd look when you fellers came to find me and bury me, an' how you wouldn't dare tell the folks at home about it.
"Finally, I got plum desperate. I didn't seem to be dyin', but to be gettin' better every minute. I determined to find out just however much of my head was really gone. I put up my hand, timid-like, an' felt my forehead. It was all there. I passed my hand back over my hair an' the whole back of my head was there. I felt around carefully, an' there was the whole side of my head, only a little wet where I'd got a spent ball. Then I got mad an' I jumped up. Think of my makin' all that fuss over a little peck that might have been made by a brick-bat. I started out to hunt you fellers, an' here I am."
"Yes, but you wouldn't 've bin here," philosophized Shorty, examining the wound, "if the feller that fired that shot'd given his gun a little hunch. If that bullet'd went a half-inch deeper, you'd be up among the stars a bow-legged Wabash angel."
"Well, we've licked the stuffin' out of 'em at last, haven't we?" asked Si.
"Well, I should say we had," replied Shorty with an impressive whistle. "I thought the artillery would121 tear the foundations out of the whole State of Tennessee, the way it let into them. There won't ba more crashin' an' bangin' when the world breaks up. I'd a-bin willin' to serve 100 years just to see that sight. Lord, what a chance the cannoneers had. First time I ever wanted to be in the artillery. The way they slung whole blacksmith shops over into them woods, an' smashed down trees, and wiped out whole brigades at a clip, filled my soul with joy."
"We must go over there in the mornin' an' take a look at the place," said Si drowsily. "It will be good to remember alongside o' the way they slapped it to us the first day."
Si and Shorty woke up the next morning to find the chill rain pouring down as if the country had been suffering from a year's drouth, and the rain was going to make up for it in one forenoon.
"Lord have mercy," said the disgusted Shorty, as he fell into line for roll-call. "Another seepin', soppin', sloshin', spatterin' day. Only had 14 of 'em this week so far. Should think the geese 'd carry umbrellas, an' the cows wear overshoes in this, land of eternal drizzle. If I ever get home they'll have to run me through a brick-kiln to dry me out."
In spite of the down-pour the army was forming up rapidly to resume the advance upon Murfreesboro', and over the ground on the left, that had proved so disastrous to the rebels the day before.
While the 200th Ind. was getting ready to fall in, the sick-call sounded, and the Orderly-Sergeant remarked to Si:
"Fall into this squad, Corporal Klegg."
"What for?" asked Si, looking askance at the squad.122
"To go to the Surgeon's tent," answered the Orderly-Sergeant. "This is the sick squad."
"That's what I thought," answered Si; "an' that's the reason I ain't goin' to join it."
"But your head's bigger'n a bushel, Si," remonstrated the Sergeant. "Better let the doctor see it."
"I don't want none of his bluemass or quinine," persisted Si. "That's all he ever gives for anything. The swellin' 'll come out o' my head in time, same as it does out o' other people's."
"Corporal, I'll excuse you from duty to-day," said the Captain kindly. "I really think you ought to go to the Surgeon."
"If you don't mind, Captain," said Si, saluting, "I'll stay with the boys. I want to see this thing to the end. My head won't hurt me half so bad as if I was back gruntin' 'round in the hospital."
"Probably you are right," said the Captain. "Come along, then."
Willing and brave as the men were, the movements were tiresomely slow and laggard. The week of marching and lying unsheltered in the rain, of terrific fighting, and of awful anxiety had brought about mental and physical exhaustion. The men were utterly worn out in body and mind. This is usually the case in every great battle. Both sides struggle with all their mental and physical powers, until both are worn out. The one that can make just a little more effort than the other wins the victory. This was emphatically so in the battle of Stone River. The rebels had exhausted themselves, even, more in their assaults than the Union men had in repelling them.
When, therefore, the long line of blue labored123 slowly through the mud and the drenching rain up the gentle slopes on the farther side of Stone River, the rebels sullenly gave ground before them. At last a point was reached which commanded a view of Murfreesboro' and the rebel position. The rebels were seen to be in retreat, and the exhausted Army of the Cumberland was mighty glad to have them go.
As soon as it was certain that the enemy was really abandoning the bitterly-contested field, an inexpressible weariness overwhelmed everybody. The 200th Ind. could scarcely drag one foot after another as it moved back to find a suitable camping-ground.
Si and Shorty crawled into a cedar thicket, broke down some brush for a bed, laid a pole in two crotches, leaned some brush against it to make a par tial shelter, built a fire, and sat down.
"I declare, I never knew what being tuckered out was before," said Si. "And it's come to me all of a sudden. This morning I felt as if I could do great things, but the minute I found that them rebels was really going, my legs begun to sink under me."
"Same way with me," accorded Shorty. "Don't believe I've got strength enough left to pull a settin' hen offen her nest. But we can't be drowned out this way. We must fix up some better shelter."
"The Colonel says there's a wagon-load o' rations on the way here," said Si, sinking wearily down on the ground by the fire, and putting out his hands over the feeble blaze. "Let's wait till we git something to eat. Mebbe we'll feel more like work after we've eaten something."
"Si Klegg," said Shorty sternly, but settling down himself on the other side of the fire, "I never knowed124 you to flop down before. You've always bin, if any thing, forwarder than me. I was in hopes now that you'd take me by the back o' the neck and try to shake some o' this laziness out o' me."
"Wait till the rations come," repeated Si listlessly. "Mebbe we'll fell livelier then. The shelter we've fixed up'll keep out the coarsest o' the rain, anyway. Most o' the boys ain't got none."
When the rations arrived, Si and Shorty had energy enough to draw, cook and devour an immense supper. Then they felt more tired than ever. Shorty had managed to tear off a big piece of the wagon cover while he was showing much zeal in getting the rations distributed quickly. He got the company's share in this, and helped carry it to the company, but never for a minute relaxed his hold on the coveted canvas. Then he took it back to his fire. Si and he spent what energy they had left in making a tolerable tent of it, by stretching it over their shelter. They tied it down carefully, to keep anybody else from stealing it off them, and Shorty took the additional precaution of fastening a strip of it around his neck. Then they crawled in, and before night come on they were sleeping apparently as soundly as the Seven of Ephesus.
THE NEXT day Sunday after the battle dawned as clear, bright and sparkling as only a Winter's day can dawn in Tennessee, after a fortnight of doleful deluges. Tennessee Winter weather is like the famous little girl with the curl right down in the middle of her forehead, who,
"When she was good, she was very, very good,
And when she was bad, she was horrid."
After weeks of heart-saddening down-pour that threatened to drench life and hope out of every breathing thing, it will suddenly beam out in a day so crisp and bright that all Nature will wear a gladsome smile and life become jocund.
When the reveille and the Orderly-Sergeant's brogans aroused Si and Shorty the latter's first thought was for the strip of canvas which he had secured with so much trouble from the wagon-cover, and intended to cherish for future emergencies. He felt his neck and found the strip that he had tied there, but that was all that there was of it. A sharp knife had cut away the rest so deftly that he had not felt its loss.
Shorty's boiler got very hot at once, and he began blowing off steam. Somehow he had taken an especial fancy to that piece of canvas, and his wrath was hot against the man who had stolen it.
"Condemn that onery thief," he yelled. "He ought to be drummed out o' camp, with his head shaved. A man that'll steal ought to be hunted down and127 kicked out o' the army. He's not fit to associate with decent men."
"Why, Shorty," said Si, amused at his partner's heat, "you stole that yourself."
"I didn't nothin' o' the kind," snorted Shorty, "and don't want you sayin' so, Mr. Klegg, if you don't want to git into trouble. I took it from a teamster. You ought to know it's never stealin' to take anything from a teamster. I'll bet it was some of that Toledo regiment that stole it. Them Maumee River Muskrats are the durndest thieves in the brigade. They'd steal the salt out o' your hardtack if you didn't watch 'em not because they wanted the salt, but just because they can't help stealin'. They ought to be fired out o' the brigade. I'm going over to their camp to look for it, and if I find it I'll wipe the ground up with the feller that took it. 'Taint so much the value of the thing as the principle. I hate a thief above all things."
Si tried to calm Shorty and dissuade him from going, but his partner was determined, and Si let him go, but kept an eye and ear open for developments.
In a few minutes Shorty returned, with jubilation in his face, the canvas in one hand and a nice frying-pan and a canteen of molasses in the other.
"Just as I told you," he said triumphantly. "It was some o' them Maumee River Muskrats. I found them asleep in a bunch o' cedars, with our nice tent stretched over their thievin' carcasses. They'd been out on guard or scoutin', and come in after we'd gone to sleep. They were still snorin' away when I yanked the tent off, an' picked up their fryin'-pan an' canteen o' molasses to remember 'em by."128
"I thought you hated a thief," Si started to say; but real comrades soon learn, like husband and wife, that it is not necessary to say everything that rises to their lips. Besides, the frying-pan was a beauty, and just what they wanted.
It became generally understood during the day that the Army of the Cumberland would remain around Murfreesboro' indefinitely probably until Spring to rest, refit and prepare for another campaign. Instructions were given to regimental commanders to select good camping ground and have their men erect comfortable Winter quarters.
The 200th Ind. moved into an oak grove, on a gentle slope toward the south, and set about making itself thoroughly at home.
Si and Shorty were prompt to improve the opportunity to house themselves comfortably.
Si had now been long enough in the army to regard everything that was not held down by a man with a gun and bayonet as legitimate capture. He passed where one of the Pioneer Corps had laid down his ax for a minute to help on some other work. That minute was spent by Si in walking away with the ax hidden under his long overcoat. Those long overcoats, like charity, covered a multitude of sins.
The ax was not sharp no army ax ever was, but Si's and Shorty's muscles were vigorous enough to make up for its dullness. In a little while they had cut down and trimmed enough oak saplings to make a pen about the size of the corn-crib at Si's home. While one would whack away with the ax the other would carry the poles and build up the pen. By129 evening they had got this higher than their heads, and had to stop work from sheer exhaustion.
"I'll declare," said Si, as they sat down to eat supper and survey their work, "if father'd ever made me do half as much work in one day as I have done to-day I should have died with tiredness and then run away from home. It does seem to me that every day we try a new way o' killing ourselves."
"Well," said Shorty, arresting a liberal chunk of fried pork on the way to his capacious grinders to cast an admiring glance on the structure, "it's worth it all. It'll just be the finest shebang in Tennessee when we git it finished. I'm only afraid we'll make it so fine that Gen. Rosecrans or the Governor of Tennessee 'll come down and take it away for him self. That'd just be our luck."
"Great Scott!" said Si, looking at it with a groan; "how much work there is to do yet. What are we goin' to do for a roof? Then, we must cut out a place for a door. We'll have to chink between all the logs with mud and chunks; and we ought to have a fireplace."
"I've bin thinkin' of all them things, and I've thunk 'em out," said Shorty cheerfully. "I've bin thinkin' while you've bin workin'. Do you know, I believe I was born for an architect, an' I'll go into the architect business after the war! I've got a head plumb full of the natural stuff for the business. It growed right there. All I need is some more know-how an' makin' plans on paper."
"O, you've got a great big head, Shorty," said Si, admiringly, "and whatever you start to do you do splendid. Nobody knows that better'n me. But what's your idee about the roof?"130
"Why, do you see that there freight-car over there by the bridge" (pointing to where a car was off the track, near Stone River), "I've bin watchin' that ever since we begun buildin', for fear somebody else'd drop on to it. The roof of that car is tin. We'll jest slip down there with an ax after dark, an' cut off enough to make a splendid roof. I always wanted a tin-roofed house. Old Jack Wilson, who lives near us, had a tin roof on his barn, an' it made his daughters so proud they wouldn't go home with me from meetin'. You kin write home that we have a new house with a tin roof, an' it'll help your sisters to marry better."
"Shorty, that head o' your'n gits bigger every time I look at it."
Si and Shorty had the extreme quality of being able to forget fatigue when there was something to be accomplished. As darkness settled down they picked up the ax and proceeded across the fields to the freight-car.
"There's someone in there," said Si, as they came close to it. They reconnoitered it carefully. Five or six men, without arms, were comfortably ensconed inside and playing cards by the light of a fire of pitch-pine, which they had built upon some dirt placed in the middle of the car.
"They're blamed skulkers," said Shorty, after a minute's survey of the interior. "Don't you see they hain't got their guns with 'em? We won't mind 'em."
They climbed to the top of the car, measured off about half of it, and began cutting through the tin with the ax. The noise alarmed the men inside. They jumped out on the ground, and called up:131
"Here, what're you fellers doin' up there? This is our car. Let it alone."
"Go to the devil," said Shorty, making another slash at the roof with the ax.
"This is our car, I tell you," reiterated the men. "You let it alone, or we'll make you." Some of the men looked around for something to throw at them.
Si walked to the end of the car, tore off the brake-wheel, and came back.
"You fellers down there shut up and go back in side to your cards, if you know what's good for you," he said. "You're nothing but a lot of durned skulkers. We are here under orders. We don't want nothin' but a piece o' the tin roof. You kin have the rest. If any of you attempts to throw anything I'll mash him into the ground with this wheel. Do you hear me? Go back inside, or we'll arrest the whole lot of you and take you back to your regiments."
Si's authoritative tone, and the red stripes on his arm, were too much for the guilty consciences of the skulkers, and they went back inside the car. The tearing off the roof proceeded without further interruption, but with considerable mangling of their hands by the edges of the tin.
After they had gotten it off, they proceeded to roll it up and started back for their "house." It was a fearful load, and one that they would not have attempted to carry in ordinary times. But their blood was up; they were determined to outshine everybody else with their tin roof, and they toiled on over the mud and rough ground, although every132 little while one of them would make a misstep and both would fall, and the heavy weight would seem to mash them into the ground.
"I don't wonder old Jake Wilson was proud of his tin roof," gasped Si, as he pulled himself out of a mudhole and rolled the tin off him and Shorty. "If I'd a tin roof on my barn durned if my daughter should walk home with a man that didn't own a whole section of bottom land and drove o' mules to boot."
It was fully midnight before they reached their pen and laid their burden down. They were too tired to do anything more than lay their blankets down on a pile of cedar boughs and go to sleep.
The next morning they unrolled their booty and gloated over it. It would make a perfect roof, and they felt it repaid all their toils. Upon measurement they found it much larger each way than their log pen.
"Just right," said Shorty gleefully. "It'll stick out two feet all around. It's the aristocratic, fashion able thing now-a-days to have wide cornishes. Remember them swell houses we wuz lookin' at in Louisville? We're right in style with them."
The rest of Co. Q gathered around to inspect it and envy them.
"I suppose you left some," said Jack Wilkinson. "I'll go down there and get the rest."
"Much you won't," said Si, looking toward the car; "there ain't no rest."
They all looked that way. Early as it was the car had totally disappeared, down to the wheels, which some men were rolling away.133
"That must be some o' them Maumee River Muskrats," said Shorty, looking at the latter. "They'll steal anything they kin git away with, just for the sake of stealin'. What on earth kin they do with them wheels?"
"They may knock 'em off the axles an' make hearths for their fireplaces, and use the axles for posts," suggested Si.
"Here, you fellers," said Shorty, "give us a lift. Let's have a house-raisin'. Help us put the roof on."
They fell to with a will, even the Captain assisting, and, after a good deal of trouble and more cut hands, succeeded in getting the piece of tin on top of the pen and bent down across the ridge-pole. Si and Shorty proceeded to secure it in place by putting other poles across it and fastening them down with ropes and strips of bark to the lower logs.
"Your broad cornice is aristocratic, as you say," said the Captain, "but I'm afraid it'll catch the wind, and tip your house over in some big storm."
"That's so," admitted Shorty; "but a feller that puts on airs always has to take some chances. I don't want people to think that we are mean and stingy about a little tin, so I guess we'll keep her just as she is."
The next day they borrowed a saw from the Pioneers, cut out a hole for the door, and another for the fireplace. They made a frame for the door out of pieces of cracker-boxes, and hung up their bit of canvas for a door. They filled up the spaces be tween the logs with pieces of wood, and then daubed clay on until they had the walls tight. They gathered up stones and built a commodious fireplace, daubing it all over with clay, until it was wind and water tight.
"What are we goin' to do for a chimney, Si?" said135 Shorty, as their fireplace became about breast-high. "Build one o' sticks, like these rebels around here? That'll be an awful lot o' work."
"I've had an idee," said Si. "I ain't goin' to let136 you do all the thinkin', even if you are a born architect. When I was helpin' draw rations yesterday, I looked at the pork barrels, and got an idee that one of them'd make a good chimney. I spoke to Bill Suggs, the Commissary-Sergeant, about it, and he agreed to save me a barrel when it was empty, which it must be about now. I'll go down and see him about it."
Si presently came back rolling the empty barrel. They knocked the bottom out, carefully plastered it over inside with clay, and set it up on their fireplace, and made the joints with more clay. It made a splendid chimney. They washed the clay off their hands, built a cheerful fire inside, cooked a bountiful supper, and ate it in the light and comfort of their own fireside. It was now Saturday night. They had had a week of severer toil than they had ever dreamed of performing at home, but its reward was ample.
"Ah," said Shorty, as he sat on a chunk of wood, pipe in mouth, and absorbed the warmth, "this is something like home and home comforts. It's more like white livin' than I've had since I've bin in the army. Let's act like men and Christians tomorrow, by not doin' a lick o' work o' any kind. Let's lay abed late, and then wash up all over, and go to hear the Chaplain preach."
"Agreed," said Si, as he spread out their blankets for the night.
It had been threatening weather all day, and now the rain came down with a rush.
"Ain't that music, now," said Shorty, listening to the patter on the roof. "Nothin' sounds so sweet as137 rain upon a tin roof. Let it rain cats and dogs, if it wants to. The harder the better. Si, there's nothin' so healthy to sleep under as a tin roof. I'll never have anything but a tin roof on my house when I git home. And we've got the only tin roof in the regiment. Think o' that." But Si was too sleepy to think.
SI AND Shorty kept Sunday as planned. They really did not know how tired they were until they formed the resolution to give the day to absolute restfulness. Then every joint and muscle ached from the arduous toil of the past week, added to the strains and hardships of a week of battle.
"Used to seem to me," said Shorty, "that when Sunday come after the first week's plowin' in Spring that I had a bile in every limb. Now I appear to have one in every j'int, and in my brains as well. I didn't ever suppose that I could be so tired, and yit be able to set up and take nourishment."
"Same here," said Si. "Feel as if I ought to be wrapped in cotton battin' an' sweet oil, an' laid away for awhile."
The only thing about them which did not show deadly lassitude was their appetites. Fortunately, the Commissary took a liberal view of the Regulations as to rations, issuing enough to make up for those they had not drawn during the times when his department was not in working order. They ate all these and wanted more.
The Quartermaster had also succeeded in re-establishing relations. They drew from him new139 under-clothing to replace that which they had lost, took a thorough wash the first good one they had had since Christmas morning, beat and brushed much of the accumulated mud representing every variety of140 soil between Murfreesboro' and Nashville out of their clothes, cleaned and greased their heavy brogans, and went with their comrades to divine service, feeling that they had made every provision required for a proper observance of the holy day.
Si had a really fine baritone voice, and led the meeting in singing
"Am I a soldier of the cross?"
After church Shorty said:
"Si, when you were singing so loud about being a soldier of the cross and a follower of the Lamb I wanted to git right up and tell you that you'd have to git a transfer from the 200th Ind. We've lots of cross soldiers, especially on mud marches, but we don't want any soldiers in this regiment except for the Constitution of the United States and the laws made in pursuance thereof, against all enemies and opposers whatsoever, either foreign or domestic. An' as for follerin' the lamb, you know as well as I do the orders agin foragin'."
"O, dry up, Shorty. I don't believe going to church done you a mite o' good. I tell you it done me lots."
"There you're mistaken," answered Shorty. "It just done me lots o' good. Kind o' restored communications with home and respectable folks once more, an' made me think I still belonged to what the jographies call civilized and partially-civilized people, something that we seem in great danger o' forgettin', the way we've bin goin' on."
The good Chaplain's fervent appeals to devote the141 day to earnest consideration of their soul's welfare could not keep them from spending the hours in planning and discussing further improvements on the house.
"We must have a real door," said Shorty, looking critically at the strip of canvas that did duty for that important adjunct. "Muslin looks shiftless, an', besides, I think it's unhealthy. Lets in drafts, an' will give us colds."
"Too bad about our ketchin' cold," said Si sardonically. "Most o' the time lately we've bin sleepin' out with nothin' around us but the State line of Tennessee."
"Don't be too flip, young man," said Shorty severely. "You have not had a home with its blessin's long enough to appreciate it. I say we must have a real door an' a winder that'll let in light, an' a bedstead, an' a floor o' planks."
"We ought to have 'em, certainly," agreed Si. "But must have 'em is quite another thing. How are we goin' to git 'em? There's 40,000 men around here, snatchin' at every piece o' plank as big as your hand."
"Well," retorted Shorty, "we're goin' to have a real door, a winder, and a plank floor, all the same. They're to be had somewhere in this country, an' they'll have to run mighty hard to git away from us."
The next morning the Orderly-Sergeant said:
"Corp'l Klegg, you'll take five men, go down to the railroad, and report to the Commissary to load the wagon with rations."
Si took Shorty and four others and started off on142 this errand. He was soon so busy rolling heavy pork barrels from the car into the wagon that he failed to notice that Shorty was not with him. Finally they got the wagon loaded and started, with them walking alongside, puffing and sweating from their vigorous labor.
They were not 100 yards away from the train, when the Conductor came storming up:
"See here, Lieutenant," he said to the Commissary, "some o' them men o' yours sneaked around and stole the hind door off my caboose while you was loading up."
"I don't believe a word of it," said the Commissary, firing up at once. "Mine ain't that kind of men. I'd have you know they don't steal. What reason have you for saying so?"
"The door was on the car when I came out to meet you, and now it's gone, and there's been no body near the caboose but your men."
"I know my men were working hard all the time right under my eyes," said the Lieutenant, growing angrier every minute. "They're not the men to steal anything, and if they were they didn't have any chance. They were too busy. You can satisfy yourself that they didn't. You see none of them have the door with them, and you can search the wagon. Get right in there and look for it."
The Conductor climbed into the wagon and looked carefully through.
"No, it's not there," he said ruefully.
Then the Commissary's wrath flamed out. "There, confound you, you are at it again, you infernal civilian, slandering and abusing men who are fighting143 for their country. Charging them with stealing your old caboose door. Think of your disgraceful impudence, villifying men who are shedding their blood for their country by such shameless charges.144
"What'd they want with your old car door? Get away from here, before I lose my temper and do you damage."
The Conductor walked away muttering:
"Blasted thieving whelps o' soldiers, what'll they steal next? Lost all my train tools at Lavergne, swiped the bedding at Smyrna, got away with our clothes and dishes at Antioch, stole stove and lanterns at Overall's Crick, and now they've begun on the cars. I'll be lucky to have enough wheels left on the engine to run her back to Nashville."
The Commissary continued to fume about the disgraceful charges brought against his men until they reached camp. The wagon was unloaded and the squad dismissed.
As Si came up to the "house" he saw Shorty busily engaged in hanging the caboose door by means of hinges which he had improvised from some boot tops.
"Why, Shorty," gasped Si, "how did you git away with it?"
"Easy enough," answered his partner. "I saw you fellers gittin' very busy over them pork barrels, an' all the train hands helpin' you. I meandered back to the caboose, gently lifted the back door offen its hinges, slipped down into the weeds in the ditch, an' kept under cover o' them till I was out o' sight. Say, isn't it just a bully door?"
That afternoon Si and Shorty walked over to where a detail of men were at work building a bridge across Stone River, under the direction of a Lieutenant of Pioneers. They had an idea that an opportunity might occur there to pick up something that would add to their home comforts. The Lieutenant was bustling about, hurrying the completion of the work before night. As the detail was made up of squads from various regiments, he was not acquainted with the men, and had much difficulty assigning them to the work that would suit them best. He came up to Si, who still wore the artillery Sergeant's overcoat he had picked up during the battle, and said sharply:
"Here, Sergeant, don't stand around doing nothing. Set the men a good example by pitching in lively. There's plenty to do for everybody. If you can't find anything else, help dig down that bank, and roll those big stones into the fill. Hold on; I've thought of something else. I want a reliable man to send over for some lumber. Put one of your men on that wagon there, and go with him, and take this letter to Capt. Billings, over at the saw-mill. It's a requisition for a load of lumber. Avoid the camps as much as possible on your way back, or they'll steal every inch of it away from you."
"Very good, sir," said Si, saluting. "Shorty, jump on the wagon there, and gather up the lines."
Shorty very obediently took his place on the seat of the two-horse wagon employed by the Pioneers for their jobs.
"Hurry up," enjoined the Lieutenant; "we need those boards at once."
"Very good, sir," said Si, saluting.
"This is what I call a puddin'," said Shorty, oracularly, as they drove away. "The Lord always kin be trusted to help the deservin', if the deservin' only keep their eyes peeled for His p'inters. This146 comes from not workin' yesterday and goin' to church."
They drove down to the sawmill, delivered their requisition, and had their wagon loaded with newly-sawn plank. The Captain had the planks carefully counted, the number and feet entered upon the record, and set forth upon the return which he gave to Si to be delivered to the Lieutenant of Pioneers.
"Too dod-gasted much bookkeepin' in this army," remarked Si, rather disconsolately, and he put the paper in his blouse pocket, and they drove away. "Wastes entirely too much valuable time. What'd he count them boards for? Looked like he suspicioned us. How are we going to git away with any o' them?"
"I wouldn't have that man's suspicious mind for anything," answered Shorty. "He don't trust no body. All the same, we're goin' to have enough boards for our floor."
"How are we goin' to manage it?" asked Si.
"Lots o' ways. There's no need o' your carryin' that paper back to the Lootenant. I might pick up several hundred feet and sneak away without your knowin' it. Say," as a bright idea struck him, "what's the use o' goin' back to the Lootenant at all? Neither of us belongs to his detail. He don't know us from a side o' sole-leather. What's the matter with drivin' the wagon right up to camp, and swipin' the whole business, horses, wagon and all?"
"I hain't been in the army as long as you have, Shorty," said Si doubtfully. "I've made some progress in petty larceny, as you know, but I ain't yit quite up to stealin' a span o' horses and a wagon.147 Mebbe I'll come to it in time, but I ain't quite ready for it now."
"That comes from goin' to church yesterday, and hearin' the Chaplain read the Ten Commandments," said Shorty wrathfully. "I don't believe they ought to allow the Chaplains to read them things. They ain't suited to army life, and there ought to be a general order that they're prejudicial to good order and military discipline. Where'd the army be if they obeyed that one about not covetin' a horse or other movable property? I tell you what we'll do, since you're so milky on the thing: We'll drive up in front of our house, unload enough boards for our floor, you git out your gun and bayonet and stand guard over 'em, and I'll drive the wagon down near the bridge, and jump off and leave it."
"All right," said Si; "that'll do splendidly, if you think you kin dodge the Lootenant."
"O, he be darned," said Shorty scornfully. "I could git away from him if I wasn't 10 years old."
They carried out the plan. They drove up in front of their residence, and threw off a liberal quantity of the boards. The other boys raised a yell, and made a break for them. But Si ran inside, got his gun, and established himself on guard.
"Don't you budge an inch from there till I git back," shouted Shorty, as he drove away. "Don't let one of Co. Q lay a finger on them. They're the durndest thieves outside the Jeffersonville Penitentiary. You can't trust one o' them farther than you could sling a bull by the tail. I'll be back soon."
Shorty drove gaily down until he got close to the bridge. The Lieutenant had been impatiently148 expecting him, and as soon as the wagon came up it was surrounded by a crowd of men to unload it. The Lieutenant looked over the load.
"I wonder if he sent enough. Let me see your return," he said, looking up at the seat, where he expected to find the Sergeant he had put in charge. But the seat was empty. Shorty had jumped down, prudently mingled with the crowd, avoided the Lieutenant's eye with much more than his usual diffidence, and was modestly making his way back to camp behind a thicket of hazel bushes. When he got to the house he was delighted to find Si still master of the situation, with all the boards present and accounted for. They quickly transferred them to the interior, and found that they had enough for a nice floor, besides a couple of extra ones, to cut up into a table and stools.
"You done good work in keepin' the other boys offen 'em, Si," said he. "I was afraid you wouldn't. The only thing I've got agin Co. Q is that the boys will steal. Otherwise they're the nicest kind o' boys."
A couple of days later they got a pass to go down to Murfreesboro' and look the sleepy old town over. They were particularly interested in the quaint old courthouse, which had once been the capitol of Tennessee. They happened into one of the offices, which was entirely deserted. On the wall hung a steel engraving of Jeff Davis in a large oak frame.
"That blamed old rebel picture oughtn't to be hangin' there, Si," observed Shorty.
"Indeed it oughtn't. Jeff ought to be hung to a sour-apple tree, and that glass'd make a nice winder for our house."
"Indeed it would," Shorty started to answer, but time was too precious to waste in speech. In an instant he had shoved an old desk up to the wall, mounted it, and handed the picture down to Si. They wrapped it up in their overcoats, and started back for camp. They had seen enough of Murfreesboro' for that day.
WITH a tin roof, a real door, a glazed window and a plank floor, Si and Shorty's house was by far the most aristocratic in the cantonment of the 200th Ind., if not the entire Winter quarters of the Army of the Cumberland. A marble mansion, with all the modern improvements, could not more proudly overshadow all its neighbors than it did.
Even the Colonel's was no comparison to it. A tent-fly had been made to do duty for a roof at the Colonel's. It could not be stretched evenly and tight. It would persistently sag down in spots, and each of these spots became a reservoir from which would descend an icy stream. A blanket had to serve as a door, and the best substitute for window glass were Commissary blanks greased with fat from headquarters' frying-pan. The floor, instead of being of clean, new plank, as Si's and Shorty's, was made of the warped and weather-beaten boards of a stable, which had been torn down by a fatigue detail.
Si and Shorty took as much pride and pleasure in their architecture as any nabob over his million-dollar villa. They were constantly on the alert for anything that would add to the comfort and luxury151 of their home. In their wanderings they chanced to come across an old-fashioned bedstead in an out house. It was of the kind in which the rails screw together, and the bed is held up by a strong cord crossing and recrossing from one rail to another. This looked like real luxury, and they at once appropriated it without any consultation with the owner, whoever he may have been.
"It'd be a waste o' time, anyhow," remarked Shorty. "He's a rebel, and probably over there in Bragg's army."
They made a tick out of the piece of wagon-cover, filled it with beech leaves, and had a bed which surpassed their most extravagant ideas of comfort in the army.
"Shorty," said Si, as they snugged themselves in the first night, "this seems almost too much. Do you ever remember settin' the whole night on a rail, with nothin' over us but clouds leakin' ice-water?"
"Shut up," said Shorty, giving him a kick under the blankets. "Do you want me to have a night mare?"
They got a number of flat stones, and laid down a little pavement in front of their door, and drove an old bayonet into the logs to serve as a scraper. They rigorously insisted on every visitor using this before entering.
"For common Wabash-bottom fly-up-the-cricks and private soljers, you're puttin' on entirely too many frills," said Sol Murphy, the Wagonmaster, angrily, as it was firmly insisted upon that he stay outside until he carefully cleaned his shoes on the bayonet. "A man that's afraid o' mud hain't no152 business in the army. He orter stay at home an' wear Congress gaiters an' pantalets. You're puttin' on too many scollops, I tell you. You knowed all 'bout mud in the Wabash bottoms. You had 'nuff of it there, the Lord knows."
"Yes, we had," replied Shorty; "but we was too well raised to track it into anybody's parlor."
"Parlor," echoed Sol, with a horse-laugh. "Lord, how fine we are, just becaze one o' us happens to be a measly little Corporal. In some armies the Wagonmasters have Corporals to wait on 'em an' black their boots. Now, I'll tell yo' what I've come for. I've lost my scoop-shovel, an' I've bin told that you fellers stole it, an' are usin' it to bake hoe-cakes on. I've come up here to see if you've got it, an' I'm goin' right in there to see for myself, mud or no mud."
"We hain't got your blamed old scoop-shovel; you can't git it; you ain't goin' in there until you clean your feet, an' not then onless we conclude to allow you," Shorty replied.
"I'm goin' in there, or break some Wabash loon's neck," said the Wagonmaster wrathfully.
"I always did like to get a chance to lick a mule-whacker," said Si, pulling off his overcoat. "And the bigger and the more consequential he is, the better. I've never licked a Wagonmaster yit, an' I'm just achin' for a chance."
The Wagonmaster was the bully of the regiment, as Wagonmasters generally are. When Si came into the regiment, a green cub, just getting his growth, and afraid of everybody who assumed a little authority and had more knowledge of the world than he, the Wagonmaster had been very153 overbearing, and at times abusive. That is the way of Wagonmasters and their ilk. The remembrance of this rankled in Si's mind.
On the other hand, the Wagonmaster failed to comprehend the change that a few months of such service as the 200th Ind.'s wrought in verdant, bashful boys like Si. He thought he could cow him as easily as he did when Si had timidly ventured to ask His Greatness a modest question or two as they were crossing the Ohio River. Wagonmasters were always making just that kind of mistakes.
The other boys ran up to see the fun. The Wagonmaster made a rush for Si with doubled fists, but Si quickly stepped to one side, and gave the hulking fellow a tap on the butt of his ear that laid him over in the mud. The other boys yelled with delight. Next to a Sutler, or a conceited, fresh young Aid, the soldiers always delighted to see a Wagonmaster get into trouble.
The Wagonmaster sprang up, ready for another round; but the boys raised the cry that the Officer of the Day was coming, and both Si and the Wagonmaster remembered that they had business in other parts of the camp.
The next day Shorty said: "It's all right, Si; we could've kept that scoop-shovel as long as we wanted to, but I thought that for many reasons it'd better be got out of the regiment, so I've traded it to them Maumee Muskrats for a Dutch oven they'd borrowed from their Major."
"Bully," answered Si. "I'd much rather have the Dutch oven, anyway."
Si produced a piece of board, which had been154 painted white, and evidently done duty as part of the door of a house in Murfreesboro', looked at it critically, and then selected a piece of charcoal from the fire, and sat down with an air of studious purpose. "What are you up to now, Si?" asked Shorty curiously.
"Why," explained Si, "I've noticed, whenever we've bin in any big place, that all the fine houses have signs or numbers, or something else onto 'em, to name 'em. I've bin thinkin' o' something for155 our house. How does 'Hoosier's Rest' strike you for a name?"
"Splendid," said Shorty. "Couldn't be better."
"And," continued Si, "I've got this board to make a sign to nail up over the door. Do you know how to spell Hoosier, Shorty?"
"Blest if I do," answered Shorty. "It wasn't in our book. At least, we never got to it, if it was. You see our spellin'-school broke up just as we got to 'incompatible.' The teacher got too fond o' Nancy Billings, that I was castin' sheep's eyes at myself. He got to givin' her easy words, to keep her at the head o' the class, and pickin' hard ones for me, to send me to the foot, where I'd be fur away from her. I wouldn't stand it always, so me an' him had it out one night before all the scholars; I got away with him, and he left the country, and busted up the school."
"Hoosier," repeated Si to himself. "I never saw it spelled. But there must be some way to spell it. Let me see: 'W-h-o spells who.'"
"That's so," assented Shorty.
"I-s spells 'is,'" continued Si. "Who-is that's right so far. H-e-r-e spells 'here.' 'Who-is-here?' That seems almost right, don't it, Shorty?"
"It certainly does," replied Shorty, scratching his head to accelerate his mental action. "Or it might be, Si, w-h-o, who; i-s, is; and y-e-r, yer. You know some ignorant folks say yer for you. And they say the name came from the people who first settled in Injianny sayin' 'Who's yer?' to any new comer."
"I believe you're right, Shorty," said Si, bending156 over the board with the charcoal to begin the work. "We'll make it that way, anyway."
The next day passers-by saw a white board nailed up over the door, which contained a charcoal sketch of a soldier seated on a chunk of wood, with a pipe in his mouth, taking as much ease as Si could throw into the outlines of his face and body, and with it was this legend:
"WHO IS YER'S REST."
The next idea that came into the partners' minds was that the requirements of society demanded that they give a housewarming in their sumptuous abode. They at once set about making it a memorable social event.
While out with a wagon after forage they found an Indiana man who had settled in that country. He had a good orchard. They bought from him a barrel of pretty hard cider and several bushels of apples. His wife knew how to make fried dough nuts of real Indiana digestibility. They would be luxuries for the boys, and a half-bushel were contracted for. The farmer was to bring them all in his wagon, and Si and Shorty were to meet him at the pickets and guard the treasures to their abode.
They bought a little bale of fragrant Kinnikinnick tobacco from the sutler, made a sufficiency of corncob pipes, swept off the ground in front of their house, which, as there had been no rain for several days, was in good condition, with brooms of brush, that it might serve for a dancing-floor, gathered in a stock of pitch-pine knots for their fire, spoke157 to Bunty Jim to bring his fiddle along, and to Uncle Sassafras, the Colonel's cook, to come down with his banjo, and their preparations were completed.
It was a crisp, delightful Winter evening, with the moon at full, the fire burning brightly, and every body in the best of spirits. The awful week of marching, enduring and suffering; of terrific fighting, limitless bloodshed; of wounds and death to one158 out of every four men in the ranks; of nerve-racking anxieties to all might as well have been centuries ago for any sign that appeared on the bright, animated faces of the young men who gathered in front of the cabin. They smoked, danced old-fashioned country dances to the music of the fiddle and the banjo, and sang songs which lamented the death of "Lily Dale," mourned that "My Nelly was sleeping in the Hazel Dell," adjured the "Silver Moon" to "roll on," and so on through the whole repertoire of the sentimental ballads of that day.
Then they were invited into the house to inspect its complete, luxurious appointments, and feast themselves to bursting on apples, hard cider, and doughnuts that would have tried any stomach but a young soldier's.
Billy Gurney, who had been back to Nashville as one of the guard to a train-load of wounded, was induced to favor the company with the newest song, which had just reached that city. He cleared his throat with another tincupful of cider, and started off with:
"When this cruel war is over."
Rapturous applause followed the first verse, and Billy started in to teach them the chorus, so they could all join.
A loud explosion came from the fireplace, a campkettle full of cider that was being mulled by the fire was spattered over the company, scalding some of them severely; stones from the fireplace and bullets flew about the room. They all rushed out.159 Footsteps could be heard running in the distance. They looked in that direction, and recognized Sol Murphy's broad back and bushy head.
"That blamed Wagonmaster dropped a nosebag with a lot o' cartridges in it down the chimbly," said Shorty, who had made an inspection of the fireplace. "Mad because he wasn't invited. You bet, I'll salivate him well for that little trick."
"MOTHER," said Mr. Josiah Klegg, Sr., suddenly laying down the County paper, and beginning to polish his spectacles with his red bandanna, "do you know what I've the greatest mind in the world to do?"
It was an evening in February, 1863, and the family had been sitting for some hours after supper around the bright fire, engaged in various occupations.
"No, father," said Mrs. Klegg, looking up from her knitting with such interest that she dropped several stitches. The girls stopped their sewing, and turned expectant eyes on their father. When Mr. Josiah Klegg, sr., announced that he had a great mind to do anything, that thing stood in imminent danger of being done. He was not given to ordinary schemes, still less to idle speech. He thought slowly and doggedly, but when he had arrived at a conclusion there were 200 pounds of solid, stubborn unchangeable Indiana farmer behind the conclusion.
"What is it, father?" asked Mrs. Klegg, making an automatic effort to gather up her lost stitches.
"I've a good mind to go down to Murfreesboro' and161 see Si," responded the father.
"Why, father!" gasped the three "wimmen folks."
"Go down there among them gorillas?" ejaculated Mrs. Klegg.
"And John Morgan raiders," echoed Maria.
"And Secesh soljers, butternut brigands, rebel rascals," added Tilda.
"Well," answered Mr. Klegg, deliberately, "they've been peggin' away at Si for a good many months now, and they haven't killed him by a jug full. Guess I kin stand 'em for a few days. The papers say that the army's settled down at Murfreesboro' for the Winter, and that the railroad's runnin' all right from Looyiville clean there. I kin do nothin' 'round the farm for the next three or four weeks, till Spring opens, except the chores about the house, which Jimmie Watkins kin tend to as well as I kin. I've got all my fences in good shape, and split all the rails I need. There's wood enough cut to last the Winter out. I've hauled all the wheat to town I'm goin' to till prices go higher. I finished gittin' out my clover seed yesterday, and now there's nothin' left for a month but to do boy's work 'round the house, or talk politics down at the store. I'd rather go down and see Si."
"Why, father," remonstrated Mrs. Klegg, "how kin you ever git along in them camps, and live the way them soljers do?"
"You forgit," said her husband, with a touch of dignity, "that I druv team for a whole week in the Black Hawk war. I wanted to enlist, but I was too young. Then I turned out and drilled with the militia as long as there was any musters. I know a good162 deal more about war than you think."
"How do you s'pose you'll ever find Si in all that ruck o' men?" said Mrs. Klegg doubtfully.
"O, they all know Si by this time," returned the father confidently. "Besides, he's an officer now. I'll go right to Gen. Rosecrans's Headquarters. He's probably right near him, where he kin have him at any time. But don't write to Si that I'm comin'. I want to surprise him."
As soon as it was seen that the father was determined to go, mother and daughters entered upon the scheme with the greatest enthusiasm.
Each began to think of some useful thing that they could send to Si to add to his comfort. Mrs. Klegg had already knit a couple of pairs of lambs'-wool socks, and was at work on a third. Maria had knit a pair of mittens, gay with the National colors and representing the flag. The blue field with the white stars around the wrists, while the red and white stripes ran down the fingers. When they were put on the effect was picturesque, not to say startling.
"When Si holds up his hands," remarked Matilda, "they'll look like big hollyhock blossoms, and the men'll wonder where he got posies in Winter."
Matilda contributed a red flannel shirt, upon which she had been engaged since the beginning of Winter reminded her that such a present would be very acceptable to Si. She had done a lot of her finest stitching upon it. Si's initials were wrought in white thread on the cuffs, and on the bosom was a maze of white lines representing hearts, anchors, roses and flags of the Union. In the center of these, in letters of bold outline but rugged execution, was the legend: "Josiah Klegg. His shirt. From Tildy."163
"Round is the ring,
That has no end;
So is my luv for you,
My dearest friend."
"I know it ain't quite right to speak of Si as a friend," she explained, when she spread the shirt out for the family's examination and admiration; "but I couldn't think of nothin' to rhyme with brother."
"I could," said Maria, in her superior way. "I'd said somethin' like this:
"The ring's no end
From which to t'other;
So is the love I send
My onliest brother."
"Maria, you always was so much smarter'n me in writin' poetry," admitted Matilda. "It would've bin ever so much nicer. But it's too late now to do it over agin."
Annabel was sorely puzzled what to send. She wanted something that would be indicative of her feelings toward Si, and yet maiden modesty restrained with the fear of sending something that might be too significant. She spent a sleepless night thinking it over, and finally decided to send a new ambrotype of herself, with a lock of her hair. It is needless to say that this kept Si warmer than a whole bale of flannel shirts would have done.
A thousand things occurred to the family that Si would enjoy, from a couple of feather pillows to a164 crock of "head cheese," of which Si used to be immensely fond. The old hair trunk was brought down from the garret, and its dimensions studied. But the next evening Jim Wilkins, of Co. Q, who was home patching up a leg which had caught a bullet at Stone River, came in, and his advice was asked.
"No, sir-ree," said he, emphatically. "Don't you never take no trunk nor no box. Don't you take nothin' that you can't hang on to, and keep your eye on every minute. I think the Army o' the Cumberland is the most honestest army in the whole world. I'd knock any man down in a minute that hinted there was a single thief in it. All the same, the only sure way to keep anything you want is to never let go of it for a second. You'd better only take a carpetsack, and look mighty sharp after that, the nearer you git to the army. Keep one eye on it all the time after you cross the Ohio River, and both eyes on it when you git to Murfreesboro'."
A week later a strongly-built, farmer-looking man entered the Nashville train at Louisville and looked anxiously around among the crowd of soldiers with which it was filled. His full, resolute face was destitute of whiskers, except a clump of sandy hair on his chin. He wore a coarse but warm overcoat, a black slouch hat, around his neck was a voluminous yarn comforter, and mittens of the same generous proportions were on his hands, one of which held a bulging blue umbrella and the other a large striped carpetsack.
He found a vacant seat beside a rough-looking soldier, who had evidently been drinking, placed his precious carpetsack between his heavy, well-oiled boots, stuck his umbrella beside it, unwound his comforter, laid it back on his shoulders, took off his mittens, unbuttoned his overcoat, and took from his pocket a long plug of navy tobacco, from which he cut off a liberal chew, and then courteously tendered the plug and knife to his neighbor, with the ramark:166
"Have a chaw, stranger."
The soldier took the plug, cut it in two, put the bigger part in his own pocket, sliced off a liberal portion off the other for his own mouth, and then rather reluctantly handed the remainder, with the knife, back to Mr. Klegg, without so much as a "thankee."
"Manners seem a little different in the army from what they are in Injianny," thought Mr. Klegg; "but mebbe the soldier's not had a chance to git any terbaker for a long time."
He chewed meditatively for some minutes, and then made another friendly advance toward his seat-partner.
"S'pose we'll start purty soon, won't we, stranger?"
"The devil you do," responded the other surlily, and sending over a strong whisky breath. "Don't know much about this blamed old start-when-it-pleases and stop-when-you-don't-want-to railroad. We'll start when some young sardine with shoulder-straps finishes his breakfast, and stop when John Morgan tears up the track. If you didn't feed your hog's any better'n this train runs, old Hayseed, they'd starve to death in a month."
"He ain't jest what you'd call perlite," thought Mr. Klegg, as he meditatively chewed for a little while longer. "But mebbe that's the way in the army. Probably Si's got jest that way, too."
He chewed meditatively for a few minutes longer. The air was getting very redolent of the fumes from his neighbor's breath. "I hope Si ain't got to drinking like that," he sighed, as a particularly strong167 whiff reached him. "If he has, I won't rest a minute till I've yanked him up before Gen. Rosecrans and made him take the pledge. Gen. Rosecrans can't afford to have officers around him who drink. 'Tain't right to trust men's lives to 'em."
"Say, ole Sorrel-top," said the soldier, turning to ward him, "give us another bite o' that terbaker o' yours, will you?"
Mr. Klegg did not like the tone nor the manner, but he produced his tobacco, and began prudently clipping off a fair-sized chew for his companion him self.
"O, the devil, that ain't no chaw," said the other, pulling the tobacco and knife from his hand. "Don't be stingy with your terbaker, old Hawbuck. You kin git plenty more."
He sliced a strip off clear across the plug, and stuffed it into his mouth.
"You don't chaw terbaker. You jest eat it," remonstrated the long-suffering Mr. Klegg.
"Here, I'll take some o' that, too," said another soldier on the seat in front, snatching at the knife and tobacco.
"No you won't, you sardine," angrily responded the first soldier. "This gentleman's a friend o' mine. I won't see him robbed."
The reply was a blow, and the two were soon mixed up in a savage fight. Mr. Klegg was alarmed, lest one of them should be hurt with the heavy, sharp knife, and he mixed in to get it in his hand. In the scuffle his hat, mittens and comforter were thrown to the floor and trampled in the tobacco juice. The provost-guard rushed in, a stalwart Sergeant168 separated the combatants, jammed the first soldier down in the seat until the timbers cracked, banged the other one's head against the side of the car, and remarked:
"Confound you, don't either o' you raise a hand or open your mouths, or I'll break both your necks. Old man, you keep mighty quiet, too. Hain't you got no sense, to mix up in such a row? You're old enough to know better. I'll snatch you off this train if you make any more disturbance."
Mr. Klegg's blood was up. He wanted to thrash the whole crowd, including the Sergeant, and felt equal to it. But the cry was raised that the train was going. The Sergeant hastened off, with a parting admonition to him to keep still if he knew what was good for him.
"I'm afeared the army's a mighty rough place," thought Mr. Klegg, as he gathered up his soiled belongings and tried to straighten them out. "I wonder if it'll git wuss the nearer we git to the front?"
The train pulled out of Louisville, and he became interested in the great banks of red earth, crowned with surly, black-mouthed cannon, where the forts were, the rows of white tents in the camps, the innumerable droves of horses and mules in the corrals, and the long trains of army wagons.
"I'm goin' to stock up with some horses when I git back," he said to himself. "The Government seems to need a powerful sight o' them, and prices is goin' up faster'n wheat."
Things had now been tolerably quiet in the car for over half an hour, entirely too long for a party of soldiers returning to the front. Monotonous peace169 was obnoxious to them. A two-fisted young fellow up toward the front rose up, drained the last drops from a pint flask, dashed the bottle on the floor, and yelled:
"Here's for a quiet life, and peace and good will.170 I belong to John F. Miller's Brigade, the best brigade in the Army of the Cumberland, and the only one that captured any guns at Stone River. I can lick any man in McCook's Corps."
The answering yell that went up seemed to indicate that nearly all in the car belonged to McCook's Corps. There was a general peeling off of overcoats, and a rush forward of answerers to his bold challenge. A few yelled,
"Hooray for Miller's Brigade!"
"Hooray for Crittenden's Corps!"
"Hooray for Pap Thomas!"
and started in to help out the Miller man. Mr. Klegg rose to his feet in dismay. Before he could think the soldier beside him picked up his carpetsack and flung it at the Miller's Brigade man. Mr. Klegg groaned as he thought of the consequences to a jar of honey and a crock of butter, which Mrs. Klegg had put in for Si's delectation.
The combatants came together with the hearty zeal of men who had been looking for a fight for a straight month. The soldier beside Mr. Klegg snatched up the umbrella and began laying about him. The crash was fearful. The backs of the seats were wrenched off, the carpetsack trodden under foot, the windows broken out, and finally Mr. Klegg found himself on the floor of the car under a mass of struggling, fighting, striking and kicking men.
The train came to a halt at a station. The guards on the platform rushed in, and by dint of a vigorous use of gun-butts and other persuasives, and more strong language than Mr. Klegg had ever heard before in all his life, succeeded in quieting the171 disturbance and making the men take their seats. Mr. Klegg recovered his carpetsack, his comforter, mittens, hat and umbrella, and sat down again. He turned around and glared at the soldier by his side.
"If it warn't for startin' another fight," he said to himself, "I'd punch his infernal head."
But the soldier had gone to sleep; he lolled his head over in Mr. Klegg's lap and snored loudly.
For two or three hours afterward the train rattled along without particular incident. Mr. Klegg recovered his composure, and got very much interested in the country through which they were passing, and its farming possibilities. These did not strike him favorably, and he was more than ever convinced that the Wabash Valley was the garden spot of the world. Finally, the train stopped and backed on to a switch to allow another to pass.
An enterprising man had put up a shanty near the track, with a long shelf in front, upon which were displayed sandwiches, pies, boiled eggs, and other eatables. The men all rushed out of the car. Mr. Klegg had begun to feel hungry himself, and joined them.
"How much for that pie?" he asked, pointing to one.
"Half-a-dollar," answered the keeper. "Fifty cents for pies, 25 cents for sandwiches, 10 cents for a cup of coffee."
"Too blamed much," shouted a chorus of voices. "An infernal pirate come down here to skin the soldiers. Let's clean him out."
Before Mr. Klegg fairly understood the words everything was snatched up. Those who did not get172 hold of any of the viands began on the shed. It was torn to pieces, the stove kicked over, the coffee spilled on the ground, and the eating-house keeper and his assistants scuttled away out of danger. The whistle sounded, they all rushed back into the cars, and Mr. Klegg had to stay his hunger with another chew of tobacco.
Again there was tolerable peace for several hours, broken at last by the sudden stoppage of the train out in the country, the sound of shots, and the yell of "Guerrillas! Guerrillas!"
Everybody bolted out of the cars. Those who had guns buckled on their cartridge-boxes, and formed in line, ready for orders. A squad of rebel cavalry had been trying to tear up the track, but were surprised by the unexpected appearance of the train. They had fallen back to the top of the hill, to see how many were aboard, and whether it looked profitable to make an attack. They were keeping up a desultory fire at long range.
Mr Klegg had seen a gun standing in the corner as he ran out. He picked it up and joined one of the squads. He was no coward, and if there had to be fighting, he was willing to do his share.
"Bully for you, old Hayseed," said the man who had wanted to whip any man in the right wing of the army. "You're made of the right stuff, after all."
Others around him nodded approval, and Mr. Klegg was conscious that the social atmosphere was more pleasant for him.
The guerrillas finally decided to give the job up, and rode away, after yelling some 'very uncomplimentary things about Yankee soldiers generally.
When Mr. Klegg returned to his seat he found his carpetsack, umbrella, mittens, and comforter gone. Likewise the man who had been riding with him. He waxed very wroth, and lifted up his voice to let them know it. Several around began to guy him, but suddenly the man from Miller's Brigade forced his way174 through the crowd and asked:
"What's the matter, 'Squire?"
Mr. Klegg explained.
"Well, you've got to have every one of them things back again, if I've to lick every man on the train. I'll not see an old man and as good a man as you are mistreated where I am. I've got a father my self."
This time he was in the large majority. All of McCook's men were with him. A general hunt was instituted through the train, and one by one his possessions were recovered and brought back to him.
"Thankee, gentlemen; thankee very kindly. Will any o' you gentlemen have a chaw of terbaker? It's all I have to offer you, but it's good."
When the train pulled into Nashville that night a very tired old farmer got off and inquired:
"How much farther is it to Murfreesboro'?"
"About 25 miles," someone answered.
"I'm awful glad to hear it. If it was 30 miles I don't believe I could stand it."
"THINGS don't look so tumultuous-like on this train," said Mr. Klegg, with a sigh of satisfaction, as he seated himself in the car for Murfreesboro' and deposited his valuables by his side. "I know that boys will be boys, and I like to see them have fun just as well as any other man, but I must say that they made things on that other train a little too lively for a middle-aged Deacon of the Baptist Church."
A broad-shouldered Provost-Sergeant walked through the car, with an air of authority, and gave orders to several who were seated in it.
"Must be the Constable, or Sheriff, or Town Marshal," mused Mr. Klegg. "I hope he'll stay on the train till we reach Murfreesboro', and keep order."
Mr. Klegg was right. The irregularities and disorders of the "rear" ended at Nashville. There the strict discipline of the "front" began under the iron sway of the Provost-Marshal, whose guards were everywhere, particularly at the depots and on the cars. The occupants of the car were as orderly as the boys at a country school when the master is on his throne, with his eyes about him.
It was a bright day, and the country roundabout176 of surpassing interest to the Indiana farmer. He saw the domed, stately capitol of Tennessee crowning the highest hill, and lording a glorious landscape of hill and valley, through which the Cumberland River flowed in majestic sweeps, like a broad girdle of sparkling silver. Then came the frowning forts, with beetling banks of blood-red clay, with terror-striking black guns, with rugged palisades, and a porcupine bristle of abatis. Sentries with gleaming muskets paced their high parapets. Every mile, as far as he could see, was full of objects of engrossing interest.
He became so absorbed in the feast of his eyes that he did not observe that a middle-aged, clean shaven man in a suit of dusty black had sat down beside him, and was studying him with attention.
"How do you do, my friend?" said he at length, putting out his hand.
Mr. Klegg turned with a start, and instinctively put out his hand.
"Howdy," he said, with a tone of little encouragement, for he would much rather have continued watching the country than indulge in purposeless conversation. The stranger grasped his hand warmly, and pressed his thumb upon the first joint of Mr. Klegg's, and caught his little finger in a peculiar way. Deacon Klegg had been initiated into the Odd Fellows, and he dimly recognized this as a "grip," but he could not associate it for the moment with any of the degrees of the brotherhood of the Three blinks.
"Were you out late last night," said the stranger in a low, deeply-impressive tone.177
"Not pertickerlerly," answered Deacon Klegg, turning to catch a view of the stockade at La Vergne, where the 1st Mich. Eng. had made such a gallant defense. "I'd a mighty bothersome day, and was purty well tuckered out. I found a good place to sleep, and I turned in rather airly. Say," continued he, pointing to the wreckage of battle, "the boys seem to have poked it to 'em purty lively out there."
"It was a very sharp fight," returned the other; "but for once our friend Wheeler made a mistake, and lost heavily. Down the road farther you'll see evidences of his more successful work in some miles of burnt wagons."
"Bad man, that Gen. Wheeler," said the Deacon, looking steadfastly out of the window.
The stranger looked a little disappointed, but he rallied, and presently gave the second grand hailing sign of the Knights of the Golden Circle, in the same low, impressive tone:
"Did you see a star last night?"
"Can't say that I did," responded Mr. Klegg rather indifferently. "There was lots of gas-lamps burning, and I was rather taken with them, so that I didn't notice the moon or stars. Besides, as I told you before, I turned in purty airly, for I was tired with my ride from Looyville, and I wanted to git in good shape for the trip to-day."
A cloud of annoyance came upon the stranger's face, and he did not speak again for a minute or two. Then he said:
"You are from Indiana, are you not?"
"Yes," said Mr. Klegg.
"From Posey County?"178
"Yes."
"I knew so. I've been looking for you for several days."
"Looking for me?" said Deacon Klegg, turning around in amazement. "How come you to be lookin' for me? What business have you got with me? How'd you know I was a-comin'? Nobody knowed it outside o' Mariar, my wife, and my family."179
"Come, come, now," said the other impatiently. "Don't try to play off on me. You needn't be afraid. I'm all right. I'm Deputy Grand Organizer for the Knights for Southern Indiana and the jurisdiction of Louisville generally. You ought to remember me. I recollect you perfectly. I organized the Lodges in Poseyville, and all through your County. I planted the seed there for a big crop of Butternuts that'll help hurl the tyrant Lincoln from his bloody throne, and give the country back into the hands of the white man. I got word that you were coming down with important information from your section for Gen. Bragg and John Morgan, and I've been on the lookout for you."
An understanding of what the man was, and what he was driving at, began to slowly filter into Deacon Klegg's mind, and his temper to rise.
"Confound you, you pizen Copperhead," he said wrathfully. "What do you take me for? Do you take me for a miserable, traitorous Knight o' the Golden Circle? I'm a member o' the church, or I'd punch your pizen head. I'm a loyal man, and I've got a son fightin' for the Union."
"H-u-s-h," said the unconvinced man, laying his hand on the Deacon's arm. "Don't talk so loud. They're watching us."
Klegg shook his hand off angrily, but the warning came too late. The Provost-Sergeant had been watching them, at the instigation of a sharp-eyed, clerkly-looking man in semi-uniform.
The Sergeant strode toward them, followed by a soldier with a gun.
"I arrest you both," said he. "You are men that180 we've been looking for. You'll stay right there in your seats till we get to Murfreesboro', and this man 'll see that you do."
The soldier took position at the end of the seat, and dropped the end of his musket on the floor with an I've-got-my-orders-an'-I'm-going-to- stay-right-here look on his face.
"You've been lookin' for me," gasped Deacon Klegg. "Who else's been lookin' for me, I'd like to know? Is the whole State o' Tennessee lookin' for me? What was you lookin' for me for? Think I've run away from Injianny without pay in' my debts? Think I want to desert my wife and children? Young man, you don't know Josiah Klegg. I've got a quarter section of as good land as there is in the Wabash bottoms, and I don't owe a dollar on it. As for leavin' Maria Klegg, I wouldn't do it for the whole State of Injianny. What've you been lookin' for me for, I'd like to know?"
"Old man, I haven't time to talk to you, and it ain't my business. You'll find out soon enough, when you git to headquarters, and so will your partner there."
"My partner," echoed Deacon Klegg. "This man's no partner o' mine. I never laid eyes on him till a half-hour ago."
"Continue your speech at headquarters," said the Sergeant, as he moved off. "I haven't time to listen to it now. You'd better save your breath till then, for you'll have to do some mighty slick talkin' to save your spying neck, I can tell you that."
Deacon Klegg sank back in the seat dumfounded. "What on airth kin he mean?" he gasped.181
"It's another of the outrages of the despot Lincoln," answered his companion. "It's another of the arbitrary arrests by his military satraps. Liberty is dead in this country until we can overthrow that nigger-loving usurper."
"Shut up," said the Deacon savagely. "If you say another word I'll mash you. I won't be disturbed when I'm tryin' to think things out."
"I want that carpetsack and umbrella of yours," said the Sergeant, coming back. "I've no doubt you've got 'em both full of treasonable documents and information for your rebel friends. Guard, watch both these men closely, and see that they don't destroy any papers, nor throw anything out the window."
"Young man," said the Deacon resolutely, "you can't have that carpetsack or that umbreller. They're my property. If you tech 'em I'll have the law on you. I'll sue you for trespass, larceny, assault and battery, and intent to provoke. I hain't done nothin' to justify it. I'm Josiah Klegg, of Posey County, Injianny, Deacon in the Ebenezer Church, on Mill Crick. I'm goin' down to Murfreesboro' to visit my son, Josiah Klegg, jr., o' the 200th Injianny Volunteers. You all know him. He's an officer; he's the boy that tried to git a commissary wagon away from the rebels durin' the battle, and he and Shorty 've got a house with a tin roof."
The other occupants gathered around and laughed derisively.
"Twon't do, old man," said the Sergeant, trying to wrest the carpetsack away. "You tell a pretty story, and you're well disguised, but we're onto you.182 We got full particulars about you from Louisville. You're a bad lot down there in Posey County. There's a Knights of the Golden Circle Lodge under every sycamore. You'd be at Gen. Bragg's headquarters to-morrow night if we let you alone."
He pulled hard at the carpetsack, and Deacon Klegg resisted with all his sturdy might. His strength was quite a match for the Sergeant's, but other soldiers came to help the latter. The handles came off in the struggle, and the Deacon was forced down into his seat. The other man took advantage of the confusion to work his way through the crowd to the door and jump off. This angered the Sergeant, and coming back to where Mr. Klegg sat, exhausted and intensely mad, he said:
"I'll make sure that you don't get away, anyhow. I ought to've done this at first."
So saying, he snapped a hand-cuff over Mr. Klegg's wrist and then over the arm of the seat.
The Deacon was never so humiliated in his life. He was simply speechless in his rage and mortification.
Among the many of Gen. Rosecrans's eccentricities and vagrant fancies was one for prowling around through his camps at night, wearing a private's overcoat and cap. One night he strolled into the camp of the 200th Ind. The superior architecture of Si and Shorty's cabin struck him, and he decided to look inside. He knocked on the door.
"Come in," shouted Si.183
He entered, and found Si engaged with Tom Billings in a game of checkers for the championship of the 200th Ind. Shorty was watching the game intently, as Si's counselor, and Zeke Tomkins was giving like assistance to Tom Billings. Two other crack players were acting as umpires. The light from the fire shone brightly upon them, but left the front of the room, where the General stood, in complete darkness. They were so absorbed in the game that they merely looked up, saw that the newcomer was a private soldier, and supposed that he had merely dropped in to watch the game.
"Did you clean your feet on the bayonet outside the door?" demanded Shorty, as he fixed his eyes again on the red and white grains of corn, which represented the men on the board.
"No, I forgot," said the General quietly. "Well, go right outside and clean 'em off," ordered Shorty. "Don't want no mud tracked in here for us to carry out agin."
The General, much amused, went out, carefully scraped his boots, and then returned.
"All right," said Shorty, looking up as he reentered. "Now look all you like, but don't say nothin'. Nobody s allowed to say a word but the players and the umpires."
The game proceeded in silence for several minutes, and the General became much interested. It was one of his peculiarities that he could not help getting interested in anything that his soldiers were doing, from the boiling of a cup of coffee or the pitching of a tent to the alignment of a company. Si was getting a little the better of Billings, and184 the General's sympathies naturally went toward the loser. He touched Billings on the shoulder, as he was about to make a move, and said:
"Don't do that. You'll open your king row.
"Move—"
Shorty was alert on the instant.
"Shut up," he commanded. "You've no business talkin'; I told you when you come in you weren't allowed to say nothin'."
"Excuse me," said the General; "I quite forgot."
"Well, see that you don't forgit agin," growled Shorty. "We've got quite enough talent in the game already. We don't want no more to come in."
Again the game proceeded in intent silence for some minutes. Then Si called out:
"Hold on; you can't jump backwards with that man. That ain't no king."
"I say it is a king," said Billings. "I got him into the row half an hour ago, and crowned him. You knocked the crown off when you moved."
"I know better," said Shorty. "I've been watching that piece right along, and he's never been nearer the king-row than he is this minute."
A hot discussion ensued. The General forgot him self and joined in in his usual positive, authoritative way.
"I say the man had been crowned. I saw him crowned and the crown afterward knocked off. There's the crown by the side there."
Shorty's wrath rose. "I told you when you come in here," he said sharply, "not to mix into this game. You've got no business in it. Keep your advice till it's asked for, or git out o' the tent. If you don't git out I'll put you out."
"Be careful, my man," said the General, speaking in his usual way. "You are talking to an officer."
"I don't care if you are a Lieutenant or a Captain, even," Si chimed in; "you have no business mixing in a quiet little game o' checkers between186 enlisted men."
"I am more than a Captain," said the General, opening his overcoat slightly, to show his double dow of buttons.
"Dern' a Major or a Colonel don't make it much better," said Si, obdurately, but with much more respect.
"I'm higher than a Colonel," said the General, amusedly, and opening his overcoat a little farther.
"Excuse us, General," they all murmured, rising to their feet, and taking the position of a soldier.
"You don't command our brigade, do you?" said Shorty, trying to get a better view of his face.
"I command this brigade, and several others," said the General, smilingly enjoying their confusion.
"Lord, a Major-General commanding a corps," gasped Shorty, backing up with the rest into line, and saluting with the profoundest respect.
"Still higher," laughed the General, stepping for ward to where the light fell full on his face. "I'm Maj.-Gen. Rosecrans, commanding this army. But don't be disturbed. You've done nothing. You are all entitled to your opinions, as free American citizens; but I will insist that that man had been in the king row, and should be crowned. But you settle that among yourselves.
"I merely dropped in to compliment you on the skill you have shown in building your house and its comfort. I'm glad to find that it looks even better inside than out. I know that you are good soldiers from the way you take care of yourselves. But so fine a house ought to have a better checker-board than a barrel-head, with grains of corn for men. Who are the owners of the house?"187
"Me and him," said Shorty, indicating himself and Si.
"Very good," said the General; "both of you report at my Headquarters to-morrow morning at 10 o'clock. Good night."
"Three cheers and a tiger for Old Rosey," yelled Shorty as soon as he could get his scattered wits together enough to say a word.
They gave three such rousing cheers that the rest of Co. Q came running out of their tents, and joined in cheering, as fast as the news could be communicated to them.
The next morning a squad of prisoners was being conducted toward Army Headquarters. At their head walked a stout, middle-aged farmer, carrying a portly blue umbrella. He had spent the night among the riotous spirits in the guard-house, and had evidently undergone much wear and tear. He looked as if things had not been going his way at all. By him marched the stalwart Provost-Sergeant, with a heavy striped carpetsack under his arm.
Gen. Rosecrans rode up at the head of his staff, from an early morning inspection of some part of the camp. The men saluted and cheered.
"Whom have you here, Sergeant?" said the General, reining up his horse beside the squad.
"That's Gen. Rosecrans," said one of the guards to Deacon Klegg.
"Nobody of importance," replied the Sergeant, "except this old man here. He's a Knight of the188 Golden Circle, that we've been watching for for some time, going through with information and other things from the Knights of Indiana to the enemy in Tullahoma. I've got his carpetsack here. I expect it's full of papers and contraband stuff. It feels as if it had lead in it. I am taking him to the Provost-Marshal's for examination."
He set the heavy carpetsack down on the ground, to rest for a minute.
"Gen. Rosecrans, it's all a plaguey lie," burst out Deacon Klegg. "I'm as loyal a man as there is in the State of Injianny. I voted for Abe Lincoln and Oliver P. Morton. I've come down here to visit my son, Josiah Klegg, jr., of the 200th Injianny Volunteers. You know him, General. He's one o' your officers. He's a Corporal. He's the boy that tried to take a commissary wagon away from the rebels durin' the battle, and he's got a house with a tin roof. You recollect that, don't you?"
Some of the staff laughed loudly, but the General checked them with a look, and spoke encouragingly to the Deacon.
"Yes, General," continued Mr. Klegg, "I knowed you'd know all about him the minit I mentioned him to you. I told this over and over agin to these plaguey fools, but they wouldn't believe me. As to that carpetsack havin' things for the enemy, it's the biggest lie that ever was told. I'll open it right here before you to show you. I've only got some things that my wife and the girls was sendin to Si."
He fumbled around for his keys.
"Possibly you have made a mistake, Sergeant," said the General. "What evidence have you?"189
"We'd got word to look out for just such a man, who'd play off the dodge of being an old plug of a farmer on a visit to his son."
"He was on the train with a man whom all the detectives know as one of the worst Knights in the gang. They were talking together all the way. I190 arrested the other one, too, but he slipped away in the row this man made to distract our attention."
In the meantime Deacon Klegg had gotten his carpetsack open for the General's inspection. It was a sorry sight inside. Butter, honey, shirts, socks, boots, and cakes are excellent things taken separately, but make a bad mixture. Deacon Klegg looked very dejected. The rest grinned broadly.
"I don't seem to see anything treasonable so far," said the General. "Sergeant, take the rest of your prisoners up to the Provost-Marshal, and leave this man with me."
"Gen. Rosecrans," said a familiar voice, "you ordered us to report to you this mornin' at 10 o'clock. We're here."
The General looked up and saw Corporal Si Klegg and Shorty standing at a "salute."
"Si!" said the Deacon, joyously, sticking out a hand badly smeared with honey and butter.
"Pap!" shouted the Corporal, taking the hand in rapture. "How in the world did you git down here?"
They all laughed now, and the General did not check them.
"Corporal," said he, "I turn this man over to you. I'll hold you responsible that he don't communicate with the enemy. But come on up to Headquarters and get your checker-board. I have a very nice one for you."
"Pap" said Si, by way of introduction, "this is Shorty, my pardner, and the best pardner a feller ever had, and the best soldier in the Army of the Cumberland."
"Glad to see you, Mr. Klegg," said Shorty, reddening and grasping the father's outstretched hand; "but you orter 've broke that boy o' your'n o' lyin' when he was young."
"He never did lie," said the Deacon cheerfully, "and I don't believe he's lyin' now. I've heard a great deal o' you, Mr. Shorty, and I'm sure he's tellin' the truth about you."
"Drop the Mister, Pap," said Si. "We never call each other Mister here, except when we're mad."
Si took the carpetsack under his arm, and they trudged up toward Army Headquarters.
Relieved of anxiety as to his own personal safety, and having found his son, Deacon Klegg viewed everything around him with open-eyed interest. It was a wonderfully new and strange world into which the sober, plodding Indiana farmer had dropped. The men around him spoke the speech to which his ears were accustomed, but otherwise they were as foreign as if they had come from the heart of China.193
Their dress, their manners, their actions, the ways in which they were busying themselves, had no resemblance to anything seen on the prosaic plains of the Wabash in his half-century of life there. The infantry sweeping over the fields in endless waves, the dashing cavalcades of officers and staffs, the bewildering whirl of light batteries dazed him. Even Si awed him. It was hard to recognize in the broad-shouldered, self-assured young soldier, who seemed so entirely at home in his startling surroundings, the blundering, bashful hobbledehoy boy of a few months before, whose feet and hands were constantly in the way, and into everything else that they should not be.
"Somehow, Si," he said, looking at his offspring with contemplative eye, "you seem to have growed like a cornstalk in July, and yit when I come to measure you you don't seem no taller nor heavier than when you went away. How is it?"
"Don't know, Pap," Si answered. "I feel as if I'd had more'n 10 long years o' growth since we crossed the Ohio River. Yit, you don't seem a minute older than when I went away."
"I didn't feel no older," returned the father, "until I got in that guard-house last night. Then I could feel my hair gittin' grayer every hour, and my teeth droppin' out."
"I'm afraid you didn't git much chance to sleep, Pap," said Si sympathetically.
"Loss o' sleep was the least part of it," said the Deacon feelingly. "I kin stand a little loss o' sleep without any partickler bother. It wasn't bein' kept awake so much as the way I was kept awake that bore on me."
"Why, what happened?" asked Si.
"Better ask what didn't happen," groaned his father. "Used to have some mighty rough shivarees when I was a boy, and'd jest settled on the Wabash. Lots o' toughs then, 'specially 'mong the flatboat-men, who'd nothin' to drink but new sod-cornwhisky, that'd fight in every spoonful. But for sure, straight-out tumultuousness that guard-house last night gave six pecks for every bushel of a Wabash shivaree."
Shorty looked meaningly at Si. "Guard-house fellers's likely to be a ructionary lot o' roosters. Awful sorry you got in among 'em. Was they very bad?"
"Well, I should say. When I was chucked in they wuz havin' a regular prize fight, 'cordin' to rules, as to whether Rousseau or Negley wuz the best General. The Rousseau man got licked, and then the other Rousseau men wuzzent satisfied, and proposed to lick all the Negley men in the guard-house; but the Sheridan men interfered, and made the Rousseau men cool down. They they turned their attention to me. They raised a row about a citizen being put in among them. It was a disgrace. The guard house was only intended for soldiers and gentlemen, and no place for condemned civilians. Then some one said that I had been arrested as a Knight o' the Golden Circle, on my way to Bragg, with information from the Injianny Knights. Another insisted that he knowed me, and that I wuz Vallandigham himself, brought down there to be sent through the lines. Then I thought sure they'd kill me on the spot. I begged and pled and denied. Finally, they organized a court-martial to try me for my life.194
"They had an awful tonguey feller that acted as Prosecutin' Attorney, and the way he blackguarded me was a shame. He said the word 'traitor' was wrote in every liniment o' my face; that I wuz a dyed-in-the-wool butternut, and that the bag I'd brung along with me contained the muster-rolls of 100,000 Injiannians who'd bin swore in to fight for Jeff Davis.
"The feller that they appinted to defend me admitted the truth of all that the other feller'd said. He said that no one could look in my Southern Injianny face without seem' Secession, treason and nigger-lovin' wrote there in big letters. He could only ask the honorable court for mercy instid o' justice, and that I be shot instid o' hung, as I deserved.
"When they asked me what I'd got to say in my own defense I told 'em the truth, and said that I'd come down here to visit my son, who they all knowed they must know Si Klegg. o' the 200th Injianny Volunteers, who was an officer, and had a house with a tin roof.
"Then they all got up and yelled. They said they knowed Si Klegg only too well; that he wuz the meanest, oneriest soljer in the army, and that he looked just like me. They had him in the guard house now. He'd bin put in for stealin' a hoe-cake from a blind nigger half-way back to Nashville durin' the battle.
"They brought up the dirtiest, scaliest lookin' man in the guard-house, and said that was Si Klegg, and that he resembled me so much that they wuz sure he wuz my son. They asked him if he reckernized me as his dad, and after they kicked him two195 or three times he said he did, but he wuz goin' to cut his throat now, since they'd found it out. He couldn't stand everything. Then they said they'd postpone execution on condition that I'd kneel down, drink a pint o' whisky, take the oath o' allegiance to Abe Lincoln, and sing 'We'll hang Jeff Davis on a sour-apple tree.'
"I told 'em I wuz perfectly willin' to take the oath to Abe Lincoln as often as they pleased; that he wuz my man from start to finish; that I wanted Jeff Davis hung the minit we ketched him. I'd sing the song if they'd learn it to me, though I've not sung anything but hymns for the last 25 years. As for the whisky, I wouldn't tech it on no account, for I belonged to the Good Templars.
"They all seemed pacified with this except one man, who insisted that I should drink the whisky. One o' the Sheridan men knocked him down, and then the fight between the Rousseau men and the Negley men broke out afresh, and the guard come in and quieted things. By the time they'd done this they found that the man who had reckernized me as his father wuz tryin' to hang himself with a piece o' tent-rope. They cut him down, larruped him with the tent-rope, and then started another court to try me for havin' sich a son. But some officer come in and took out the Prosecutin' Attorney and the lawyer for the defense and the Presidin' Judge and bucked and gagged 'em. This cooled things down agin till mornin'."
"We might walk over to the Provost-Marshal's," suggested Shorty, "and watch for them fellers as they come out, and take a drop out o' some of 'em."196
"It'll be a waste o' time," said Si, with a shrug of his shoulders. "They'll all be doing hard labor for the next 30 days, and by that time we'll likely have a good deal else to think about. Let's report at Headquarters, and then take Dad over and show him our new house."
"Yes, I'm dying to see it," said the Deacon, "and197 to git somewhere that I kin sit down in peace and quietness. Seems to me I haven't had a moment's rest for years, and I'm as nigh tuckered out as I ever wuz in my life."
At the Army Headquarters was a crowd of officers, mounted and dismounted. Aids were arriving and departing, and there was a furore when some General commanding a corps or division came or went, which impressed the father greatly. Si and Shorty stood at "attention," and respectfully saluted as the officers passed, and the Deacon tried awkwardly, but his best, to imitate their example. Two or three spruce young Orderlies attempted to guy him. but this thing came to a sudden stop when Shorty took one of them quietly by the ear, and said in a low voice:
"Don't be brash, bub. If you only knowed it, you're givin' your measure for a first-class, custom-made lickin', and I'm the artist to do the job. That old man's my chum's father, and I won't allow no funny business 'round where I am."
"We wuz ordered to report to Gen. Rosecrans," said Si to the Orderly on duty before the tent.
"What are you to report for?" asked a member of the staff, standing near. "The General is very busy now, and can see no one. Who ordered you to report?"
"The General himself," said Si.
The sound of his voice reached Gen. Rosecrans, in side, and busy as he was, arrested his attention. With the kindly thoughtfulness that so endeared him to his soldiers he instantly remembered his promise, dropped his pen, and came to the door.198
"I ordered these men to report," he said to the Aid. "Bring me that checker-board which lies on my table."
The Aid did so. Gen. Rosecrans noticed the father, and, as usual, saw the opportunity of doing a kindly, gracious thing.
"You have found your son, I see," he said to him. "Sorry that you had so much trouble. That's a fine son you have. One of the very best soldiers in199 my army. I congratulate you upon him. Boys, here is your board and men. I may drop in some evening and see you play a game. I'll be careful to clean my feet, this time."
Si and Shorty got very red in the face at this allusion, and began to stammer excuses. The General playfully pinched Si's ear and said:
"Go to your quarters now, you young rascal, and take your father with you. I hope he'll have a very pleasant time while he is in camp."
They saluted and turned away too full for utterance. After they had gone a little distance the Deacon remarked, as if communing with himself:
"And that is Gen. Rosecrans. Awful nice man. Nicest man I ever saw. Greatest General in the world. Won't this be something to tell Mariar and the girls. And the men down at the store. I'd 've come down here 40 times jest to 've seen him and talked with him. What'd last night in the guard house amount to, after all? A man must expect some trouble occasionally. Wouldn't have no fun if he didn't. Say, Si, remember Old Susy's chestnut colt?"
"Yes," answered Si.
"I thought he had in him the makin' o' the finest horse in Posey County."
"Yes," said Si.
"Well, he's turnin' out even better'n I thought he would. Shouldn't wonder if he could trot down somewhere nigh 2:40."
"You don't say so."
"Yes, indeed. You used to want that colt mighty bad, Si."200
"I remember that I did, Pap."
"Well, Si, I'll give you that colt, and take good care o' him till you come home, for that 'ere checker board."
When they arrived at their house Si and Shorty arranged the things so as to give the Deacon a most comfortable rest after his trying experiences, and cooked him the best dinner their larder would afford. After dinner they filled him a pipe-full of kinni-kinnick, and the old gentleman sat down to enjoy201 it while Si and Shorty investigated the contents of the carpetsack. They found endless fun in its woeful condition. The butter and honey were smeared over everything, in the rough handling which it had endured. They pulled out the shirt, the socks, the boots, the paper and books, and scraped off carefully as much as they could of the precious honey and butter.
"It's too good to waste the least bit," said Shorty, tasting it from time to time with unction. "Don't mind a hair or two in the butter, this time, Si. I kin believe your mother is a good buttermaker. It's the best I ever tasted."
"Well, the butter and the honey may be spiled," said Si, "but the other things are all right. My, ain't this a nice shirt. And them socks. Shorty, did you ever see such socks. Ever so much obliged to you, Pap, for these boots. Old Hank Sommers's make. He's the best shoemaker in the State of Injianny. No Quartermaster's cowhide about them. And—"
Si stopped. He had suddenly come across Anna bel's ambrotype. He tried to slip it into his pocket without the others seeing him. He edged awkwardly to the door.
"You look over the rest o' the things, Shorty," he said, with a blush that hid his freckles. "I've got to go down and see the Orderly-Sergeant."
Shorty and the Deacon exchanged very profound winks.
SI ASKED questions of his father about the folks at home and the farm until the old gentleman's head ached, and he finally fell asleep through sheer exhaustion.
The next day the Deacon took a comprehensive survey of the house, and was loud in his praises of Si and Shorty's architecture.
"Beats the cabin I had to take your mother to, Si, when I married her," he said with a retrospective look in his eye, "though I'd got up a sight better one than many o' the boys on the Wabash. Lays a way over the one that Abe Lincoln's father put up on Pigeon Crick, over in Spencer County, and where he brung the Widder Johnston when he married her. I remember it well. About the measliest shack there wuz in the country. Tom Lincoln, Abe's father, wuz about as lazy as you make 'em. They say nothin' will cure laziness in a man, but a second wife 'll shake it up awfully. The Widder Johnston had lots o' git up in her, but she found Tom Lincoln a dead load. Abe wuz made o' different stuff."
"Yes," continued the father, growing reminiscential. "There wuz no tin roof, sawed boards, glass winder nor plank floor in that little shack on the203 Wabash, but some o' the happiest days in my life wuz spent in it. Me and your mother wuz both young, both very much in love, both chock full o' hope and hard day's work. By the time you wuz born, Si, we'd got the farm and the house in much better shape, but they wuz fur from being what they are to-day."
"If we only had a deed for a quarter section o' land around our house we'd be purty well started in life for young men," ventured Si.
"I'd want it a heap sight better land than this is 'round here," said the Deacon, studying the land scape judicially. "Most of it that I've seen so far is like self-righteousness the more a man has the worse he's off. Mebbe it'll raise white beans, but I don't know o' nothin' else, except niggers and poverty. The man that'd stay 'round here, scratchin' these clay knobs, when there's no law agin him goin' to Injianny or Illinoy, hain't gumption enough to be anything but a rebel. That's my private opinion publicly expressed."
"Pap," said Si, after his father had been a day in camp, "I think we've done fairly well in providin' you with a house and a bed, but I'm afeared that our cookin's not quite up to your taste. You see, you've bin badly pampered by mother. I might say that she's forever spiled you for plain grub and common cookin'."
"Your mother's the best cook that ever lived or breathed," said the Deacon earnestly. "She kin make plain cornbread taste better than anybody else's pound cake. But you do well, Si, considerin' that your mother could never git you to do so much204 as help peel a mess o' 'taters. Your coffee'd tan a side o' sole leather, and there's enough grease about your meat to float a skiff; but I didn't expect to live at a hotel when I come down here."
The Deacon strolled down near Regimental Headquarters. An Aid came up and, saluting the Colonel, said:
"Colonel, the General presents his compliments, and instructs me to say that he has received orders from Division Headquarters to send details of a Corporal and five men from each regiment there to morrow morning at 7 o'clock for fatigue duty. You will furnish yours."
"Very good," answered the Colonel, returning the salute. "Adjutant, order the detail."
"Sergeant-Major," said the Adjutant, after a momentary glance at his roster, "send an order to Capt, McGillicuddy, of Co. Q, for a Corporal and five men for fatigue duty, to report at Division Headquarters at 7 to-morrow morning."
The Deacon walked toward Co. Q's quarters, and presently saw the Orderly hand the Captain the order from the Colonel.
"Orderly-Sergeant," said the Captain, "detail a Corporal and five men to report for fatigue duty at Division Headquarters to-morrow at 7 o'clock."
The Orderly-Sergeant looked over his roster, and then walked down to Si's residence.
"Klegg," said he, "you will report for fatigue duty at Division Headquarters to-morrow at 7 o'clock with five men. You will take Shorty, Simmons, Sullivan, Tomkins and Wheeler with you."
"Very good, sir," said Si, saluting.205
"Si," said his father, with a quizzical smile, "I've bin wonderin', ever since I heard that you wuz an officer, how much o' the army you commanded. Now I see that if it wuz turned upside down you'd be on the very top."
"He leads the army when it goes backward," interjected Shorty.
"Gracious, Pap," said Si, good-humoredly, "I haven't rank enough to get me behind a saplin' on the battlefield. The Colonel has the pick o' the biggest tree, the Lieutenant-Colonel and Major take the next; the Captains and Lieutenants take the second growth, and the Sergeants have the saplins. I'm lucky if I git so much as a bush."
"Old Rosecrans must have a big saw-log," said his father.
"Not much saw-log for old Rosey," said Si, resenting even a joking disparagement upon his beloved General. "During the battle he wuz wherever it wuz hottest, and on horseback, too. Wherever the firm' wuz the loudest he'd gallop right into it. His staff was shot down all around him, but he never flinched. I tell you, he's the greatest General in the world."
The next morning after breakfast, and as Si and Shorty were preparing to go to Division Headquarters, Si said:
"Pap, you just stay at home and keep house to day. Keep your eyes on the boys; I tell it to you in confidence, for I wouldn't for the world have it breathed outside the company, that Co. Q's the most everlastin' set o' thieves that ever wore uniform. Don't you ever say a word about it when you get206 home, for it'd never do to have the boys' folks know anything about it. I'd break their hearts. Me and Shorty, especially Shorty, are the only honest ones in the company. The other fellers'd steal the house from over your head if you didn't watch 'em."
"That's so," asseverated Shorty. "Me and Si especially me is the only honest ones in the company. We're the only ones you kin really trust."
"I'd be sorry to think that Si had learned to steal," said the Deacon gravely, at which Shorty could not resist the temptation to give Si a furtive kick. "But I'll look out for thieves. We used to have lots o' them in Posey County, but after we hung one or two, and rid some others on rails, the revival meetin's seemed to take hold on the rest, and they got converted."
"Something like that ought to be done in the army," murmured Shorty.
"When you want anything to eat you know where to git it," said Si, as they moved off. "We'll probably be back in time to git supper."
The Deacon watched the squad march away, and then turned to think how he would employ himself during the day. He busied himself for awhile cleaning up the cabin and setting things to rights, and flattered himself that his housekeeping was superior to his son's. Then he decided to cut some wood. He found the ax, "condemned" it for some time as to its dullness and bad condition, but finally attacked with it a tree which had been hauled up back of the company line for fuel. It was hard work, and presently he sat down to rest. Loud words of command came from just beyond the hill, and he walked207 over there to see what was going on. He saw a regiment drilling, and watched it for some minutes with interest. Then he walked back to his work, but found to his amazement that his ax was gone. He could see nobody around on whom his suspicions could rest.
"Mebbe somebody's borrowed it," he said, "and will bring it back when he's through usin' it. If he don't I kin buy a better ax for 10 or 12 bits. Somebody must have axes for sale 'round here somewhere."
He waited awhile for the borrower to return the tool, but as he did not, he gathered up a load of wood and carried it up to the cabin.
"The boys'l be mighty hungry when they git back this evenin'," said he to himself. "I'll jest git up a good supper for 'em. I'll show Si that the old man knows some p'ints about cookin', even if he hain't bin in the army, that'll open the youngster's eyes."
He found a tin pan, put in it a generous supply of beans, and began carefully picking them over and blowing the dust out, the same as he had often seen his wife do. Having finished this to his satisfaction, he set down the pan and went back into the cabin to get the kettle to boil them in. When he returned he found that pan and beans had vanished, and again he saw no one upon whom he could fix his suspicions. The good Deacon began to find the "old Adam rising within him," but as a faithful member of the church he repressed his choler.
"I can't hardly believe all that Si and Shorty said about the dishonesty of Co. Q," he communed with208 himself. "Many o' the boys in it I know they're right from our neighborhood. Good boys as ever lived, and honest as the day is long. Some o' them belonged to our Sunday school. I can't believe that they've turned out bad so soon. Yet it looks awful suspicious. The last one I see around here was Jed Baskins. His father's a reggerly ordained preacher. Jed never could 've took them beans. But who on airth done it?"
The Deacon carefully fastened the door of the cabin, and proceeded with his camp-kettle to the spring to get some water. He found there quite a crowd, with many in line waiting for their chance at the spring. He stood around awhile awaiting his chance, but it did not seem to get any nearer. He said something about the length of time it took, and a young fellow near remarked:
"Here, Uncle, give me your kittle. I'll git it filled for you."
Without a thought the Deacon surrendered the kettle to him, and he took his place in line. The Deacon watched him edging up toward the spring for a minute or two, and then his attention was called to a brigade manuvering in a field across the river. After awhile he thought again about his kettle, and looked for the kindly young man who had volunteered to fill it. There were several in the line who looked like him, but none whom he could positively identify as him.
"Which o' you boys got my kittle?" he inquired, walking along the line.
"Got your kittle, you blamed teamster," they an swered crossly. "Go away from here. We won't209 allow teamsters at this spring. It's only for soldiers. Go to your own spring."
His kettle was gone, too. That was clear. As the Deacon walked back to the cabin he was very hot in the region of his collar. He felt quite shame faced, too, as to the way the boys would look on his management, in the face of the injunctions they had given him at parting. His temper was not improved by discovering that while he was gone someone had carried off the bigger part of the wood he had laboriously chopped and piled up in front of the cabin. He sat down in the doorway and meditated angrily:
"I'll be dumbed (there, I'm glad that Mariar didn't hear me say that. I'm afeared I'm gittin' to swear just like these other fellers). I'll be dumbed if I ever imagined there wuz sich a passel o' condemned thieves on the face o' the airth. And they all seem sich nice, gentlemanly fellers, too. What'll we do with them when they git back home?"
Presently he roused himself up to carry out his idea of getting a good meal ready for the boys by the time they returned, tired and hungry. He rummaged through the cabin, and came across an old tin bucket partially filled with scraps of paper. There did not seem to be anything of value in it, and he tossed the contents on the smoldering fire. Instantly there was an explosion which took the barrel off the top of the chimney, sent the stones rattling down, filled the room full of smoke, singed the Deacon's hair and whiskers, and sped him out of the cabin in great alarm. A crowd quickly gathered to see what was the matter. Just then Si appeared at the head of his squad. He and Shorty hurried to the scene of the disturbance.210
"What is the matter, Pap?" Si asked anxiously. "Why," explained his father, "I was lookin' round for something to git water in, and I found an old tin bucket with scraps o' paper in. I throwed them in the fire, and I'm feared I busted your fireplace all to pieces, But I'll help you to fix it up agin," he added deprecatingly.
"But you ain't hurt any, are you, Pap?" asked Si,211 anxiously examining his father, and ignoring all thought as to the damage to the dwelling.
"No," said his father cheerfully. "I guess I lost a little hair, but I could spare that. It was about time to git it cut, anyway. I think we kin fix up the fireplace, Si."
"Cuss the fireplace, so long's you're all right," answered Si. "A little mud 'll straighten that out. You got hold o' the bucket where me and Shorty 've bin savin' up our broken cartridges for a little private Fourth o' July some night."
"But, Si," said the Deacon sorrowfully, determined to have it out at once. "They're bigger thieves than you said there wuz. They stole your ax but I'll buy you a better one for 10 or 12 bits; they took your pan and beans, an' took your camp-kittle, and finally all the wood that I'd cut."
He looked so doleful that the boys could not help laughing.
"Don't worry about them, Pap," said Si cheer fully. "We'll fix them all right. Let's go inside and straighten things up, and then we'll have some thing to eat."
"But you can't git nothin' to eat," persisted the Deacon, "because there's nothin' to cook in."
"We'll have something, all the same," said Shorty, with a wink of enjoyable anticipation at Si.
The two boys carefully stowed away their overcoats, which were rolled up in bundles in a way that would be suspicious to a soldier. They got the interior of the cabin in more presentable shape, and then Shorty went out and produced a camp-kettle from somewhere, in which they made their coffee.212
When this was ready, they shut the door and care fully unrolled their overcoats. A small sugar-cured ham, a box of sardines, a can of peaches, and a couple of loaves of fresh, soft bread developed.
"Yum-yum!" murmured Shorty, gloating over the viands.
"Where in the world did you git them, boys?" asked the Deacon in wonderment.213
"Eat what is set before you, and ask no questions, for conscience's sake, Pap," said Si, slicing off a piece of the ham and starting to broil it for his father. "That's what you used to tell me."
"Si," said the father sternly, as an awful suspicion moved in his mind, "I hope you didn't steal 'em."
"Of course, not, Pap. How kin you think so?"
"Josiah Klegg," thundered the father, "tell me how you came by them things."
"Well, Pap," said Si, considerably abashed, "it was something like this: Our squad was set to work to unload a car o' Christian Commission things. Me and Shorty pulled off our overcoats and laid them in a corner. When we got through our work and picked up our coats we found these things in them. Some bad men had hid them there, thinkin' they wuz their overcoats. We thought the best way wuz to punish the thieves by takin' the things away with us. Now, here's a piece o' ham briled almost as nice as mother could do. Take it, and cut you off a slice of that soft bread."
"Si, the receiver's as bad as the thief. I won't touch it."
"Pap, the harm's been done. No matter who done it, the owner'll never see his victuals agin. Jest as like he cribbed 'em from somebody else. These Christian Commission things wuz sent down for us soljers, anyhow. We'd better have 'em than the bummers around the rear. They'll spile and be wasted if you don't eat 'em, and that'd be a sin."
The savory ham was very appetizing, the Deacon was very hungry, and the argument was sophistical.
"I'll take it, Si," said he with a sigh. "I don't214 wonder that the people down here are rebels and all that sort o' thing. It's in the air. I've felt my principles steadily weakenin' from the time I crossed the Ohio River."
AND IS RESCUED JUST IN TIME.
WITH the Deacon's assistance, the chimney was soon rebuilt, better than ever, and several homelike improvements were added. The lost utensils were also replaced, one by one. The Deacon was sometimes troubled in his mind as to where the pan, the camp-kettle, etc., came from. Si or Shorty would simply bring in one of them, with a sigh of satisfaction, and add it to the house hold stock. The Deacon was afraid to ask any questions.
One day, however, Shorty came in in a glow of excitement, with a new ax in his hand.
"There; isn't she a daisy," he said, holding it up and testing the edge with his thumb. "None o' your old sledges with no more edge than a maul, that you have to nigger the wood off with. Brand new, and got an edge like a razor. You kin chop wood with that, I tell you."
"It's a tolerable good ax. Wuth about 10 bits," said the Deacon, examining the ax critically. "Last ax I bought from Ol Taylor cost 12 bits. It was a better one. How much'd you give for this? I'll pay it myself."
"Do you know Jed Baskins thinks himself the216 best eucher player in the 200th Ind.," said Shorty, forgetting himself in the exultation of his victory. "Jed Baskins the Rev. Jared Baskins's son a eucher player," gasped the Deacon. "Why, his father'd no more tech a card than he would a coal o' fire. Not so much, for I've often heard him say that a coal o' fire kin only burn the hands, while cards scorch the soul."
"Well, Jed," continued Shorty, "bantered me to play three games out o' five for this here ax agin my galvanized brass watch. We wuz boss and hoss on the first two games; on the saw-off we had four pints apiece. I dealt and turned up the seven o' spades. Jed ordered me up, and then tried to ring in on me a right bower from another deck, but I knowed he hadn't it, because I'd tried to ketch it in the deal, but missed it an' slung it under the table. I made Jed play fair, and euchered him, with only two trumps in my hand. Jed's a mighty slick hand with the pasteboards, but he meets his boss in your Uncle Ephraim. I didn't learn to play eucher in the hay lofts o' Bean Blossom Crick for nothin', I kin tell you."
An expression of horror came into Deacon Klegg's face, and he looked at Shorty with severe disapproval, which was entirely lost on that worthy, who continued to prattle on:
"Jed Baskins kin slip in more cold decks on green horns than any boy I ever see. You'd think he'd spent his life on a Mississippi steamboat or follerin' a circus. You remember how he cleaned out them Maumee Muskrats at chuck-a-luck last pay-day? Why, there wuzn't money enough left in one company to buy postage stamps for their letters home. You know how he done it? Why, that galoot of a citizen gambler that we tossed in a blanket down there by Nashville, and then rid out o' camp on a rail, learned him how to finger the dice. I was sure some o' them Maumee smart Alecks'd git on to Jed, but they didn't. I declare they wouldn't see a six-mule team if it druv right across the board afore 'em. But I'm onto him every minit. I told him when he tried to ring in that jack on me that he218 didn't know enough about cards to play with our Sunday school class on Bean Blossom Crick."
"Josiah Klegg," said the Deacon sternly, "do you play cards?"
"I learned to play jest a little," said Si deprecatingly, and getting very red in the face. "I jest know the names o' the cards, and a few o' the rules o' the game."
"I'm surprised at you," said the Deacon, "after the careful way you wuz brung up. Cards are the devil's own picture-books. They drag a man down to hell jest as sure as strong drink. Do you own a deck o' cards?"
"No, sir," replied Si. "I did have one, but I throwed it away when we wuz goin' into the battle o' Stone River."
"Thank heaven you did," said the Deacon devoutly. "Think o' your goin' into battle with them infernal things on you. They'd draw death to you jest like iron draws lightnin'."
"That's what I was afeared of," Si confessed.
"Now, don't you ever touch another card," said the Deacon. "Don't you ever own another deck. Don't you insult the Lord by doin' things when you think you're safe that you wouldn't do when you're in danger and want His protection."
"Yes, sir," responded Si very meekly. The Deacon was so excited that he pulled out his red bandanna, mopped his face vigorously, and walked out of the door to get some fresh air. As his back was turned, Si reached slily up to a shelf, pulled down a pack of cards, and flung them behind the back-log.
"I didn't yarn to Pap when I told him I didn't219 own a deck," he said to Shorty. "Them wuzn't really our cards. I don't exactly know who they belonged to."
The good Deacon was still beset with the idea of astonishing the boys with a luxurious meal cooked by himself, without their aid, counsel or assistance. His failure the first time only made him the more determined. While he conceded that Si and Shorty did unusually well with the materials at their command, he had his full share of the conceit that possesses every man born of woman that, without any previous training or experience, he can prepare food better than anybody else who attempts to do it. It is usually conceded that there are three things which every man alive believes he can do better than the one who is engaged at it. These are:
1. Telling a story;
2. Poking a fire;
3. Managing a woman.
Cooking a meal should be made the fourth of this category.
One day Si and Shorty went with the rest of Co. Q on fatigue duty on the enormous fortifications, the building of which took up so much of the Army of the Cumberland's energies during its stay around Murfreesboro' from Jan. 3 to June 24, 1863. Rosecrans seemed suddenly seized with McClellan's mania for spade work, and was piling up a large portion of Middle Tennessee into parapet, bastion and casemate, lunet, curtain, covered-way and gorge, according to the system of Vauban. The 200th Ind. had to do its unwilling share of this, and Si and Shorty worked off some of their superabundant220 energy with pick and shovel. They would come back at night tired, muddy and mad. They would be ready to quarrel with and abuse everybody and every thing from President Lincoln down to the Commissary-Sergeant and the last issue of pickled beef and bread especially the Commissary-Sergeant and the rations. The good Deacon sorrowed over these manifestations. He was intensely loyal. He wanted to see the soldiers satisfied with their officers and the provisions made for their comfort.
He would get up a good dinner for the boys, which would soothe their ruffled tempers and make them more satisfied with their lot.
He began a labored planning of the feast. He looked over the larder, and found there pork, corned beef, potatoes, beans, coffee, brown sugar, and hard tack.
"Good, substantial vittles, that stick to the ribs," he muttered to himself, "and I'll fix up a good mess o' them. But the boys ought to have something of a treat once in a while, and I must think up some way to give it to 'em."
He pondered over the problem as he carefully cleaned the beans, and set them to boiling in a kettle over the fire. He washed some potatoes to put in the ashes and roast. But these were too common place viands. He wanted something that would be luxurious.
"I recollect," he said to himself finally, "seein' a little store, which some feller 'd set up a little ways from here. It's a board shanty, and I expect he's got a lots o' things in it that the boys'd like, for there's nearly always a big crowd around it. I'll221 jest fasten up the house, and walk over there while the beans is a-seethin', and see if I can't pick up something real good to eat."
He made his way through the crowd, which seemed to him to smell of whisky, until he came to the shelf across the front, and took a look at the222 stock. It seemed almost wholly made up of canned goods, and boxes of half-Spanish cigars, and play ing-cards.
"Don't seem to ba much of a store, after all," soliloquized the Deacon, after he had surveyed the display. "Ain't a patchin' to Ol Taylor's. Don't see anything very invitin' here. O, yes, here's a cheese. Say, Mister, gi' me about four pounds o' that there cheese."
"Plank down your $2 fust, ole man." responded the storekeeper. "This is a cash store cash in advance every time. Short credits make long friends. Hand me over your money, and I'll hand you over the cheese."
"Land o' Goshen, four bits a pound for cheese," gasped the Deacon. "Why, I kin git the best full-cream cheese at home for a bit a pound."
"Why don't you buy your cheese at home, then, old man?" replied the storekeeper. "You'd make money, if you didn't have to pay freight to Murfreesboro'. Guess you don't know much about gettin' goods down to the front. But I hain't no time to argy with you. If you don't want to buy, step back, and make room for someone that does. Business is lively this mornin'. Time is money. Small profits and quick returns, you know. No time to fool with loafers who only look on and ask questions."
"Strange way for a storekeeper to act," muttered the Deacon. "Must've bin brung up in a Land Office. He couldn't keep store in Posey County a week. They wouldn't stand his sass." Then aloud: "You may gi' me two pounds o' cheese."
"Well, why don't you plank down the rhino?" said223 the storekeeper impatiently. "Put up your money fust, and then you'll git the goods. This ain't no credit concern with a stay-law attachment. Cash in advance saves bookkeeping."
"Well, I declare," muttered the Deacon, as he fished a greenback out of a leather pocketbook fastened with a long strap. "This is the first time I ever had to pay for things before I got 'em."
"Never went to a circus, then, old man, or run for office," replied the storekeeper, and his humor was rewarded with a roar of laughter. "Anything else? Speak quick or step back."
"I'll take a can o' them preserved peaches and a quart jug o' that genuine Injianny maple molasses," said the Deacon desperately, naming two articles which seemed much in demand.
"All right; $2 for the peaches, and $2 more for the molasses."
"Sakes alive!" ejaculated the Deacon, producing the strapped pocketbook again. "Five dollars gone, and precious little to show for it."
He took his jug and his can, and started back to the cabin. A couple of hundred yards away he met a squad of armed men marching toward the store, under the command of a Lieutenant. He stepped to one side to let them pass, but the Lieutenant halted them, and asked authoritatively:
"What have you got there, sir?"
"Jest some things I've been buyin' for the boys' dinner," answered the Deacon.
"Indeed! Very likely," remarked the Lieutenant sarcastically. He struck the jug so sharply with his sword that it was broken, and the air was filled224 with a powerful odor of whisky. The liquor splashed over the Deacon's trousers and wet them through. The expression of anger on his face gave way to one of horror. He had always been one of the most rigid of Temperance men, and fairly loathed whisky in all shapes and uses.
"Just as I supposed, you old vagabond," said the Lieutenant, contemptuously. "Down here sneaking whisky into camp. We'll stop that mighty sudden."
He knocked the can of peaches out of the Deacon's arms and ran his sword into it. A gush of whisky spurted out. The Sergeant took the package of cheese away and broke it open, revealing a small flask of liquor.
"The idea of a man of your age being engaged in such business," said the Lieutenant indignantly. "You ought to be helping to keep the men of the army sober, instead of corrupting them to their own great injury. You are doing them more harm than the rebels."
The Deacon was too astonished and angry to reply. Words utterly failed him in such a crisis.
"Take charge of him, Corporal," commanded the Lieutenant. "Put him in the guard-house till tomorrow, when we'll drum him out of camp, with his partner, who is running that store."
The Corporal caught the Deacon by the arm roughly and pulled him into the rear of the squad, which hurried toward the store. The crowd in front had an inkling of what was coming. In a twinkling of an eye they made a rush on the store, each man snatched a can or a jug, and began bolting away as fast as his legs could carry him.
The storekeeper ran out the back way, and tried to make his escape, but the Sergeant of the provost squad threw down his musket and took after him. The storekeeper ran fast, inspired by fear and the desire to save his ill-gotten gains, but the Sergeant ran faster, and presently brought him back, panting and trembling, to witness the demolition of his property. The shanty was being torn down, each plank as it came off being snatched up by the soldiers to carry off and add to their own habitations. The "canned fruit" was being punched with bayonets, and the jugs smashed by gun-butts.
"You are a cheeky scoundrel," said the Lieutenant, addressing himself to the storekeeper, "to come down here and try to run such a dead-fall right in the middle of camp. But we'll cure you of any such ideas as that. You'll find it won't pay at all to try such games on us. You'll go to the guard house, and to-morrow we'll shave your head and drum you and your partner there out of camp."
"I ain't no partner o' his," protested the Deacon earnestly. "My name's Josiah Klegg, o' Posey County, Injianny. I'm down here on a visit to my son in the 200th Injianny Volunteer Infantry. I'm a Deacon in the Baptist Church, and a Patriarch of the Sons o' Temperance. It'd be the last thing in the world I'd do to sell whisky."
"That story won't wash, old man," said the Lieutenant. "You were caught in the act, with the goods in your possession, and trying to deceive me."
He turned away to order the squad forward. As they marched along the storekeeper said to the Deacon:226
"I'm afraid they've got me dead to rights, old man, but you kin git out. Just keep up your sanctimonious appearance and stick to your Deacon story, and you'll git off. I know you. I've lived in Posey County myself. I'm going to trust you. I've already made a clean big profit on this venture, and I've got it right down in my pocket. In spite of all they've spiled, I'd be nigh $500 ahead o' the game if I could git out o' camp with what I've got in my sock. But they'll probably search me and confiscate my wad for the hospital. You see, I've been through this thing before. I'm goin' to pass my pile over to you to take keer of till I'm through this rumpus. You play fair with me, an' I'll whack up with you fair and square, dollar for dollar. If you don't I'll follow you for years."
"I wouldn't tech a dirty dollar of yours for the world," said the Deacon indignantly; but this was lost on the storekeeper, who was watching the Lieutenant.
"Don't say a word," he whispered; "he's got his eye on us. There it is in your overcoat pocket."
In the meantime they had arrived at the guard house. The Sergeant stepped back, took the store keeper roughly by the shoulders, and shoved him up in front of a tall, magisterial-looking man wearing a Captain's straps, who stood frowning before the door.
"Search him," said the Captain briefly.
The Sergeant went through the storekeeper's pockets with a deftness that bespoke experience. He produced a small amount of money, some of it in fractional currency and Confederate notes, a number227 of papers, a plug of tobacco, and some other articles. He handed these to the Captain, who hastily looked over them, handed back the tobacco and other things and the small change.
"Give these back to him," he said briefly. "Turn the rest of the money over to the hospital fund. Where's our barber? Shave his head, call up the fifers and drummers, and drum him out of camp at once. I haven't time to waste on him."
Before he had done speaking the guards had the storekeeper seated on a log, and were shearing his hair.
"General," shouted the Deacon.
"That's a Cap'n, you fool," said one of the guards.
"Captain, then," yelled the Deacon.
"Who is that man?" said the Captain severely.
"He's his partner," said the Lieutenant.
"Serve him the same way," said the Captain shortly, turning to go.
The Deacon's knees smote together. He, a Deacon of the Baptist Church, and a man of stainless repute at home, to have his head shaved and drummed out of camp. He would rather die at once. The guards had laid hands on him.
"Captain," he yelled again, "it's all a horrible mistake. I had nothin' to do with this man."
"Talk to the Lieutenant, there," said the Captain, moving off. "He will attend to you."
The Lieutenant was attentively watching the barbering operation. "Cut it close closer yet," he admonished the barber.
"Lieutenant! Lieutenant!" pleaded the Deacon, awkwardly saluting.
"Stand back; I'll attend to you next," said the228 Lieutenant impatiently. "Now, tie his hands behind him."
The Lieutenant turned toward the Deacon, and the barber picked up his shears and made a step in that direction. Just in the extremity of his danger the Deacon caught sight of the Captain of Co. Q walking toward Headquarters.
"Capt. McGillicuddy! Capt. McGillicuddy! come here at once! Come quick!" he called in a voice which had been trained to long-distance work on the Wabash bottoms.
Capt. McGillicuddy looked up, recognized the waving of the Deacon's bandanna, and hastened thither. Fortunately he knew the Provost officers; there were explanations all around, and profuse apologies, and just as the fifes and drums struck up the "Rogue's March" behind the luckless storekeeper, who had to step off in front of a line of leveled bayonets, the Deacon walked away arm-in-arm with the Captain.
"I'm not goin' to let go o' you till I'm safe back in our own place," he said. "My gracious! think of havin' my head shaved and marched off the way that feller's bein'."
He walked into the cabin and stirred up the beans.
"The water's biled off," said he to himself, "but they hain't been in nigh as hot a place as I have. I guess the boys'll have to do with a plain dinner to day. I'm not goin' to stir out o' this place agin unless they're with me."
He put his hand into his pocket for his bandanna and felt the roll of bills, which he had altogether forgotten in his excitement.
His face was a study.
FROM the door of the cabin the Deacon could see the fort on which the boys were piling up endless cubic yards of the red soil of Tennessee. As he watched them, with an occasional glance at the beans seething in the kettle, fond memories rose of a woman far away on the Wabash, who these many years had thought and labored for his comfort in their home, while he labored within her sight on their farm. It was the first time in their long married life that he had been away from her for such a length of time.
"I believe I'm gittin' real homesick to see Mariar," he said with a sigh. "I'd give a good deal for a letter from her. I do hope everything on the farm's all right. I think it is. I'm a little worried about Brown Susy, the mare, but I think she'll pick up as the weather settles. I hope her fool colt, that I've give Si, won't break his leg nor nothin' while I'm away."
Presently he saw the men quit work, and he turned to get ready for the boys. He covered the rough table with newspapers to do duty for a cloth; he had previously scoured up the tinware to its utmost brightness and cleanliness, and while the boys were230 washing off the accumulations of clay, and liberally denouncing the man who invented fort building, and even West Point for educating men to pursue the nefarious art, he dished out the smoking viands.
"Upon my word, Pap," said Si, as he helped him self liberally, "you do beat us cookin' all holler. Your beans taste almost as good as mother's. We must git you to give us some lessons."
"Yes; you're a boss cook," said Shorty, with his mouth full. "Better not let Gen. Rosecrans find out how well you kin bile beans, or he'll have you drafted, and keep you with him till the end o' the war."
After supper they lighted their pipes and seated themselves in front of the fire.
"How'd you git along to-day, Pap," said Si. "I hope you didn't have no trouble."
The Deacon took his pipe out of his mouth, blew a cloud of smoke, and considered a moment before replying. He did not want to recount his experiences, at least, until he had digested them more thoroughly. He was afraid of the joking of the boys, and still more that the story would get back home. Then, he was still sorely perplexed about the disposition of the money. He had not thought that out yet, by a great deal. But the question was plump and direct, and concealment and untruth were alike absolutely foreign to his nature. After a minute's pause he decided to tell the whole story.
"Well, boys," he began with a shamefaced look, "I had the flamboyantest racket to-day I've had yit."
The two boys took their pipes out and regarded him with surprise.231
"Yes," he continued, with a deep sigh, "it laid away over gittin' down here, and my night in the guard-house, even. You see, after you went away I began to think about gittin' up something a little extry for you to eat. I thought about it for awhile, and then recollected seein' a little grocery that'd been set up nigh here in a board shanty."
"Yes, we know about it," said Shorty, exchanging a look with Si.
"Well," continued the Deacon, "I concluded that I'd jest slip over there, and mebbe I could find232 something that'd give variety to your pork and beans. He didn't seem to have much but canned goods, and his prices wuz jest awful. But I wuz de termined to git something, and I finally bought a jug o' genuine Injianny maple molasses, a chunk o' cheese and a can o' peaches. I had to pay $5 for it. He said he had to charge high prices on account o' freight rates, and I remembered that I had some trouble in gittin' things down here, and so I paid him. He wuz very peart and sassy, and it was take-it-or-leave-it-and-be-plaguey- quick-about-it all the time. But I paid my $5, gathered the things up, and started back to the house. I hadn't got more'n 100 rods away when I met one o' these officers with only one o' them things in his shoulder straps."
"A First Lieutenant," interjected Si.
"Yes, they called him a Lieutenant. He spoke very bossy and cross to me, and hit my jug a welt with his sword. He broke it, and what do you suppose was in it?"
"Whisky," said Si and Shorty simultaneously, with a shout of laughter.
"That's jest what it wuz. I wuz never so mortified in my life. I couldn't say a word. The Lieutenant abused me for being a partner in sellin' whisky to the soldiers me, Josiah Klegg, Patriarch of the Sons o' Temperance, and a Deacon. While I wuz tryin' to tell him he jabbed his sword into the can o' peaches, and what do you suppose was in that?"
"Whisky," yelled Si and Shorty, with another burst of laughter.
"That's jest what it wuz. Then one o' the Lieutenant's men jerked the chunk o' cheese away and283 broke it open. And what do you suppose was in that?"
"Whisky, of course," yelled the boys in uncontrollable mirth.
"That's jest what it was. I wuz so dumfounded that I couldn't say a word. They yanked me around in behind the squad, and told me they'd shave my head and drum me out o' camp. The Lieutenant took his men up to the grocery and tore it down, and ketched the feller that wuz keepin' it. They put him alongside o' me, and tuk us up to the guard house. On the way he whispered to me that they wuz likely to salt him, 'cause they knowed him, but I'd likely git off easy. He'd made $500 clean out o' the business already, and had it in his clothes. He'd pass it over to me to keep till the racket wuz over, when he'd divide fair and square with me. I told him that I'd rather burn my hand off than tech a dirty dollar o' his money, but he dropt it into my overcoat pocket all the same, and I wuz so excited that I clean forgot about it, and brung it away with me. When we got to the guard-house they tuk all the rest of his money away, shaved his head, and drummed him out o' camp."
"Yes, we saw that," answered Si; "but didn't pay no attention to it. They're drummin' some feller out o' camp nearly every day, for something or other."
"I don't see that it does any good," said Shorty. "It'd be a heap better to set 'em to work on the fortifications. That'd take the deviltry out o' 'em."
"When they'd got through with him," continued the Deacon, "they Burned their attention to me. I234 never wuz so scared in all my born days. But luckily, jest in the nick o' time, I ketched sight o' Capt. McGillicuddy, and hollered to him. He come up and explained things, and they let me go, with lots o' apologies. When I got back to the house, I felt for my handkerchief, and found that scalawag's roll o' bills, which I'd clean forgot. Here it is."
He pulled out a fat roll of crisp greenbacks. Si took them, thumbed them over admiringly, counted them, and handed them to Shorty, who did the same.
"Yes, there's $500 there," said Si. "What are you goin' to do with it, Pap?"
"That's jest what's worrying the life out o' me," answered his father. "By rights I ought to throw the condemned stuff into the fire, only I hold it a great sin to destroy property of any kind."
"What, burn all that good money up?" said Shorty with a whistle. "You don't live in an insane asylum when you're at home, do you?"
"'Twouldn't be right to burn it, Pap," said Si, who better understood the rigidity of his father's principles. "It'd do a mighty sight o' good somewhere."
"The money don't belong at all to that feller," mused the Deacon. "A man can't have no property in likker. It's wet damnation, hell's broth, to nourish murderers, thieves, and paupers. It is the devil's essence, with which he makes widows and orphans. Every dollar of it is minted with women's tears and children's cries of hunger. That feller got the money by violatin' the law on the one hand and swindling the soldiers on the other, and corruptin' them to their ruin. To give the money back to him would be rewardin' him for his rascality. It'd be like235 givin' a thief his booty, or a burglar his plunder, and make me his pardner."
"You're right there, Pap," assented Si. "You'd jest be settin' him up in business in some other stand. Five hundred dollars'd give him a good start. His hair'll soon grow agin."
"The worst of it," sighed Shorty, "is that it ain't good likker. Otherwise it'd be different. But it's pizener than milk-sick or loco-weed. It's aqua-fortis, fish-berries, tobacco juice and ratsbane. That stuff'd eat a hole in a tin pan."236
"The Captain turned the rest o' his money over to the hospital," continued the Deacon. "I might do that."
"Never do it in the world, Pap," protested Si. "Better burn it up at once. It'd be the next worst thing to givin' it back to him. It'd jest be pamperin' and encouragin' a lot o' galoots that lay around the hospitals to keep out o' fights. None o' the wounded or really sick'd git the benefit of a cent of it. They wuz all sent away weeks ago to Nashville, Louisville, and back home. You jest ought to see that bummer gang. Last week me and Shorty wuz on fatigue duty down by one o' the hospitals. There wuzzent nobody in the hospital but a few 'shell-fever' shirks, who're too lazy to work on the fortifications, and we saw a crowd of civilians and men in uniform set down to a finer dinner than you kin git in any hotel. Shorty wanted to light some shells and roll in amongst 'em, but I knowed that it'd jest make a muss that we'd have to clean up afterward."
"But what am I going to do with it?" asked the Deacon despairingly. "I don't want no money in my hands that don't belong to me, and especially sich money as that, which seems to have a curse to every bill. If we could only find out the men he tuk it from."
"Be about as easy as drivin' a load o' hay back into the field, and fitting each spear o' grass back on the stalk from which it was cut," interjected Shorty.
"Or I might send it anonymously to the Baptist Board o' Missions," continued the Deacon.
"Nice way to treat the little heathens," objected Si. "Send them likker money."237
The Deacon groaned.
"Tell you what we might do, Pap," said Si, as a bright idea struck him. "There's a widder, a Union woman, jest outside the lines, whose house wuz burned down by the rebels. She could build a splendid new house with $100 better'n the one she wuz livin' in before. Send her $100.
"Not a bad idee," said the Deacon approvingly, as he poked the ashes in his pipe with his little finger.
"And, Pap," continued Si, encouraged by the reception of this suggestion, "there's poor Bill Ellerlee, who lost his leg in the fight. He used to drink awful hard, and most of his money went down his throat. He's got a wife and two small children, and they hain't a cent to live on, except what the neighbors gives. Why not put up $200 in an express pack age and send it to him, marked 'from an unknown friend?'"
"Good," accorded the Deacon.
"And Jim Pocock," put in Shorty, seeing the drift. "He's gone home with a bullet through his breast. His folks are pretty poor. Why not send him $100 the same way?"
"Excellent idee," said the father.
"That leaves $100 yit," said Si. "If you care to, you kin divide it between Shorty and me, and we'll use it among the boys that got hurt, and need some thing."
A dubious look came into the Deacon's face.
"You needn't be afeared of us, Pap," said Si, with a little blush. "I kin promise you that we won't use a cent ourselves, but give every bit where it is really needed."238
"I believe you, my son," said the Deacon heartily. "We'll do jest as you say."
They spent the evening carrying their plan into execution.
At the 9 o'clock roll-call the Orderly-Sergeant announced:
"Co. Q to go out with a forage-train to-morrow morning."
This was joyful news a delightful variation from the toil on the fortifications. "Taps" found every body getting his gun and traps ready for an excursion into the country.
"You'd like to go with us, Pap, wouldn't you?" asked Si, as he looked over his cartridge-box to see what it contained.
"Indeed I would," replied the father. "I'll go any where with you rather than spend such another day in camp. You don't think you will see any rebels, do you?" he asked rather nervously.
"Don't know; never kin tell," said Shorty oracularly. "Rebels is anywhere you find 'em. Sometimes they're seldomer than a chaw of terbaker in a Sunday school. You can't find one in a whole County. Then, the first thing you know, they're thicker'n fleas on a dog's back. But we won't likely see no rebels to-morrow. There ain't no great passel o' them this side o' Duck River. Still, we'll take our guns along, jest like a man wears a breast-pin on a dark night, because he's used to it."
"Can't you give me a gun, too? I think it'd be company for me," said the Deacon.
"Certainly," said Si.
The Deacon stowed himself in the wagons with239 the rest the next morning, and rode out with them through the bright sunshine, that gave promise of the soon oncoming of Spring. For miles they jolted over the execrable roads and through the shiftless, run-down country before they found anything worth while putting in the wagons.
"Great country, Pap," said Si suggestively.
"Yes; it'd be a great country," said his father disdainfully, "if you could put a wagonload o' manure on every foot and import some Injianny men to take care of it. The water and the sunshine down here seem all right, but the land and the people and the pigs and stock seem to be cullin's throwed out when they made Injianny."
At length the train halted by a double log house of much more pretentious character than any they had so far seen. There were a couple of well-filled corn-cribs, a large stack of fodder, and other evidences of plenty. The Deacon's practiced eye noticed that there was no stock in the fields, but Si explained this by saying that everything on hoofs had been driven off to supply the rebel army. "They're now trying to git a corn-crib and a fodder-stack with four legs, but hain't succeeded so far."
The Captain ordered the fence thrown down and the wagons driven in to be filled. The surrounding horizon was scanned for signs of rebels, but none appeared anywhere. The landscape was as tranquil, as peace-breathing as a Spring morning on the Wabash, and the Deacon's mind reverted to the condition of things on his farm. It was too wet to plow, but he would like to take a walk over the fields and see how his wheat had come out, and look over the240 peach-buds and ascertain how they had stood the Winter. He noticed how some service-trees had already unfolded their white petals, like flags of truce breaking the long array of green cedars and rusty-brown oaks.
The company stacked arms in the road, the Captain went to direct the filling of the wagons, and Si and Shorty started on a private reconnoissance for something for their larder.
The Deacon strolled around the yard for awhile inspecting the buildings and farm implements with an eye of professional curiosity, and arrived at very unfavorable opinions. He then walked up on the porch of the house, where a woman of about his own age sat in a split-bottom rocking-chair knitting and viewing the proceedings with frowning eyes.
"Good day, ma'am," said he. "Warm day, ma'am."
"'Tain't as warm as it orter to be for sich fellers as yo'uns," she snapped. "You'd better be in the brimstone pit if you had your just deserts."
The Deacon always tried to be good-humored with an angry woman, and he thought he would try the effect of a little pleasantry. "I'm a Baptist, ma'am, and they say us Baptists are tryin' to put out that fire with cold water."
"You a Babtist?" she answered scornfully. "The hot place is full o' jest sich Babtists as yo'uns air, and they're making room for more. We'uns air Babtists ourselves, but, thank the Lord, not o' your kind. Babtists air honest people. Babtists don't go about the country robbin' and murderin' and stealin' folks' corn. Don't tell me you air a Babtist,241 for I know you air a-lyin', and that's the next thing to killin' and stealin'."
"But I am a Baptist," persisted the Deacon, "and have bin for 30 year regular, free-will, close-communion, total-immersion Baptist. We have some Campbellites, a few Six Principle Baptists, and some Hard Shells, but the heft of us air jest plain, straight-out Baptists. But, speakin' o' cold water, kin you give me a drink? I'm powerful dry."
"Thar's water down in the crick, thar," she said, with a motion of her knitting in that direction. "It's as fur for me as it is for you. Go down thar and drink all you like. Lucky you can't carry the crick away with yo'uns. Yo'uns 'd steal it if yo'uns could."
"You don't seem to be in a good humor, ma'am," said the Deacon, maintaining his pleasant demeanor and tone.
"Well, if you think that a passel o' nasty Yankees is kalkerlated to put a lady in a good humor you're even a bigger fool than you look. But I hain't no time to waste jawin' you. If you want a drink thar's the crick. Go and drink your fill of it. I only wish it was a's'nic, to pizen you and your whole army."
She suddenly stopped knitting, and bent her eyes eagerly on an opening in the woods on a hill-top whence the road wound down to the house. The Deacon's eyes followed hers, and he saw unmistakable signs of men in butternut clothes. The woman saw that he noticed them, and her manner changed.
"Come inside the house," she said pleasantly, "and I'll git you a gourdful of water fresh from the spring."242
"Thankee, ma'am; I don't feel a bit dry," answered the Deacon, with his eyes fastened on the hill top. "Si, Shorty, Capt. McGillicuddy," he yelled.
"Shet your head, and come into the house this minit, you nasty Yankee, or I'll slash your fool head off," ordered the woman, picking up a corn-cutter the advantage of his position and ran up to him.
The Deacon was inside the railing around the porch, and he had not jumped a fence for 20 years. But he cleared the railing as neatly as Si could have done it, and ran bareheaded down the road, yelling at the top of his voice.
He was not a minute too soon not soon enough. A full company of rebel cavalry came dashing out of the woods, yelling like demons.
Without waiting to form, the men of Co. Q ran to their guns and began firing from fence-corners and behind trees. Capt. McGillicuddy took the first squad that he came to, and, running forward a little way, made a hasty line and opened fire. Others saw the advantage of his position and ran up to him.
The Deacon snatched up a gun and joined the Captain.
"I never wuz subject to the 'buck fever,'" he muttered to himself, "and I won't allow myself to be now. I remember jest how Gineral Jackson told his men to shoot down to New Orleans. I'm going to salt one o' them fellers as sure as my name's Josiah Klegg."
He took a long breath, to steady himself, as he joined the Captain, picked out a man on a bay horse that seemed to be the rebels' Captain, and caught his breast fully through the hindsight before he243 pulled the trigger. Through the smoke he saw his man tumble from his horse.
"Got him, anyway," he muttered; "now, how in the world kin I load this plaguey gun agin?"
At that instant a rebel bullet bit out a piece of his ear, but he paid no attention to it.
"Gi' me that cartridge," he said to the man next to him, who had just bitten off the end of one; "I can't do it."
The man handed him the cartridge, which the Deacon rammed home, but before he could find a cap the fight was over, and the rebels were seek ing the shelter of the woods.
The Deacon managed to get a cap on his gun in time to take a long-distance, ineffective shot at the rebels as they disappeared in the woods.
They hastily buried one rebel who had been killed, and picked up those who had been wounded and carried them into the house, where they were made as comfortable as possible. Among them was the man whom the Deacon had aimed at. He was found to have a wound through the fleshy part of his hip, and proved to be the son of the woman of the house.
As soon as the fight was over, Si, full of solicitude, sought his father. He found him wiping the blood from his ear with his bandanna.
"It's nothin', son; absolutely nothin'," said the old gentleman with as much pride as any recruit. "Don't hurt as much as a scratch from a briar. Some feller what couldn't write put his mark on me so's he'd know me agin. But I fetched that feller on the bay hoss. I'm glad I didn't kill him, but he'll keep out o' devilment for sometime.
"PAP," said Si, as they were riding back, comfortably seated on a load of corn-fodder, "now that it's all over, I'm awfully scared about you. I can't forgive myself for runnin' you up agin such a scrape. I hadn't no idee that there wuz a rebel in the whole County. If anything had happened you it'd just killed mother and the girls, and then I'd never rested till I got shot myself, for I wouldn't wanted to live a minute."
"Pshaw, my son," responded his father rather testily; "you ain't my guardeen, and I hope it'll be a good many years yit before you are. I'm mighty glad that I went. There was something Providential in it. I'm a good deal of a Quaker. I believe in the movin's of the spirit. The spirit moved me very strongly to go with you, and I now see the purpose in it. If I hadn't, them fellers might've got the bulge on you. I seen them before any o' you did, and I fetched down their head devil, and I feel that I helped you a good deal."
"Indeed you did," said Shorty earnestly. "You ought to have a brevet for your 'conspicuous gallantry in action.' I think the Colonel will give you one. You put an ounce o' lead to particularly good245 use in that feller's karkiss. I only wish it'd bin a little higher up, where it'd a measured him for a wooden overcoat."
"I'm awful glad I hit him jest where I did," responded the Deacon. "I did have his heart covered with my sights, and then I pulled down a little. He was pizen, I know; but I wanted to give him a chance to repent."
"He'll repent a heap," said Shorty incredulously. "He'll lay around the house for the next six months, studyin' up new deviltry, and what he can't think of that secesh mother o' his'll put him up to. Co. Q, and particularly the Hoosier's Rest, is the only place you'll find a contrite heart and a Christian spirit cultivated."
"That reminds me," said Si; "we hain't licked the Wagonmaster yit for throwin' cartridges down our chimbley."
"Blamed if that ain't so," said Shorty. "I knowed I'd forgotten some little thing. It's bin hauntin' my mind for days. I'll jest tie a knot in my handker chief to remember that I must tend to that as soon's we git back."
"I'm quite sure that I don't want another sich a tussle," meditated the Deacon. "I never heerd any thing sound so murderin' wicked as them bullets. A painter's screech on a dark night or a rattler's rattle wuzzent to be compared to 'em. It makes my blood run cold to think o' 'em. Then, if that feller that shot at me had wobbled his gun a little to the left, Josiah Klegg's name would 've bin sculped on a slab o' white marble, and Maria would 've bin the Widder Klegg. I wish the war wuz over, and Si and Shorty246 safe at home. But their giddy young pates are so full o' dumbed nonsense that there hain't no room for scare. But, now that I'm safe through it, I wouldn't 've missed it for the best cow on my place. After all, Providence sends men where they are needed, and He certainly sent me out there.
"Then, I'll have a good story to tell the brethren and sisters some night after prayer meetin's over. It'll completely offset that story 'bout my comin' so near gittin' my head shaved. How the ungodly247 rapscallions would've gloated over Deacon Klegg's havin' his head shaved an' bein' drummed out o' camp. That thing makes me shiver worse'n the whistlin' o' them awful bullets. But they can't say nothin' now. Deacon Klegg's bin a credit to the church."
They were nearing camp. The Captain of Co. Q ordered:
"Corporal Klegg, take your wagon up that right-hand road to the Quartermaster's corral of mules, and bring me a receipt for it."
Si turned the wagon off, and had gone but a few hundred yards, when he and Shorty saw a house at a little distance, which seemed to promise to furnish something eatable. He and Shorty jumped off and cut across the fields toward it, telling the Deacon they would rejoin him before he reached the picket-line, a mile or so ahead.
The Deacon jogged on, musing intently of the stirring events of the day, until he was recalled to the things immediately around him by hearing a loud voice shout:
"Stop, there, you black scoundrel! I've ketched ye. I'm gwine to blow your onery head off."
He looked up and saw a man about his own age, dressed in butternut homespun, and riding a fine horse. He wore a broad-brimmed slouch hat, his clean-shaven face was cold and cruel, and he had leveled a double-barreled shotgun on a fine-looking negro, who had leaped over from the field into the middle of the road, and was standing there regard ing him with a look of intense disappointment and248 fear.
"You devil's ape," continued the white man, with a torrent of profanity, "I've ketched ye jest in the nick o' time. Ye wuz makin' for the Yankee camp, and 'd almost got thar. Ye thought yer 40 acres and a mule wuz jest in sight, did ye? Mebbe ye reckoned y'd git a white wife, and be an officer in the Yankee army. I'm gwine to kill ye, right here, to stop yer deviltry, and skeer off others that air o' the same mind."
"Pray God, don't kill me, massa," begged the negro. "I hain't done nuffin' to be killed foh."
"Hain't done nothin' to be killed for!" shouted the white man, with more oaths. "Do ye call sneakin' off to jine the enemy and settin' an example to the other niggers nothin'? Git down on yer knees and say yer prayers, if ye know any, for ye ain't a minnit to live."
The trembling negro dropped to his knees and be gan mumbling his prayers.
"What's the matter here?" asked the Deacon of the teamster.
"O, some man's ketched his nigger tryin' to run away to our lines, an's goin' to kill him," answered the teamster indifferently.
"Goin' to kill him," gasped the Deacon. "Are we goin' to 'low that?"
"'Tain't none o' my business," said the teamster coolly. "It's his nigger; I reckon he's a right to do as he pleases."
"I don't reckon nothin' o' the kind," said the Deacon indignantly. "I won't stand and see it done."
"Better not mix in," admonished the teamster. "Them air Southerners is pretty savage folks, and249 don't like any meddlin' twixt them and their niggers. What's a nigger, anyway?"
"Amounts to about as much as a white-livered teamster," said the Deacon hotly. "I'm goin' to mix in. I'll not see any man murdered while I'm around. Say, you," to the white man; "what are you goin' ter do with that man?"
"Mind yer own bizniss," replied the white man, after a casual glance at the Deacon, and seeing that he did not wear a uniform. "Keep yer mouth shet if ye know when y're well off."
"O, massa, save me! save me!" said the negro, jumping up and running toward the Deacon, who had slipped down from the fodder, and was standing in the road.
"All right, Sambo; don't be scared. He sha'n't kill you while I'm around," said the Deacon.
"I tell ye agin to mind yer own bizniss and keep yer mouth shet," said the white man savagely. "Who air ye, anyway? One o' them sblinkin' nigger-stealin' Abolitionists, comin' down here to rob us Southerners of our property?"
He followed this with a torrent of profane denunciation of the "whole Abolition crew."
"Look here, Mister," said the Deacon calmly, reaching back into the wagon and drawing out a musket, "I'm a member o' the church and a peaceable man. But I don't 'low no man to call me names, and I object to swearin' of all kinds. I want to argy this question with you, quietly, as between man and man."
He looked down to see if there was a cap on the gun.250
"What's the trouble 'twixt you and this man here?"
"That ain't no man," said the other hotly. "That's my nigger bought with my money. He's my property. I've ketched him tryin' to run away tryin' to rob me of $1,200 worth o' property and give it to our enemies. I'm gwine to kill him to stop others from doin' the same thing."
"Indeed you're not," said the Deacon, putting his thumb on the hammer.
"Do you mean to say you'll stop me?" said the master, starting to raise his shotgun, which he had let fall a little.
"Something like that, if not the exact words," an swered the Deacon calmly, looking at the sights of the musket with an interested air.
The master resumed his volley of epithets.
The Deacon's face became very rigid, and the musket was advanced to a more threatening position. "I told you before," he said, "that I didn't allow no man to call me sich names. I give you warnin' agin. I'm liable to fall from grace, as the Methodists say, any minnit. I'm dumbed sure to if you call me an other name."
The master glared at the musket. It was clearly in hands used to guns, and the face behind it was not that of a man to be fooled with beyond a certain limit. He lowered his shotgun, and spoke sharply to the negro:
"Sam, git 'round here in front of the hoss, and put for home at once."
"Stay where you are, till I finish talkin' to this man," commanded the Deacon. "Are you a loyal man?" he inquired of the master.251
"If ye mean loil to that rail-splittin' gorilla in Washington," replied the master, hotly; "to that low-down, nigger-lovin', nigger-stealin'—"
"Shet right up," said the Deacon, bringing up his gun in a flash of anger. "You sha'n't abuse the President o' the United States any more'n you shall me, nor half so much. He's your President, whom you must honor and respect. I won't have him blackguarded by an unhung rebel. You say yourself you're a rebel. Then you have no right whatever to this man, and I'm goin' to confiscate him in the name o' Abraham Lincoln, President o' the United States, an' accordin' to his proclamation of emancipation, done at Washington, District o' Columbia, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and sixty-three and of our Independence the 87th.
"Now, you jest turn your hoss around and vacate these parts as quick as you can, and leave me and this colored man alone. We're tired o' havin' you 'round."
The master was a man of sense. He knew that there was nothing to do but obey.
"WHAT is yer a-gwine tub do wid me, mas'r?" asked the negro, with a look and an attitude curiously like a forlorn stray dog which had at last found an owner and protector.
"Wish to gracious I knowed," answered the Deacon, knitting his brows in thought. "I don't know as I've anything to do with you. I've about as much idee what to do with you as I would with a whale in the Wabash River. I'm neither John Brown nor a colonization society. I've about as much use for a nigger, free or slave, as a frog has for a tail. You're free now that's all there is of it. Nobody's got nothin' to do with you. You've got to do with yourself that's all. You're your own master. You go your way and let other folks go theirs."
In the simplicity of his heart the Deacon thought he had covered the whole ground. What more could the man want, who had youth, health and strength, than perfect liberty to go where he pleased and strive for what he wanted?
The negro looked dazed and perplexed.
"Isn't yo' a-gwine tuh take me wid yo', mas'r?" he asked.
"Take you with me!" repeated the Deacon in253 astonishment and some petulance. "Certainly not. I don't want you. And you mustn't call me master. You mustn't call any man master. You're no longer a slave. You're your own master. You're free; don't you understand?"
"But whah'm I tuh go?" reiterated the negro hopelessly.
"Go where you please," repeated the Deacon with impatience. "The whole world's open to you. Go to the next County; go to Kaintucky, Injianny, Ohio, Illinoy, Kamskatky, New Guiney, Jericho, or Polkinhorn's tanyard if you like."
"Afo' God, I don't know what tuh do, or wha tuh go," said the negro despairingly. "If yo' leab me here, I know dat ole mas'r 'll fin' me an' done kill me daid."
"Niggers is like mules," remarked Groundhog savagely. "They only know two places in the whole world: their master's place and somewhere else. They want to run away from their master, but they hain't nary idee whar to go when they run away. A hoss has more sense 'n either a nigger or a mule. When he lights out he's got some idee o' where he wants t' go. I tell you; jest give that nigger to me. I know what to do with him. I know a man that'll give me $100 for him, and I'll whack up fair and square with you."
"Shut up, you mullet-headed mule-whacker," said the Deacon irritably. "You hain't got sense enough to take care o' mules right, let alone a man. I wouldn't trust you an hour with the poorest team on my place. I'll take care o' this man myself, at least, until I kin have a talk with the boys. Here, you nigger, what's your name?"254
"Dey call me Sam, mas'r," replied the negro.
"Well, we'll change that. You're a free man, and I'll give you another name. I'm goin' to call you Abraham—Abraham Lincoln the grandest name in the world to-day. For short I'll call you Abe. You must stop callin' me, or anybody, master, I tell you. You just call be Mister Klegg."
"Mistuh what?" said the negro, puzzled.
"Well, jest call me boss. Now, Abe, climb up into the wagon here, and come along with me."255
"He can't git into no wagon o' mine," said the teamster surlily. "Government wagons ain't no passenger coaches for runaway niggers. I didn't hire to haul niggers on pleasure excursions. That ain't no part of a white man's bizniss. Let him walk alongside."
"You dumbed citizen," said the Deacon angrily. He had been in camp long enough to catch the feeling of the men toward the Quartermaster's civilian employees. "This man shall ride in this wagon along side o' me, and you'll drive us into camp, or I'll find out the reason why. Now jest gether up your lines and start."
"I won't take no slack from no old Wabash hayseed like you," responded the teamster cordially. "You can't boss me. You hain't no right. You can't ring me in to help you steal niggers, unless you divide with me. You come out here in the road and I'll punch that old sorrel-top head o' your'n."
And the teamster pranced out and brandished his blacksnake whip menacingly.
It had been many years since anybody on the Wabash had dared Deacon Klegg to a match in fisticuffs. The memory of some youthful performances of his had secured him respectful immunity. His last affair had been a severe suppression of a noted bully who attempted to "crowd the mourners" at a camp-meeting for the good order of which the Deacon felt himself somewhat responsible. It took the bully six months to get over it, and he went to the mourner's bench himself at the next revival.
The Deacon looked at the gesticulating teamster a minute, and the dormant impulse of his youth256 stirred again within him. He laid his gun down and calmly slid from the fodder to the ground. He pulled off his coat and hat, and laid them on the wagon. He took the quid of tobacco from his mouth, carefully selected a place for it on the edge of the wagon-bed, laid it there on a piece of corn-husk, and walked toward the teamster, rolling up his sleeves.
The effect upon the monarch of the mules was immediate and marked. He stopped prancing around, and began to look alarmed.
"Now, don't you hit me," he yelled. "I'm the driver o' this team, and in Gov'ment employ. If you hit me I'll have you courtmartialed."
"I'm not goin' to hit you," said the Deacon, raising a fist as big as a small ham, "if you behave yourself. I want you to shut your mouth, and git on your mule and start for camp. If you don't 'tend to your bizness, or give me any more o' your sass, I'll pound the melt out o' you. D' you hear? Git on your mule at onct."
The teamster did as he was bid, and drove on till they came up to where the boys were sitting on a fence-corner waiting for them.
Si had a brace of chickens tied together by the feet, and Shorty a crock of honey in the comb, with a bag of saleratus biscuits and one of cornmeal, and a number of strings of dried apples.
"Bin waitin' for you a good while, Pap. What kep' you so long? Break-down?" said Si.
"No; had to stop and argy the fugitive slave law with a Southern gentleman, and then debate niggers' civil rights with the teamster," said the Deacon. Then he told them the story. "Here's the257 darky," he said, as he concluded. "Seems to be a purty fair sort of a farm-hand, if he has sense enough to come in when it rains, which I misdoubt. What are we goin' to do with him?"
"Do with him?" said Shorty. "Do everything with him. Take him into camp first. Hire him out to the Quartermaster. Let him wait on the Captain. Take him back home with you to help on the farm while Si's away. Jehosephat, a big buck like that's a mighty handy thing to have about the house. You kin learn him more tricks in a week than he'd learn with his owner in a lifetime. Say, boy, what's your name?"
"S s-s," the negro began to say, but he caught the Deacon's eye upon him, and responded promptly, "Abr'm Lincoln."
"I believe the nigger kin be taught," thought the Deacon. "Probably this's some more o' Providence's workin's. Mebbe He brung this about jest to give me my share o' the work o' raisin' the fallen race."
"Boys," said he, "I'm glad you've got something good to eat there. Them chickens seem tol'ble young and fat. I hope you came by 'em honestly."
"Well, Pap," chuckled Si, "I don't know as a man who's been runnin' around for another man's nigger, and got him, is jest in shape to ask questions how other men got chickens and things; but I'll relieve your mind by sayin' that we came honestly by 'em."
"Yes; thought it would be interestin' to try that way once, for a change," said Shorty. "Besides, it wuz too near camp for any hornswogglin'. These fellers right around camp are gettin' on to the names258 o' the regiments. They're learnin' to notice 200th Ind. on our caps, and' foller you right into camp, and go up to the Colonel. We're layin' altogether too long in one place. The Army o' the Cumberland oughter move."
"We paid full value, C. O. D.," added Si, "and not in Drake's Plantation Bitters labels nor in busted Kalamazoo bank notes, neither. I think fellers that pass patent-medicine labels and business-college advertisements on these folks for money, oughter to be tied up by the thumbs. It's mean."
"That's what I say, too," added Shorty, with virtuous indignation. "'Specially when you kin git the best kind o' Confederit money from Cincinnati for two cents on the dollar. I always lay in enough o' that to do my tradin' with."
"What's that? What's that?" gasped the Deacon. "Passin' Confederate money that you buy in Cincinnati at two cents on the dollar? Why, that's counterfeitin'."
"That's drawin' it a little too fine," said Shorty argumentatively. "These flabbergasted fools won't take greenbacks. I offered the woman to-day some, and she said she wouldn't be found dead with 'em. She wanted Confedrit money. You may call it counterfeitin', but the whole Southern Confederacy is counterfeit, from its President down to the lowest Corporil. A dollar or two more or less won't make no difference. This feller at Cincinnati has got just as much right to print notes as they have in Richmond."
"He prints 'em on better paper, his pictures are better, and he sells his notes much cheaper, and I259 don't see why I shouldn't buy o' him rather than o' them. I believe in patronizin' home industry."
"Si," said his father, in horrified tones, "I hope you hain't bin passin' none o' the Cincinnati Confederate money on these people."
"I hope not, Pap. But then, you know, I ain't no bank-note detector. I can't tell the Cincinnati kind from the Richmond kind, and I never try very hard. All Confedrt money's alike to me, and I guess in the end it'll be to them. Both kinds say they'll be paid six months after the conclusion of peace be twixt the Confederate States and the United States, and I guess one stands jest as good show as the other. The woman asked me $2 apiece for these chickens, and I paid her in the Confedrit money I happened to have in my pocket. I didn't notice whether it wuz printed in Cincinnati or Richmond. I got it from one o' the boys playin' p——. I mean he paid it to see me." He gave Shorty a furtive kick and whispered: "Come mighty nigh givin' my self away that time."
There was a long hill just before they came in sight of the entrance to the camp, and they got out and helped the mules up. They walked on ahead until they came to the top. The Deacon looked at the entrance, and said:
"I declare, if there isn't that owner o' this nigger waitin' for us."
"That so?" said Si, turning his eyes in that direction. "And he's got some officers with him. There's some officers jest mean enough to help these rebels ketch their niggers. I'd like to knock their addled heads off."260
"Jest wait till we git discharged, Si, and then we kin lick 'em as much as we want to," said Shorty. "But we've got to do somethin' now. They can't see us yit. Deacon, jest take yer nigger and cut down around through the crick there until you come to the picket-line. Then wait. Me and Si'll go on in, and come around and find you."
"All right," assented the Deacon, who was falling into camp ways with remarkable facility. "But you've got to look out for that teamster. He's meaner'n dog-fennel. He'll tell everything."
"Good point," said Si. "We must 'tend to him. See here, Groundhog," he continued, walking back to the teamster; "you don't know nothin' about that old man and nigger that got on your wagon. They slipped off into the woods when you wuzn't lookin', while you wuz busy with your mules, and you don't know whether they went to the right or to the left, up the road or down it."
"Do you s'pose I'm goin' to help steal a nigger, and then lie about it to the officers, for you galoots, and all for nothin'?" said the teamster. "You are blamed fools, that's all I've got to say."
"Look here, Groundhog," said Shorty, coming up close, with a portentious doubled fist. "You know me, and you know Si. You know that either of us can maul the head off you in a minute, whenever we've a mind to, and we're likely any time to have a mind to. We're a durned sight nearer you all the time than any o' the officers, and you can't git away from us, though you may from them. They may buck and gag you, as they ought to, 'bout every day, but that won't be nothin' to the welting one of us 'll261 give you. Now, you tell that story, jest as Si said, and stick to it, or you won't have a whole bone in your carcass by the end o' the week."
When they came up to the entrance there indeed stood the owner of Abraham Lincoln, holding his horse, and by him stood the Lieutenant-Colonel of the 200th Ind., a big, burly man, who had been a drover and an influential politician before he got his commission, and had a high reputation at home as a rough-and-tumble fighter. He had not added to his bellicose fame since entering the field, because for some mysterious reason he had been absent every time the regiment went into a fight, or was likely to. Consequently he was all the more blustering and domineering in camp, in spite of the frequent repressions he got from the modest, quiet little Colonel.
"Old Blowhard Billings is there," said Si. "Now we'll have a gust o' wind."
"Didn't know he was in camp," said Shorty. "I've a notion to bust a cap and scare him back to Nashville agin. Don't let him bluff you, Si, even if he is the Lieutenant-Colonel."
They rode up to the entrance looking as innocent and placid as if bringing in a load from the fields on the Wabash.
"Corporal Klegg," said the Lieutenant-Colonel sternly, "bring out that nigger from the wagon."
"We ain't got no nigger in the wagon, Colonel," said Si, with an expression of surprise.
"Come, now, don't fool with me, sir, or I'll make you very sorry for it. I'm no man to be trifled with, sir. If you ain't got a nigger in the wagon, what 've you done with him."262
"We ain't done nothin' with him, Colonel," persisted Si. "I hain't had nothin' to do with no nigger since we started out this mornin'; hain't spoken to one. Sometimes niggers jump on our wagons, ride a little ways, and then jump off agin. I can't keep track of 'em. I generally make 'em git off when I notice 'em."
"Corporal Klegg, you're lyin' to me," said the Lieutenant-Colonel roughly. "I'll settle with you directly. Groundhog, have you got a nigger in the wagon?"
"No, sir," replied the teamster.
"Didn't you have' one?"
Groundhog looked up and caught Shorty's eye fixed unflinchingly on him.
"I b'lieve that one did git on," he stammered, "but he got off agin d'rectly. I didn't notice much about him. My mules wuz very bothersome all the time. They're the durndest meanest mules that ever a man tried to drive. That there off-swing mule'd—"
"We don't want to hear nothin' about your mules. We'll look in the wagon ourselves."
The search developed nothing. The Lieutenant-Colonel came back to Si, angrier than ever.
"Look here, Klegg, you're foolin' me, an' I won't stand it. I'll have the truth out o' you if I have to kill you. Understand?"
There was a dangerous gleam in Si's and Shorty's eyes, but they kept their lips tightly closed.
"This gentleman here," continued the Lieutenant-Colonel, "says, and I believe his story, against all that you may say, that the men with this wagon, which he's bin watchin' all along, took his nigger263 away from him and drove him off with insults and curses. They threatened his life. He says he can't reckonize either of you, and likely you have disguised yourselves. But he reckonizes the wagon and the teamster, and is willin' to swear to 'em. I know he's tellin' the truth, because I know you fellers. You're impudent and sassy. You've bin among them that's hollered at me. You've bin stealin' other things besides niggers to-day, and have 'em in your possession. You're loaded down with things you've stolen from houses. I won't command a regiment of nigger-thieves. I won't have nigger-thieves in my regiment. If I've got any in my regiment I'll break 'em of it, or I'll break their infernal necks. I believe you fellers got away with that nigger, and I'll tie you up by the thumbs till I get the truth out o' you. Sergeant o' the guard, take charge o' these men, and bring 'em along. Take that stuff that they've stolen away from them and send it to my tent."
Si and Shorty got very white about the mouth, but Si merely said, as they handed their guns to the guard:
"Colonel, you may tie us up till doomsday, but you'll git no help out of us to ketch runaway niggers and put 'em back in slavery."
"Shut up, you scalawag," roared the Lieutenant-Colonel. "If I hear another word out o' you I'll buck-and-gag you."
They marched to Regimental Headquarters and halted, and the Lieutenant-Colonel renewed his browbeating, Si and Shorty continued obstinate, and the Lieutenant-Colonel, getting angrier every minute,264 ordered them tied up by the thumbs. While the Sergeant of the Guard, who was a friend of the boys, and had little heart for the work, was dallying with his preparations, the Colonel himself appeared on the scene.
"Ah, Colonel, you've got back, have you?" said the Lieutenant-Colonel, little pleased at the interruption. "I've just caught two of the men in a little job o' nigger-stealin', and I was about to learn them265 a lesson which will break them of the habit. With your consent I'll go on with the work."
"Nigger-stealing?" said the Colonel quietly. "You mean helping a slave to get away? Did you learn whether the owner was a loyal man?"
"I don't know as that makes any difference," replied 'the Lieutenant-Colonel surlily. "As a matter of fact, I believe he said he had two sons in the rebel army."
"Well, Colonel," said the other, "I'll invite your attention to the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln, and the orders from the War Department, which prohibit the return of slaves to disloyal owners, and make it the duty of officers and men to assist in their escape. You had better dismiss the men to their quarters."
"If that's the case if I don't resign. I'm no
"Abolitionist. I didn't come into the army to free the niggers."
"I shall take pleasure in forwarding your resignation with a recommendation of its acceptance for the good of the service," said the Colonel calmly.
"Men, go to your quarters."
"Altogether, Pap, I consider this a mighty good day's work," remarked Si that evening after supper, as they sat around the fire smoking, with Abraham Lincoln snoring vigorously on the floor, in his first night's sleep as a free man.
ALL THREE of the men at once became guardians of Abraham Lincoln, and in their several ways heartily interested in his welfare.
The Deacon was fired by the missionary spirit of his kind and class.
"No use talkin' no more about the heathen 'On Greenland's icy mountains,' or any place else," he communed with himself that evening, as he sat and smoked, and occasionally glanced at the ebon face of the sleeper in the corner. "Providence has cut out a job for me, and sent it home. Rather, He sent me where I couldn't help stumblin' upon it, and reckonizin' it. The responsibility to Him is clear. I've got heathen enough to last me for a 'coon's age, to lift that poor, ignorant soul up, and bring it to a knowledge of Christian ways. He's not nice nor purty; never heard of a pagan that wuz. Wouldn't be pagans if they wuz. But he's a man and a brother, and the Bible says that I'm my brother's keeper. I'll keep him agin fifty-'leven o' that old snortin' rebel and Copperhead Blowhard Billings. I wuzzent brung up in the woods to be scared by the hootin' of an owl."
"We might take him along with us, Si," said Shorty, in a low tone, with a nod toward Abraham267 Lincoln. "We could make a bully cook out of him. We could have no end of fun with him. We could learn him lots o' tricks. He's as strong as an ox, and after I'd give him a few lessons in puttin' up his hands, he'd knock out that sassy nigger o' the Colonel's."
"I think so, too," acquiesced Si, with an estimating glance at the sleeper.
Abraham Lincoln's education began bright and early the next morning, when Shorty kicked and shook him into wakefulness at the sound of the reveille.
"Git up; git up," said Shorty. "Wash your hands and face, comb your hair, cut some wood and put it on the fire, and bring a kettle o' water from the spring."
"Wash my hands and face," said the negro, in a dazed way. "Wha' fo'? Don't got nufin on dem. Comb my ha'r? Nebber did dat in my life."
"Well, you've got to do it now every mornin', and be spry about it, too. Come, don't move around as if sawed out o' basswood. This ain't nigger-quarters. Git some springs in your feet."
And he emphasized his injunctions with a vigorous push.
The negro's face looked as if he began to have doubts as to whether freedom was all that had been represented to him. To have to get up early every morning, and wash his face and hands and comb his hair, seemed at the moment to be a high price to pay for liberty.
"Does I hab tuh do dat ebbery mornin', Boss?" he said, turning with a look of plaintive inquiry to the Deacon.268
"Why, certainly," said the Deacon, who had just finished his own ablutions,' and was combing his hair. "Every man must do that to be decent."
Abraham Lincoln gave a deep sigh.
"Washes himself as if he's afraid the water'd scald him," said the Deacon, watching the negro's awkward efforts. "He'll have to take more kindly to water, if he comes into a Baptist total immersion family. There's no salvation except by water, and plenty of it, too. Now," he continued, as the black man had finished, "pick up that ax and cut some wood to get breakfast with."
Abraham Lincoln took the ax, and began belaboring the wood, while the Deacon studied him with a critical eye. There was little that the Deacon prided himself on more than his skill as a wood chopper. People who think the ax is a simple, skill-less tool, dependent for its efficiency solely upon the strength and industry with which it is wielded, make a great mistake. There is as much difference in the way men handle axes, and in the result they produce, as there is in their playing the violin. Anybody can chop, it is true, as anybody can daub with a paint brush, but a real axman of the breed of the Deacon, who had gone into the wilderness with scarcely any other tool than an ax, can produce results with it of which the clumsy hacker can scarcely imagine. The Deacon watched the negro's work with disgust and impatience.
"Hadn't oughter named sich a clumsy pounder as that 'Abraham Lincoln,'" he mused. "Old Abe could handle an ax with the best of 'em. This feller handles it as if it was a handspike. If Si couldn't 've269 used an ax better'n that when he was 10 years old, I'd 'a' felt mortally ashamed o' him. Gracious, what a job I have before me o' makin' a first-class man out o' him."
He took the ax from the negro's hand, and patiently showed him how to hold and strike with it. The man apparently tried his best to learn, but it270 was a perspiring effort for him and the Deacon. The negro presently dropped his ax, sat down on the log, and wiped his forehead with his shirtsleeve.
"'Fore God, Boss, dat's de hardest way ob cuttin' wood dat I ebber seed. Hit'll kill me done daid to chop wood dat a-way."
"Pshaw!" said the impatient Deacon. "You're simply stupid; that's all. That's the only way to handle an ax. You kin cut with half the work that way."
He was discovering what so many of us have found out, that among the hardest things in life is that of getting people to give up clumsy ways for those that are better.
In the meantime the boys had gotten breakfast. Then Shorty, who was dying to train their new acquisition for a winning fight with the Colonel's negro, took him behind the house for a little private instruction in boxing. The field-hand had never even heard of such a thing before, but Shorty was too much in earnest to care for a little thing like that. He went at his task with a will, making the negro double his fists just so, strike in a particular way, make a certain "guard," and hit out scientifically. Shorty was so enthusiastic that he did not stop to think that it was severe labor for the poor negro, and when he had to stop his lesson at the end of half an hour to go on battalion drill he left his pupil in a state of collapse.
Ignorant of the new ordeal through which his charge had been going, the Deacon went out in search of him. He had just finished reading the news in the Cincinnati Commercial, ending with an271 editorial on "Our Duty Toward the Freedmen," which impelled him to think that he could not begin Abraham Lincoln's education too soon.
"Now, Abe," said he briskly, "you've had a good rest, and it's time that you should be doin' some thing. You ought to learn to read as soon as possible, and you might as well begin to learn your letters at once. I'll give you your first lesson. Here are some nice large letters in this newspaper head, that you kin learn very easily. Now, the first one is T. You see it is a cross."
"Afo' de Lawd, Boss," wailed the desperate negro, "I jest can't l'arn no mo', now, nohow. 'Deed I can't. Hit's bin nuffin but l'arn, l'arn, ebbery minnit sense I got up dis mawnin', an' my haid's jest bustin', so hit is. I a'most wisht I wuz back wid my ole mas'r, who didn't want to l'arn me nuffin."
The astonished Deacon paused and reflected.
"Mebbe we've bin tryin' to force this plant too fast. There's danger about puttin' new wine into old bottles. It's not the right way to train anything. The way to break a colt is to hang the bridle on the fence where he kin see and smell it for a day or two. I'll go a little slow with him at first. Would you like something more to eat, Abe?"
"Yes, Boss. 'Deed I would," answered the negro with cheerful promptness, forgetting all about the pangs of the "new birth of freedom."
THE END OF BOOK NO. 2.
CONTENTS
SI KLEGG
PREFACE
CHAPTER I. OUT ON PICKET
CHAPTER II. ROSENBAUM, THE SPY
CHAPTER III. THE DEACON GOES HOME
CHAPTER IV. A SPY'S EXPERIENCES
CHAPTER V. THE BOYS GO SPYING
CHAPTER VI. LETTER FROM HOME
CHAPTER VII. CORN PONE AND BUTTERMILK
CHAPTER VIII. A PERIOD OF SELF-DISGUST
CHAPTER IX. SHORTY GETS A LETTER
CHAPTER X. TRADING WITH THE REBS
CHAPTER XI. SHORTY'S CORRESPONDENT
CHAPTER XII. THE BAN ON WET GOODS
CHAPTER XIII. THE JEW SPY WRITES
CHAPTER XIV. SHORTY HAS AN ADVENTURE WITH SI
CHAPTER XV. SHORTY NEARLY GOT MARRIED
CHAPTER XVI. AN UNEXPECTED MARRIAGE
CHAPTER XVII. GATHERING INFORMATION
CHAPTER XVIII. THE JEW SPY AGAIN
ILLUSTRATIONS
Si and Shorty As Mounted Infantry
Mr. Klegg Enjoys Solid Comfort. 16
"surrender, There, You Dumbed Rebel." 21
"i Know You, Unt What You're Here For." 32
Shorty Settles With the Banker. 51
Rosenbaum Runs Into Sigel's Pickets. 66
Undesirable Acquaintances. 100
An Uncomfortable Situation 107
Shorty and si Are at Outs. 110
Si and Shorty As Mounted Infantry 117
Bushrod Prays for his Life 119
Shorty Wants to Fight Groundhog 157
She Whipped out a Long Knife. 189
Take Your Arm from Around That Yank's Neck 203
Jeff Sat up and Rubbed Himself 208
Old Bragg Used to Walk up Unt Down, Growling Unt Cussing. 259
"Si Klegg, of the 200th Ind., and Shorty, his Partner," were born years ago in the brain of John McElroy, Editor of The National Tribune.
These sketches are the original ones published in The National Tribune, revised and enlarged somewhat by the author. How true they are to nature every veteran can abundantly testify from his own service. Really, only the name of the regiment was invented. There is no doubt that there were several men of the name of Josiah Klegg in the Union Army, and who did valiant service for the Government. They had experiences akin to, if not identical with, those narrated here, and substantially every man who faithfully and bravely carried a musket in defense of the best Government on earth had sometimes, if not often, experiences of which those of Si Klegg are a strong reminder.
The Publishers.
THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO THE RANK AND FILE OF THE GRANDEST
ARMY EVER MUSTERED FOR WAR.
SOME days later, Si had charge of a picket-post on the Readyville Pike, near Cripple Deer Creek. The Deacon went with them, at their request, which accorded with his own inclinations, The weather was getting warmer every day, which made him fidgety to get back to his own fields, though Si insisted that they were still under a foot of snow in Indiana. But he had heard so much about picket duty that, next to battle, it was the thing he most wanted to see. Abraham Lincoln was left behind to care for the "house." He had been a disappointment so far, having developed no strong qualities, except for eating and sleeping, of which he could do unlimited quantities.
"No use o' takin' him out on picket," observed Shorty, "unless we kin git a wagon to go along and haul rations for him. I understand now why these rebels are so poor; the niggers eat up everything they kin raise. I'm afraid, Deacon, he'll make the Wabash Valley look sick when you turn him loose in it."
"I guess my farm kin stand him," said the Deacon proudly. "It stood Si when he was a growin' boy, though he used, to strain it sometimes."
They found a comfortable fence-corner facing16 south for their "tent," which they constructed by making a roof of cedar boughs resting on a rail running from one angle to another. They laid more boughs down in the corner, and on this placed their blankets, making a bed which the Deacon pronounced very inviting and comfortable. They built a fire in front, for warmth and for cooking, and so set up housekeeping in a very neat and soldier-like way.
The afternoon passed without special incident. Shorty came in with a couple of chickens, but the17 Deacon had learned enough to repress any questions as to where and how he got them. He soon became more interested in his preparations for cooking them. He had built a big fire in a hole in the ground, and piled a quantity of dry cedar on this. Then he cut off the heads and legs of the chickens, and, getting some mud from the side of the road, proceeded to cover each, feathers and all, with a coating nearly an inch thick.
"What in the world do you mean by that, Shorty?" asked the Deacon in surprise.
"He's all right. Pap," assured Si. "He'll show you a new wrinkle in chicken-fixin' that you kin teach mother when you go home. She knows more about cookin' than any other woman in the world, but I'll bet she's not up to this dodge."
The fire had by this time burned down to a heap of glowing embers. The boys scraped a hole in these, laid on it their two balls of mud, then carefully covered them with live coals and piled on a little more wood.
"I'll say right now," said the Deacon, "that I don't think much o' that way. Why didn't you take their feathers off and clean out their innards? Seems to me that's a nasty way."
"Wait and see," said Shorty sententiously.
Si had mixed some meal into a dough in the half-canteens he and Shorty carried in their haversacks. He spread this out on a piece of sheet-iron, and propped it up before the fire. In a little while it was nicely browned over, when Si removed it from the sheet-iron, turned it over, and browned the other side. He repeated this until he had a sufficiency of18 "hoe cakes" for their supper. A kettle of good, strong coffee had been boiling on the other side of the fire while this was going on. Then they carefully raked the embers off, and rolled out two balls of hard-baked clay. Waiting for these to cool a little, they broke them. The skin and feathers came off with the pieces and revealed deliciously savory, sweet meat, roasted just to a turn. The intestines had shriveled up with the heat into little, hard balls, which were thrown away.
"Yum—yum—yum," said Shorty, tearing one of the chickens in two, and handing a piece to the Deacon, while Si gave him a sweet, crisp hoe cake and a cup of strong coffee. "Now, this's what you might call livin'. Never beat that cookin' in any house that had a roof. Only do that when you've stars in the roof of your kitchen."
"It certainly is splendid," admitted the Deacon. "I don't think Maria could've done better."
It was yet light when they finished their supper, filled their pipes, and adjusted themselves for a comfortable smoke. One of the men came back and said:
"Corporal, there's a rebel on horseback down the road a little ways who seems to be spying on us. We've noticed him for some little time. He don't come up in good range, and we haven't fired at him, hopin' he'd come closer. Better come and take a look at him."
"Don't do anything to scare him off," said Si. "Keep quiet. Me and Shorty'll sneak down through the field, out of sight, and git him."
They picked up their guns and slipped out under19 the cover of the undergrowth to where they could walk along the fence, screened by the heavy thicket of sumach. Catching the excitement of the occasion, the Deacon followed them at a little distance.
Without discovery Si and Shorty made their way to a covert within an easy 50 yards of where the horseman sat rather uneasily on a fine, mettled animal. They got a good look at him. He was a young, slender man, below medium hight, with curly, coalblack hair, short whiskers, a hooked nose, and large, full eyes. He wore a gray suit of rather better make and material than was customary in the rebel army. He had a revolver in his belt and a carbine slung to his saddle, but showed no immediate intention of using either. His right hand rested on his thigh, and his eyes were intently fixed on the distant picket-post.
"A rebel scout," whispered Si. "Shall we knock him over, and then order him to surrender, or halt him first, and then shoot?"
"He can't git away," said Shorty. "I have him kivered. You kivver his hoss's head. Then call him down."
Si drew his sights fine on the horse's head and yelled:
"Surrender, there, you dumbed rebel."
The man gave a quick start, a swift glance at the blue uniforms, and instantly both hands went up.
"That is all right, boys. Don't shoot. I'm a friend," he called in a strong German accent.
"Climb down off o' that boss, and come here, and do it mighty sudden," called out Si, with his finger still on the trigger.20
The horse became restive at the sound of strange voices, but the man succeeded in dismounting, and taking his reins in his hand, led the horse up to the fence.
"Very glad to see you, boys," said he, surveying their blue garments with undisguised satisfaction, and putting out his other hand to shake.
"Take off that revolver, and hand it here," ordered the wary Shorty, following the man with the muzzle of his gun. The man slipped his arm through the reins, unbuckled his revolver, and handed it to Shorty. Si jumped over the fence and seized the carbine.
"Who are you, and where did you come from?" asked Si, starting the man up the road toward the post.
"What rechiment do you belong to?" asked the stranger, warily.
"We belong to Co. Q, 200th Injianny, the best regiment in Gen. Rosecrans's army," answered Si proudly, that the captive might understand where the honor of his taking belonged.
"That is all right," said the stranger, with an air of satisfaction. "The 200th Indianny is a very good regiment. I saw them whip John Morgan's cavalry at Green River. Clumsy farmer boys, but shoot like born devils."
"But who are you, and where did you come from?" repeated Si impatiently.
"I'm all right. I'm Levi Rosenbaum of Gen. Rosecrans's secret service. I got some news for him."
"You have?" said Si suspiciously. "Why didn't you ride right in and tell it to him? What've you21 bin hangin' around here all afternoon, watchin' our post for?"
"I wasn't sure you was there. I was told that the Yankee pickets was going to be pushed out to Cripple Deer Creek to-day, but I didn't know it for sure. I was afraid that the rebels was there yet. Jim Jones, of the secret service, had agreed to come out this afternoon and wave a flag if it was all22 right. I was waiting for his sign. But he is probably drunk. He always gets so when he reaches camp."
The Deacon joined them in the road, and gave a searching glance at the prisoner.
"Ain't you a Jew?" he inquired presently. "Ain't your name Rosenbaum? Didn't you go through Posey County, Ind., a year or two ago, with a wagon, sellin' packs o' cloth to the farmers?"
"I'm an American citizen," said the man proudly, "the same as the rest of you. My religion is Hebrew. I don't know and don't care what your religion is. Every man has the religion that suits him. My name is Rosenbaum. I did sell cloth in Posey County, unt all over Indianny. It was good cloth, too, unt I sold it at a bargain."
"It certainly was good cloth, and cheap," admitted the Deacon. "What in the world are you doin' down here in them clothes?"
"I'm doing just what these men are doing here in their cloze," answered Rosenbaum. "I'm trying to serve the country. I'm doing it different from them, because I'm built different from them. I hope I'm doing it well. But I'm awfully hungry. Got anything to eat? Just a cup of coffee and a cracker? Don't care for any pork."
"Yes, we'll give you something to eat," said Shorty. "I think there's some of our chicken left. You'll find that good."
"How did you cook that?" said Rosenbaum, looking at the tempting morsel suspiciously.
Shorty explained.23
"Thanks; I can't eat it," said Rosenbaum with a sigh. "It ain't kosher."
"What the devil's that?" asked Shorty.
"It's my religion. I can't explain. Send for the Officer of the Guard to take me to Headquarters," answered Rosenbaum, sipping his coffee.
THE Officer of the Guard was a long time in coming, and Mr. Rosenbaum grew quite chatty and communicative, as they sat around the bright fire of cedar logs and smoked.
"Yes," he said, "I have been in the secret service ever since the beginning of the war—in fact, before the war, for I began getting news for Frank Blair in the Winter before the war. They say Jews have no patriotism. That's a lie. Why should they have no patriotism for countries where they were treated like dogs? In Germany, where I was born, they treated us worse than dogs. They made us live in a little, nasty, pig-pen of an alley; we had to go in at sundown, unt stay there; we had to wear a different cloze from other folks, unt we didn't dare to say our souls were our own to any dirty loafer that insulted us.
"Here we are treated like men, unt why shouldn't we help to keep the country from breaking up? Jews ought to do more than anybody else, unt I made up my mind from the very first that I was going to do all that I could. The Generals have told me that I could do much better for the country in the secret service than as a soldier; they could get plenty of soldiers unt but few spies."25
"Now you're shoutin'," said Shorty. "They kin git me to soldier as long as the war lasts, for the askin', but I wouldn't be a spy 10 minutes for a corn-basket full o' greenbacks. I have too much regard for my neck. I need it in my business."
"You a spy," said Si derisively. "You couldn't spy for sour apples. Them big feet o' your'n 'd give you dead away to anybody that'd ever seen you before."
"Spyin' isn't the business that any straightfor'rd man,"—the Deacon began to say in tones of cold disapproval, and then he bethought him of courtesy to the stranger, and changed hastily—"that I'd like to do. It's entirely too resky."
"O, it's jest as honorable as anything else. Pap," said Si, divining his father's thought. "All's fair in love and war. We couldn't git along without spies. They're as necessary as muskets and cannon."
"Indeed they are," said Mr. Rosenbaum earnestly; "you wouldn't know what to do with your muskets and cannon if the spies didn't tell you where the rebels were, unt how many there was of them. I go out unt get information that it would cost hundreds of lives to get, unt may save thousands of lives, unt all that it costs is one poor little Jew's neck, when they drop on to him some day, unt leave him swinging from a tree. But when that time comes, I shall make no more complaint than these other poor boys do, who get their heads knockt off in battle. I'm no better than they are. My life belongs to the country the same as theirs, unt this free Government is worth all our lives, unt more, too."
His simple, sincere patriotism touched the Deacon26 deeply. "I'd no idee that there was so much o' the man in a Jew," he said to himself. Then he asked the stranger:
"How did you come to go into the spy business, Mr. Rosenbaum?"
"Well, I was in St. Louis in the Clothing pizniss, unt you know it was purty hot there. All the Germans were for the Union, unt most of the Americans unt Irish seemed to be Secessionists. I sided with the Germans, but as nobody seemed to think that a Jew had any principles or cared for anything but the almighty dollar, everybody talked right out before me, unt by keepin' my ears wide open I got hold of lots of news, which I took straight to General Lyon. I got well acquainted with him, and he used to send me here and there to find out things for him. I'd sell gray uniforms and other things to the Secessionists; they'd talk to one another right before me as to what was being done, and I'd keep my ears wide open all the time, though seemed to be only thinking about the fit and the buttons and the gold lace.
"Then General Lyon wanted to find out just exactly how many men there was in Camp Jackson—no guesswork—no suppose. I took 2,000 of my business cards, printed on white, and 1,000 printed on gray paper. I went through the whole camp. To every man in uniform I give a white card; to every man without a uniform, who seemed to be there for earnest, I give a gray card. When I got back I counted my cards in General Lyon's office, unt found I'd give out 500 white cards unt 200 gray27 ones. Then General Lyon took out about 3,000 men, unt brought the whole crowd back with him."
"Then General Lyon," continued Rosenbaum, "sent me out from Springfield, Mizzouri, to see how many men old Pap Price unt Ben McCullough had gathered up against him from Mizzouri, Arkansaw, Texas unt the plains. Holy Moses, I was scared when I saw the pile of them. The whole world seemed to be out there, yipping unt yelling for Jeff Davis, drinking raw sod-corn whisky, making secession speeches, unt shooting at marks.
"I rode right into them, unt pretended that I was looking for Mexican silver dollars to take to Mexico to buy powder unt lead for the rebel army. I had a lot of new Confedrit notes that I'd got from my cousin, who was in the tobacco business in Memphis. They was great curiosities, unt every man who had a Mexican dollar wanted to trade it for a Confedrit dollar.
"There was no use tryin' to count the men—might as well have tried to count the leaves on the trees, so I begun to count the regiments. I stuck a pin in my right lapel for every Mizzouri regiment, one in my left lapel for every Arkansaw regiment, one in my vest for every one from Texas. I had black pins for the cannons. I was getting along very well, when I run across Bob Smiles, a dirty loafer, who had been a customer in St. Louis. He wouldn't pay me, unt I had to get out a writ unt levy on his clothes just as he was dressing to go to a quadroon ball.
"I left him with only a necktie, which was worth nothing to me, as it had been worn and soiled. He was very sore against me, unt I was not surprised.28
"It made me sick at my stomach when I saw him come up.
"'Hello, you damn Dutch Jew,' he said. 'What are you doing here?'
"I tried to be very pleasant, unt I put out my hand unt said, with my best smile:
"'Good gracious. Bob, how glad I am to see you. When did you get here? Are you well? How are the other boys? Who's here? Where are you stopping?'
"But I might as well have tried to make friends with a bull dog in front of a farm house where all the people had gone away.
"'Go to blazes,' he said. 'None of your bizniss how I am, how I got here, or how the other boys are. Better not let them find out you're here. They'll take it out of your Jew hide for the way you used to skin them in St. Louis. I want to know what the devil you are doing here?'
"'Now, Mister Smiles,' I said, pleasant as a May morning, 'that's not the way to talk to me. You know I got up the stylishest clothes unt the best fits in St. Louis. We had a little trouble, it is true. It was nothing, though. Just a little business dispute. You know I always thought you one of the very nicest men in St. Louis, unt I said so, even to the Squire unt to the Constable.'
"'Go to the devil, you Savior-killing Jew,' said he. 'Shut up your mouth, or I'll stuff a piece of pork in it. I want to know at once what you are doing here? Where did you come from?'
"'I come from Memphis,' said I. 'I'm in the service of the Southern Confedrisy. General Pillow sent29 me to gather up all the Mexican dollars I could find, to send to Mexico to buy ammunition.'
"'It's a lie, of course,' said he. 'A Jew'd rather lie than eat, any day. Then you're one of them St. Louis Dutch—them imported Hessians. They're all dead against us. They all ought to be killed. I ought to kill you myself for being so cussed mean to me.'
"He put his hand on his revolver in a way that made my breakfast sour in my stomach, but then I knew that Bob Smiles was a great blowhard, unt his bark was much worse than his bite. In St. Louis he was always going to fight somebody unt kill somebody, but he never done neither. Quite a crowd gathered around, unt Bob blew off to them, unt they yelled, 'Hang the Jew spy. Kill the damn rascal,' and other things that made me unhappy. But what made my flesh crawl was to see a man who wasn't saying much, go to a wagon, pull out a rope, unt begin making a noose on the end. Bob Smiles caught hold of my collar unt started to drag me toward a tree. Just as I was giving up everything for lost, up comes Jim Jones—the same man I'm going to meet here—he come runnin' up. He was dressed in full uniform as a rebel officer—gray coat unt pants, silver stars on his collar, high boots, gray slouched hat with gold cord, unt so on.
"'Here, what is the matter? What's all this fuss in camp?' he said.
"'We've ketched one of them Dutch Jews from St. Louis spying our camp, Major,' said Bob Smiles, letting loose of my collar to salute the Major's silver stars. 'And we are going to hang him.'30
"'A spy? How do you know he's a spy?'" asked Jim Jones.
"'Well, he's Dutch; he's a Jew, unt he's from St. Louis. What more do you want?'" asked Bob Smiles.
The crowd yelled, unt de man with the rope went to the tree unt flung one end over a limb.
"'His being a St. Louis Dutchman is against him,'31 said Jim Jones, 'but his being a Jew is in his favor. A Jew don't care a blame for politics. He hain't got no principles. He'd rather make a picayune off you in a trade than have a wagon-load of principles. But you fellers have got nothing to do with spies, anyway. That's headquarters' bizniss. I'm an officer at General Price's headquarters. I'll take him up there unt examine him. Bring him along.'
"'Go along, Jew,' said two of three of them, giving me kicks, as Bob Smiles started with me. The man with the rope stood by the tree looking very disappointed.
"When we got near General Price's tent, Jim Jones says to the rest:
"'You stop there. Come along with me, Jew.'
"He took me by the collar, unt we walked toward General Price's tent. He whispered to me as we went along: 'You're all right, Rosenbaum. I know you, unt I know what you're here for. Just keep a stiff upper lip, tell your story straight, unt I'll see you through.'
"That scared me worse than ever, but all that I could do was to keep up my nerve, unt play my cards coolly. We went into the General's tent, but he was busy, unt motioned us with his hand to the Adjutant-General.
"'What's the matter?' asked the Adjutant-General, motioning me to sit down, while he went on making tally marks on a sheet of paper, as a man called off the regiments that had reported. Then he footed them all up, unt, turning to another officer, read from it so many Arkansaw regiments, so many32 Louisianny, so many Mizzouri, so many Texas, so many batteries of artillery, unt he said to another officer as he laid the paper face down among the other papers on his table: 'Just as I told you, Colonel. We have fully 22,000 men ready for battle.' Then to us: 'Well, what can I do for you?'
"'The boys had picked up this Jew for a spy, Colonel,' said Jim Jones, pointing to me, 'unt they33 were about to hang him, just to pass away the afternoon more than for anything else. I took him away from them, telling them that it was your privilege to hang spies, unt you could do it according to the science of war. I brung him up here to get him away from them. After they're gone away or got interested in something else I'll take him unt put him outside of camp.'
"'All right," said de Adjutant-General, without taking much interest in the matter. 'Do with him as you please. A Jew more or less isn't of any consequence. Probably he deserves hanging, though, but it isn't well to encourage the boys to hang men on sight. They're quite too ready to do that, anyway.'
"He talked to the other man a little, unt then when he went away he turned to me, unt said, sort of lazy like, as if he didn't care anything about it:
"'Where are you from?'
"'From Memphis,' said I.
"'Great place, Memphis,' said he; 'one of the thriving suburbs of Satan's Kingdom. Had lots of fun there. I know every faro bank in it, which speaks well for my memory, if not for my morals. What bizniss was you in?'
"'Clothing,' said I.
"'What a fool question to ask a Jew,' said he, yawning. 'Of course, you was in the clothing trade. You was born in it. All Jews have been since they gambled for the Savior's garments.'
"'They wasn't Jews what gambled for Christ's clothes,' said I, picking up a little courage. 'They vass Romans—Italians—Dagoes.'34
"'Was they?' said he. 'Well, mebbe they was. I haven't read my Bible for so long that I've clean forgot. Say, what are you doing with all them pins?'
"The question come so unexpected that it come nearly knocking me off my base. I had calculated on almost every other possible thing, unt was ready for it, except that fool question. I thought for a minit that disappointed man by the tree with the rope was going to get his job, after all. But I gathered myself together with a jerk, unt calmly said with a smile:
"'O, that's some of my foolishness. I can't get over being a tailor, and sticking all the pins what I find in my lapel. I must pick up every one I see.'
"'Queer where you found them all,' said he. 'Must've brung them from Memphis with you. I can't find one in the whole camp. Our men use nails unt thorns instead of pins. I've been wanting a lot of pins for my papers. Let me have all you got. I wish you had a paper of them.'
"I did have two or three papers in my pockets, unt first had a fool idea of offering them to him. Then I remembered that disappointed man with the rope by the tree, unt pulled the pins out of my lapels one by one unt give them to him, trying to keep count in my head as I did so.
"'What are you doing here, anyway?' he asked as he gathered up the pins unt put them in a pasteboard box.
"'I come here at General Pillow's orders, to pick up some Mexican silfer dollars, to buy ammunition in Mexico.
"'Another of old blowhard Pillow's fool schemes,'35 said he. 'I know old Pillow. I served with him in Mexico, when he dug his ditch on the wrong side of his fortification. He's probably going to do some-thing else with the dollars than buy ammunition. Old Gid Pillow's a mighty slick one, I tell you, when it comes to filling his own pockets. He's no fool there, whatever he may be in other ways. He's working some scheme to skin our men, unt making you his partner, then he'll turn around unt skin you. I'll stop it going any further by turning you out of camp, unt I ought to take away from you all the money you've gathered up, but I won't do it on one condition.'
"'What is your condition?' said I, trying not to speak too quick.
"'You say you are in the clothing pizniss. I want awfully a nice uniform, just like the Major's there. What's such a uniform worth?'
"'About $75,' said I.
"'I paid $65 for this in St. Louis,' said Jim Jones.
"'Well, $10 is not much of a skin for a Memphis Jew,' laughed the Adjutant-General. 'I tell you what I'll do, if you'll swear by the book of Deuteronomy, unt Moses, Abraham unt Isaac, to have me inside of two weeks just such a uniform as the Major's there, I'll let you off with all the money you have made already, unt when you come back with it I'll give you written permission to trade for every silver dollar in camp.'
"'It is a bargain,' said I.
"'Unt it'll be a perfect fit," said he.
"'Just like the paper on the wall,' said I. 'Let me36 take your measure.'
"I had my eye all the time on the paper he had laid carelessly down unt forgotten. I pulled my tapemeasure out. The old idee of the tailor come up. I forgot about the disappointed man with the rope by the tree, unt was my old self taking the measure of a customer. I put all the figures down on his piece of paper, without his noticing what I was using. I asked him about the lining, the trimming, unt the pockets, unt wrote them down. Then I folded up the paper unt stuck it in my breast pocket, unt my heart gave a big thump, though I kept my face straight, unt went on talking about buttons unt silk braid unt gold lace for the sleeves. I promised him he should have the uniform in the army in two weeks' time. Just then some officers come in, unt Jim Jones hurried me out. I could not understand Jim Jones. He hurried me across to a place behind the woods, where we found some horses.
"'Untie that one unt get on quick,' he said. 'My God, you've got the thing dead to rights; you've got everything on that piece of paper. My God, what luck! Smartest thing I ever saw done. Get that paper in General Lyon's hands before midnight if you kill yourself unt horse in doing it. I'll take you out past part of the guards, unt show you how to avoid the rest. Then ride as if the devil was after you, until you reach General Lyon's tent.'
"I was dumfounded. I looked at Jim Jones. His eyes was like fire. Then it suddenly occurred to me that Jim Jones was a spy, too.
"As I mounted I looked back across the camp. I saw the rope still hanging from a limb of the tree,37 and the disappointed man sitting down beside it patiently waiting.
"That night the paper was in General Lyon's hands, unt the next night the army moved out to fight the battle of Wilson's Creek.
"The Adjutant-General is still waiting for that uniform."
"Halt, who comes there?" called out Shorty, whose quick ears caught the sound of approaching footsteps.
"The Officer of the Guard," responded from the bank of darkness in the rear.
"Advance, Officer of the Guard, and give the countersign," commanded Shorty, lowering his musket to a charge bayonets.
The officer advanced, leaned over the bayonet's point, and whispered the countersign.
"Countersign's correct," announced Shorty, bringing his gun to a present. "Good evening. Lieutenant. We have got a man here who claims to belong to the Secret Service."
"Yes," answered the officer. "We've been expecting him all afternoon, but thought he was coming in on the other road. I'd have been around here long ago only for that. This is he, is it? Well, let's hurry in. They want you at Headquarters as soon as possible."
"Good night, boys," called out Mr. Rosenbaum as he disappeared; "see you again soon."
THE BOYS did not finish their tour of picket duty till the forenoon of the next day, and it was getting toward evening when they reached their own camp.
"What in the world's going on at the house?" Si asked anxiously, as they were standing on the regimental parade ground waiting to be dismissed. Strange sounds came floating from that direction. The scraping of a fiddle was mingled with yells, the rush of feet, and laughter.
"I'll go over there and see," said the Deacon, who had sat down behind the line on a pile of the things they had brought back with them. He picked up the coffee-pot, the frying-pan, and one of the haversacks, and walked in the direction of the house. As he turned into the company street and came in sight of the cabin he looked for an instant, and then broke out:
"I'm blamed if they don't seem to be havin' a nigger political rally there, with the house as campaign headquarters. Where in time could they have all come from? Looks like a crow-roost, with some o' the crows drunk."
Apparently, all the negro cooks, teamsters, officers' servants, and roustabouts from the adjoining camps39 had been gathered there, with Groundhog, Pilgarlic, and similar specimens of the white teamsters among them and leading them.
Seated on a log were three negroes, one sawing on an old fiddle, one picking a banjo, and one playing the bones. Two negroes were in the center of a ring, dancing, while the others patted "Juba." All were more or less intoxicated. Groundhog and Pilgarlic were endeavoring to get up a fight between Abraham Lincoln and another stalwart, stupid negro, and were plying them with whisky from a canteen and egging them on with words.40
The Deacon strode up to Groundhog and, catching him by the arm, demanded sternly:
"What are you doing, you miserable scoundrel? Stop it at once."
Groundhog, who had drunk considerable himself, and was pot-valiant, shook him off roughly, saying:
"G'way from here, you dumbed citizen. This hain't none o' your bizniss. Go back to your haymow and leave soldiers alone."
The Deacon began divesting himself of his burden to prepare for action, but before he could do so, Shorty rushed in, gave Groundhog a vigorous kick, and he and Si dispersed the rest of the crowd in a hurry with sharp cuffs for all they could reach. The meeting broke up without a motion to adjourn.
The Deacon caught Abraham Lincoln by the collar and shook him vigorously.
"You black rascal," he said, "what've you bin up to?"
"Didn't 'spect you back so soon. Boss," gasped the negro. "Said you wouldn't be back till termorrer."
"No matter when you expected us back," said the Deacon, shaking him still harder, while Si winked meaningly at Shorty. "What d'ye mean by sich capers as this? You've bin a-drinkin' likker, you brute."
"Cel'bratun my freedom," gasped the negro. "Groundhog done tole me to."
"I'd like to celebrate his razzled head offen him," exploded the Deacon. "I'll welt him into dog's meat hash if I kin lay my hands on him. He's too mean and wuthless to even associate with mules. If I'd a41 dog on my place as onery as he is I'd give him a button before night. He's not content with bein' a skunk himself; he wants to drag everybody else down to his level. Learnin' you to drink whisky and fight as soon as you're out o' bondage. Next thing he'll be learnin' you to steal sheep and vote for Vallandigham. I'd like to put a stone around his neck and feed him to the catfish."
There was something so strange and earnest about the Deacon's wrath that it impressed the negro more than any of the most terrible exhibitions of wrath that he had seen his master make. He cowered down, and began crying in a maudlin way and begging:
"Pray God, Boss, don't be so hard on a poor nigger."
Si, who had learned something more of the slave nature than his father, ended the unpleasant scene by giving Abraham Lincoln a sharp slap across the hips with a piece of clapboard and ordering:
"Pick up that camp-kettle, go to the spring and fill it, and git back here in short meter."
The blow came to the negro as a welcome relief. It was something that he could understand. He sprang to his feet, grinned, snatched up the campkettle, and ran to the spring.
"I must get that man away from here without delay," said the Deacon. "The influences here are awful. They'll ruin him. He'll lose his soul if he stays here. I'll start home with him to-morrow."
"He'll do worse'n lose his soul," grumbled Shorty, who had been looking over the provisions. "He'll lose the top of his woolly head if he brings another42 gang o' coons around here to eat us out o' house and home. I'll be gosh durned if I don't believe they've eat up even all the salt and soap. There ain't a crumb left of anything. Talk about losin' his soul. I'd give six bits for something to make him lose his appetite."
"I'll take him home to-morrow," reiterated the Deacon. "I raised over 'leven hundred bushels o' corn last year, 'bout 500 o' wheat, and just an even ton o' pork. I kin feed him awhile, anyway, but I don't know as I'd chance two of him."
"What'll you do if you have him and the grasshoppers the same year, Pap?" inquired Si.
That night the Deacon began his preparations for returning home. He had gathered up many relics from the battlefield to distribute among his friends at home and decorate the family mantlepiece. There were fragments of exploded shells, some canister, a broken bayonet, a smashed musket, a solid 12-pound shot, and a quart or more of battered bullets picked up in his walks over the scenes of the heavy fighting.
"Looks as if you were going into the junk business. Pap," commented Si, as the store was gathered on the floor.
The faithful old striped carpetsack was brought out, and its handles repaired with stout straps. The thrifty Deacon insisted on taking home some of Si's and Shorty's clothes to be mended. The boys protested.
"We don't mend clothes in the army, Pap," said Si. "They ain't wuth it. We just wear 'em out throw 'em away, and draw new ones."
The Deacon held out that his mother and sisters43 would take great pleasure in working on such things, from the feeling that they were helping the war along. Finally the matter was compromised by putting in some socks to be darned and shirts to be mended. Then the bullets, canister, round-shot, fragments of shell, etc., were filled in.
"I declare," said the Deacon dubiously, as he hefted the carpetsack. "It's goin' to be a job to lug that thing back home. Better hire a mule-team. But I'll try it. Mebbe it'll help work some o' the stupidity out o' Abraham Lincoln."
The whole of Co. Q and most of the regiment had grown very fond of the Deacon, and when it was noised around that he was going, they crowded in to say good-by, and give him letters and money to take home. The remaining space in the carpetsack and all that in the Deacon's many pockets were filled with these.
The next morning the company turned out to a man and escorted him to the train, with Si and his father marching arm-in-arm at the head, the company fifers playing,
"Ain't I glad to get out of the Wilderness,
Way down in Tennessee,"
and Abraham Lincoln, laden with the striped carpetsack, the smashed musket and other relics, bringing up the rear, under the supervision of Shorty. Tears stood in the old man's eyes as he stood on the platform of the car, and grasped Si's and Shorty's hands in adieu. His brief farewell was characteristic of the strong, self-contained Western44 man:
"Good-by, boys. God bless you. Take care of yourselves. Be good boys. Come home safe after the war."
The boys stood and watched the train with sorrowful eyes until it had passed out of sight in the woods beyond Overall's Creek, and then turned to go to their camp with a great load of homesickness weighing down their hearts.
"Just think of it; he's going straight back to God's country," said someone near.
A sympathetic sigh went up from all.
"Shet up," said Shorty savagely. "I don't want to hear a word o' that kind. He pulled his hat down over his eyes, rammed his hands deep in his pockets, and strode off, trying to whistle
"When this cruel war is over,"
but the attempt was a dismal failure. Si separated from the crowd and joined him. They took an unfrequented and roundabout way back to camp.
"I feel all broke up. Si," said Shorty. "I wish that we were goin' into a fight, or something to stir us up."
Si understood his partner's mood, and that it was likely to result in an outbreak of some kind. He tried to get him over to the house, so that he could get him interested in work there.
They came to a little hidden ravine, and found it filled with men playing that most fascinating of all gambling games to the average soldier—chucka-luck. There were a score of groups, each gathered around as45 many "sweat-boards." Some of the men "running" the games were citizens, and some were in uniform. Each had before him a small board on which was sometimes painted, sometimes rudely marked with charcoal, numbers from 1 to 6.
On some of the boards the numbers were indicated by playing-cards, from ace to six-spot, tacked down. The man who "ran" the game had a dice-box, with three dice. He would shake the box, turn it upside46 down on the board, and call upon the group in front of him to make their bets.
The players would deposit their money on the numbers that they fancied, and then, after the inquiry, "All down?" the "banker" would raise the box and reveal the dice. Those who had put their money on any of the three numbers which had turned up, would be paid, while those who bet on the other three would lose.
Chuck-a-luck was strictly prohibited in camp, but it was next to impossible to keep the men from playing it. Citizen gamblers would gain admittance to camp under various pretexts and immediately set up boards in secluded places, and play till they were discovered and run out, by which time they would have made enough to make it an inducement to try again whenever they could find an opportunity. They followed the army incessantly for this purpose, and in the aggregate carried off immense sums of the soldiers' pay. Chuck-a-luck is one of the fairest of gambling games, when fairly played, which it rarely or never is by a professional gambler. A tolerably quick, expert man finds little difficulty in palming the dice before a crowd of careless soldiers so as to transfer the majority of their bets to his pocket. The regular citizen gamblers were reinforced by numbers of insatiable chuck-a-luckers in the ranks, who would set up a "board" at the least chance, even under the enemy's fire, while waiting the order to move.
Chuck-a-luck was Shorty's greatest weakness. He found it as difficult to pass a chuck-a-luck board as an incurable drunkard does to pass a dram-shop.47
Si knew this, and shuddered a little as he saw the "layouts," and tried to get his partner past them. But it was of no use. Shorty was in an intractable mood. He must have a strong distraction. If he could not fight he would gamble.
"I'm goin' to bust this feller's bank before I go another step," said he, stopping before one. "I know him. He's the same feller that, you remember, I busted down before Nashville. I kin do it agin. He's a bum citizen gambler. He thinks he's the smartest chuck-a-lucker in the Army o' the Cumberland, but I'll learn him different."
"Don't risk more'n a dollar," begged Si as a final appeal.
"All down?" called the "banker."
"Allow doublin'?" inquired Shorty.
"Double as much as you blamed please, so long's you put your money down," answered the "banker" defiantly.
"Well, then, here goes a dollar on that five-spot," said Shorty, "skinning" a bill from a considerable roll.
"Don't allow more'n 25 cents bet on single cards, first bet," said the "banker," dismayed by the size of the roll.
"Thought you had some sand," remarked Shorty contemptuously. "Well, then, here's 25 cents on the five-spot, and 25 cents on the deuce," and he placed shin-plasters on the numbers. "Now, throw them dice straight, and no fingerin'. I'm watchin' you."
"Watch and be durned," said the "banker" surlily. "Watch your own business, and I'll watch mine. I'm as honest as you are any day."48
The "banker" lifted the box, and showed two sixes and a tray up. He raked in the bets on the ace, deuce, four and five-spots, and paid the others.
"Fifty cents on the deuce; 50 cents on the five," said Shorty, laying down the fractional currency.
Again they lost.
"A dollar on the deuce; a dollar on the five," said Shorty.
The same ill luck.
"Two dollars on the deuce; two dollars on the five," said Shorty, though Si in vain plucked his sleeve to get him away.
The spots remained obstinately down.
"Four dollars on the deuce; four dollars on the five," said Shorty.
No better luck.
"Eight dollars on the deuce; eight dollars on the five," said Shorty.
"Whew, there goes more'n a month's pay," said the other players, stopping to watch the dice as they rolled out, with the deuce and five-spot down somewhere else than on top. "And his roll's beginning to look as if an elephant had stepped on it. Now we'll see his sand."
"Come, Shorty, you've lost enough. You've lost too much already. Luck's agin you," urged Si. "Come away."
"I ain't goin'," said Shorty, obstinately. "Now's my chance to bust him. Every time them spots don't come up increases the chances that they'll come up next time. They've got to. They're not loaded; I kin tell that by the way they roll. He ain't fingerin' 'em; I stopped that when I made him49 give 'em a rollin' throw, instead o' keep in' 'em kivvered with the box."
"Sixteen dollars on the deuce; sixteen dollars on the five-spot. And I ain't takin' no chances o' your jumpin' the game on me, Mr. Banker. I want you to plank down $32 alongside o' mine."
Shorty laid down his money and put his fists on it. "Now put yours right there."
"O, I've got money enough to pay you. Don't be skeered," sneered the "banker," "and you'll git it if you win it."
"You bet I will," answered Shorty. "And I'm goin' to make sure by havin' it right on the board alongside o' mine. Come down, now."
The proposition met the favor of the other players, and the "banker" was constrained to comply.
"Now," said Shorty, as the money was counted down, "I've jest $20 more that says that I'll win. Put her up alongside."
The "banker" was game. He pulled out a roll and said as he thumbed it over:
"I'll see you $20, and go you $50 better that I win."
Shorty's heart beat a little faster. All his money was up, but there was the $50 which the Deacon had intrusted to him for charitable purposes. He slipped his hand into his bosom, felt it, and looked at Si. Si was not looking at him, but had his eyes fixed on a part of the board where the dice had been swept after the last throw. Shorty resisted the temptation for a moment, and withdrew his hand.
"Come down, now," taunted the "banker." "You've blowed so much about sand. Don't weaken over a50 little thing like $50. I'm a thoroughbred, myself, I am. The man don't live that kin bluff me."
The taunt was too much for Shorty. He ran his hand into his bosom in desperation, pulled out the roll of the Deacon's money, and laid it on the board.
Si had not lifted his eyes. He was wondering why the flies showed such a liking for the part of the board where the dice were lying. Numbers of them had gathered there, apparently eagerly feeding. He was trying to understand it.
He had been thinking of trying a little shy at the four-spot himself, as he had noticed that it had never won, and two or three times he had looked for it before the dice were put in the box, and had seen the "banker" turn it down on the board before picking the dice up. A thought flashed into his mind.
The "banker" picked up the dice with seeming carelessness, dropped them into the box, gave them a little shake, and rolled them out. Two threes and a six came up. The "banker's" face lighted up with triumph, and Shorty's deadened into acute despair.
"I guess that little change is mine," said the "banker" reaching for the pile.
"Hold on a minnit. Mister," said Si, covering the pile with his massive hands. "Shorty, look at them dice. He's got molasses on one side. You kin see there where the flies are eatin' it."
Shorty snatched up the dice, felt them and touched his tongue to one side. "That's so, sure's you're a foot high," said he sententiously.
Just then someone yelled:
"Scatter! Here come the guards!"51
All looked up. A company coming at the doublequick was almost upon them. The "banker" made a final desperate claw for the money, but was met by the heavy fist of Shorty and knocked on his back. Shorty grabbed what money there was on the board, and he and Si made a burst of speed which took them out of reach of the "provos" in a few seconds. Looking back from a safe distance they could see the "bankers" and a lot of the more luckless ones being gathered together to march to the guard-house. "Another detachment of horny-handed laborers for the fortifications," said Shorty grimly, as he52 recovered his breath, watched them, and sent up a yell of triumph and derision. "Another contribution to the charity fund," he continued, looking down at the bunch of bills and fractional currency in his hands.
"Shorty," said Si earnestly, "promise me solemnly that you'll never bet at chuck-a-luck agin as long as you live."
"Si, don't ask me impossibilities. But I want you to take every cent o' this money and keep it. Don't you ever give me more'n $5 at a time, under any consideration. Don't you do it, if I git down on my knees and ask for it. Lord, how nigh I come to losin' that $50 o' your father's."
MR. ROSENBAUM became a frequent visitor to the Hoosier's Rest, and generally greatly interested Si and Shorty with his stories of adventure.
"How did you happen to come into the Army of the Cumberland?" asked Si. "I'd a-thought you'd staid where you knowed the country and the people."
"That was just the trouble," replied Rosenbaum. "I got to know them very well, but they got to know me a confounded sight better. When I was in the clothing pizniss in St. Louis I tried to have everybody know me. I advertised. I wanted to be a great big sunflower that everybody noticed. But when I got to be a spy I wanted to be a modest little violet that hid under the leaves, unt nobody saw. Then every man what knew me become a danger, unt it got so that I shuddered every time that I see a limb running out from a tree, for I didn't know how soon I might be hung from it. I had some awful narrow escapes, I tell you.
"But what decided me to leave the country unt skip over de Mississippi River was something that happened down in the Boston Mountains just before the battle of Pea Ridge. I was down there watching Van Dorn unt Ben McCullough for General Curtis, unt54 was getting along all right. I was still playing the old racket about buying up Mexican silver dollars to buy ammunition. One night I was sitting at a campfire with two or three others, when a crowd of Texans come up. They was just drunk enough to be devilish, unt had a rope with a noose on the end, which I noticed first thing. I had begun to keep a sharp lookout for such things. My flesh creeped when I saw them. I tried to think what had stirred them up all at once, but couldn't for my life recollect, for everything had been going on all right for several days. The man with the rope—a big, ugly brute, with red hair unt one eye—says:
"'You're a Jew, ain't you?'
"'Yes,' says I; 'I was born that way.'
"'Well,' says he, 'we're going to hang you right off.' Unt he put the noose around my neck unt began trying to throw the other end over a limb."
"'What for?' I yelled, trying to pull the rope off my neck. 'I ain't done nothing.'
"'Hain't eh?' said the man with one eye. 'You hook-nosed Jews crucified our Savior.'
"'Why, you red-headed fool,' said I, catching hold of the rope with both hands, 'that happened more as 1,800 years ago. Let me go.'
"'I don't care if it did,' said the one-eyed man, getting the end of the rope over the limb, 'we didn't hear about it till the Chaplain told us this morning, unt then the boys said we'd kill every Jew we come across. Catch hold of the end here, Bowers.'
"The other fellers around me laughed at the Texans so that they finally agreed to let me go if I'd promise not to do it again, holler for Jeff Davis, unt treat all around. It was a fool thing, but it scared me worse'n anything else, unt I resolved to get out of there unt go where the people read their Bibles unt the newspapers."
"How did you manage to keep Gen. Curtis posted as to the number of rebels in front of him?" asked Si. "You couldn't always be running back and forth from one army to the other."
"O, that was easy enough. You see. General56 Curtis was advancing, unt the rebels falling back most of the time. There was cabins every little ways along the road. All these have great big fireplaces, built of smooth rocks, which they pick up out of the creek unt wherever they can find them.
"I'd go into these houses unt talk with the people unt play with the children. I'd sit by the fire unt pick up a dead coal unt mark on these smooth rocks. Sometimes I'd draw horses unt wagons unt men to amuse the children. Sometimes I'd talk to the old folks about how long they'd been in the country, how many bears unt deers the man had killed, how far it was to the next place, how the roads run, unt so on, unt I'd make marks on the jam of the fireplace to help me understand.
"The next day our scouts would come in unt see the marks unt understand them just as well as if I'd wrote them a letter. I fixed it all up with them before I left camp. I kin draw very well with a piece of charcoal. I'd make pictures of men what would make the children unt old folks open their eyes. Our scouts would understand which one meant Ben McCullough, which one Van Dorn, which one Pap Price, unt so on. Other marks would show which way each one was going unt how many men he hat with him. The rebels never dropt on to it, but they came so close to it once or twice that my hair stood on end."
"That curly mop of yours'd have a time standing on end," ventured Shorty. "I should think it'd twist your neck off tryin' to."
"Well, something gave me a queer feeling about the throat one day when I saw a rebel Colonel stop57 unt look very hard at a long letter which I'd wrote this way on a rock.
"'Who done that?' he asked.
"'This man here,' says the old woman, 'He done it while he was gassing with the old man unt fooling with the children. Lot o' pesky nonsense, marking up de walls dat a-way.'
"'Looks like very systematic nonsense,' said the Colonel very stern unt sour. 'There may be something in it. Did you do this?' said he, turning to me.
"'Yes, sir,' said I, 'I have a bad habit of marking when I'm talking. I always done it, even when I was a child. My mother used to often slap me for spoiling the walls, but she could never break me of it.'
"'Humph,' said he, not at all satisfied with my story, unt looking at the scratches harder than ever. 'Who are you, unt what are you doing here?'
"I told him my story about buying Mexican silver dollars, unt showed him a lot of the dollars I'd bought.
"'Your story ain't reasonable,' said he. 'You haven't done bizniss enough to pay you for all the time you've spent around the army. I'll put you under guard till I can look into your case.'
"He called to the Sergeant of the Guard, unt ordered him to take charge of me. The Sergeant was that same dirty loafer. Bob Smiles, that I had the trouble with by Wilson's Creek. He kicked me unt pounded me, unt put me on my horse, with my hands tied behind me, unt my feet tied under the horse's belly. I was almost dead by night, when we reached Headquarters. They gave me something to58 eat, unt I laid down on the floor of the cabin, wishing I was Pontius Pilate, so that I could crucify every man in the Southern Confedrisy, especially Bob Smiles. An hour or two later I heard Bob Smiles swearing again."
"'Make out the names of all the prisoners I have,' he was saying, 'with where they belong unt the charges against them. I can't. Do they take me for a counter-jumping clerk? I didn't come into the army to be a white-faced bookkeeper, I sprained59 my thumb the other day, unt I can't write even a Httle bit. What am I to do?'
"That was all moonshine about his spraining his thumb. He vas ignorant as a jackass. If he had 40 thumbs he couldn't write even his own name so's anybody could read it.
"'I don't believe these's a man in a mile of here that can make out such a list,' he went on. They're all a set of hominy-eating blockheads. Perhaps that hook-nosed Jew might. He's the man. I'll make him do it, or break his swindling head.'
"He come in, kicked me, unt made me get up, unt then took me out unt set me down at a table, where he had paper, pen unt ink, unt ordered me to take down the names of the prisoners as he brought them up. He'd look over my shoulder as I wrote, as if he was reading what I set down, but I knowed that he couldn't make out a letter. I was tempted to write all sorts of things about him, but I didn't, for I was in enough trouble already. When I come to my own name, he said:
"'Make de charge a spy, a thief, unt a Dutch traitor to the Southern Confedrisy.'
"I just wrote: 'Levi Rosenbaum, Memphis, Tenn. Merchant. No charge.'
"He scowled very wisely at it, unt pretended to read it, unt said:
"'It's lucky for you that you wrote it just as I told you. I'd 'a' broke every bone in your body if you hadn't.'
"I'd just got done when an officer come down from Headquarters for it. He looked it over unt said:
"'Who made this out?'
"'Why, I made it out,' said Bob Smiles, bold as brass.
"'But who wrote it?" said de officer.
"'O, I sprained my thumb, so I couldn't write very well, unt I made a Jew prisoner copy it,' said Bob Smiles.
"'It's the best writing I have seen,' said the officer. 'I want the man what wrote it to go with me to Headquarters at once. I have some copying there to be done at once, unt not one of them corn-crackers that I have up there can write anything fit to read. Bring that man out here unt I will take him with me."
"Bob Smiles hated to let me go, but he couldn't help himself, unt I went with the officer. I was so tired I could hardly move a step, unt I felt I could not write a word. But I seemed to see a chance at Headquarters, unt I determined to make every effort to do something. They gave me a stiff horn of whisky unt set me to work. They wanted me to make out unt copy a consolidated report of the army.
"I almost forgot I was tired when I found out what they wanted, for I saw a chance to get something of great value. They'd been trying to make up a report from all sorts of scraps unt sheets of paper sent in from the different Headquarters, unt they had spoiled a half-dozen big sheets of paper after they'd got them partly done. If I do say it myself, I can write better and faster and figure quicker than most any man you ever saw. Those rebels thought they had got hold of a wonder—a61 lightning calculator unt lightning penman together.
"As fast as I could copy one paper, unt it would prove to be all right, I would fold it up unt stick it into a big yaller envelope. I also folded up the spoiled reports, unt stuck them in the envelope, saying that I wanted to get rid of them—put them where seeing them wouldn't bother me. I carefully slipped the envelope under the edge of a pile of papers near the edge of the table. I had another big yaller envelope that looked just like it lying in the middle of the table, into which I stuck papers that didn't amount to nothing. I was very slick about it, unt didn't let them see that I had two envelopes.
"It was past midnight when I got the consolidated report made out, unt the rebels was tickled to death with it. They'd never seen anything so well done before. They wanted a copy made to keep, unt I said I'd make one, though I was nearly dead for sleep. I really wasn't, for the excitement made me forget all about being tired.
"I was determined, before I slept, to have that yellow envelope, with all those papers, in General Curtis's hands, though he was 40 miles away. How in the world I was going to do it I could not think, but I was going to do it, if I died a trying. The first thing was to get that envelope off the table into my clothes; the next, to get out of that cabin, away from Bob Smiles unt his guards, through the rebel lines, unt over the mountains to General Curtis's camp. It was a dark, windy night, unt things were in confusion about the camp—just the kind of a time when62 anybody might kill a Jew pedler, unt no questions would be asked.
"I had got the last copy finished, unt the officers was going over it. They had their heads together, not 18 inches from me, across the table. I had my fingers on the envelope, but I didn't dare slip it out, though my fingers itched. I was in hopes that they'd turn around, or do something that'd give me a chance.
"Suddenly Bob Smiles opened the door wide, unt walked in, with a dispatch in his hand. The wind swept in, blew the candles out, unt sent de papers flying about the room. Some went into the fire. The officers yelled unt swore at him, unt he shut the door, but I had the envelope in my breast-pocket.
"Then to get away. How in the name of Moses unt the ten commandments was I to do that?
"One of the officers said to Bob Smiles: 'Take this man away unt take good care of him until to-morrow. We'll want him again. Give him a good bed, unt plenty to eat, unt treat him well. We'll need him to-morrow.'
"'Come on, you pork-hating Jew,' said Bob Smiles crabbedly. 'I'll give you a mess of spare-ribs unt corn-dodgers for supper.'
"'You'll do nothing of the kind,' said the officer. 'I told you to treat him well, unt if you don't treat him well, I'll see about it. Give him a bed in that house where de orderlies stay.'
"Bob Smiles grumbled unt swore at me, unt we vent out, but there was nothing to do but to obey orders. He give me a good place, unt some coffee unt bread, unt I lay down pretending to go to sleep.63
"I snored away like a good feller, unt presently I heard some one come in. I looked a little out the corner of my eye, unt see by the light of the fire that Bob Smiles was sneaking back. He watched me for a minute, unt then put his hand on me.
"I was scared as I never was, for I thought he vas after my precious yaller envelope. But I thought of my bowie knife, which I always carried out of sight in my bosom, unt resolved dat I vould stick it in his heart, if he tried to take away my papers. But I never moved. He felt over me until he come to de pocket where I had the silver dollars, unt then slipped his fingers in, unt pulled them out one by one, just as gently as if he vas smoothing the hair of a cat. I let him take them all, without moving a muscle. I was glad to haf him take them. I knowed that he was playing poker somewhere, unt had run out of cash, unt would take my money unt go back to his game.
"As soon as I heard his footsteps disappear in the distance, I got up unt sneaked down to where the Headquarters horses were tied. I must get a fresh one, because my own vas played nearly out. He would never do to carry me over the rough roads I must ride before morning. But when I got there I saw a guard pacing up unt down in front of them. I had not counted on this, unt for a minit my heart stood still. There were no other horses anywheres around.
"I hesitated, looked up at Headquarters, unt saw de lights still burning, unt made up my mind at once to risk everything on one desperate chance. I remembered that I had put in my envelope some64 blank sheets of paper, with Headquarters, Army of the Frontier,' unt a rebel flag on dem. There was a big fire burning ofer to the right mit no one near. I went up in de shadow of a tree, where I could see by the firelight, took out one of the sheets of paper unt wrote on it an order to have a horse saddled for me at once. Then I slipped back so that it would look as if I was coming straight from Headquarters, unt walked up to the guard unt handed him the order. He couldn't read a word, but he recognized the heading on the paper, unt I told him the rest. He thought there was nothing for him to do but obey.
"While he was getting the horse I wrote out, by the fire, a pass for myself through the guards. I was in a hurry, you bet, unt it was all done mighty quick, unt I was on the horse's back unt started. I had lost all direction, but I knowed that I had to go generally to the northeast to get to General Curtis. But I got confused again, unt found I was riding around unt around the camp without getting out at all. I even come up again near the big fire, just where I wrote out the pass.
"Just then what should I hear but Bob Smiles's voice. He had lost all his money—all my money—at poker, unt was damning the fellers he had been playing with as cheats. He was not in a temper to meet, unt I knowed he would see me if I went by the big fire; but I was desperate, unt I stuck the spurs into my horse unt he shot ahead. I heard Bob Smiles yell:
"'There is that Jew. Where is he going? Halt, there! Stop him!'65
"I knowed that if I stopped now I would be hung sure. The only safety was to go as fast as I could. I dashed away, where, I didn't know. Directly a guard halted me, but I showed him my pass, unt he let me go on. While he was looking at it I strained my ears, unt could hear horses galloping my way. I knowed it was Bob Smiles after me. My horse was a good one, unt I determined to get on the main road unt go as fast as I could. I could see by the campfires that I was now getting away from the army, unt I began to hope that I was going north. I kept my horse running.
"Pretty soon the pickets halted me, but I didn't stop to answer them. I just bolted ahead. The chances of their shooting me wasn't as dreadful as of Bob Smiles catching me. They fired at me, but I galloped right through them, unt through a rain of bullets that they sent after me. I felt better then, for I was confident I was out in the open country, but I kept my horse on the run. It seemed to me that I went a hundred miles.
"Just as the day was breaking in the east, I heard a voice, with a strong German accent call out the brush:
"'Halt! Who comes there?'
"I was so glad that I almost fainted, for I knowed that I'd reached General Sigel's pickets. I couldn't get my lips to answer.
"There came a lot of shots, unt one of them struck my horse in the head, unt he fell in the road, throwing me over his head. The pickets run out unt picked me up. The German language sounded the sweetest I ever heard it.66
"As soon as I could make myself talk, I answered them in German, unt told them who I was. Then they couldn't do enough for me. They helped me back to where they could get an ambulance, in which they sent me to Headquarters, for I was top weak to ride or walk a step. I handed my yellow envelope to General Curtis, got a dram of whisky to keep me up while I answered his questions, unt then went to67 sleep, unt slept through the whole battle of Pea Ridge.
"After the battle, General Curtis wanted to know how much he ought to pay me, but I told him that all I wanted was to serve the country, unt I was already paid many times over, by helping him win a victory.
"But I concluded that there was too much Bob Smiles in that country for me, unt I had better leave for some parts where I was not likely to meet him. So I crossed the Mississippi River, unt joined General Rosecrans's Headquarters."
MR. ROSENBAUM'S stories of adventure were not such as to captivate the boys with the career of a spy. But the long stay in camp was getting very tedious, and they longed for something to break the monotony of camp guard and work on the interminable fortifications. Therefore, when Mr. Rosenbaum came over one morning with a proposition to take them out on an expedition, he found them ready to go. He went to Regimental Headquarters, secured a detail for them, and, returning to the Hoosier's Rest, found the boys lugubriously pulling over a pile of homespun garments they had picked up among the teamsters and campfollowers.
"I suppose we've got to wear 'em, Shorty," said Si, looking very disdainfully at a butternut-colored coat and vest. "But I'd heap rather wear a mustard plaster. I'd be a heap comfortabler."
"I ain't myself finicky about clothes," answered Shorty. "I ain't no swell—never was. But somehow I've got a prejudice in favor of blue as a color, and agin gray and brown. I only like gray and brown on a corpse. They make purty grave clothes. I always like to bury a man what has butternut clothes on."69
"What are you doing with them dirty rags, boys?" asked Rosenbaum, in astonishment, as he surveyed the scene.
"Why, we've got to wear 'em, haven't we, if we go out with you?" asked Si.
"You wear them when you go out with me—you disguise yourselves," said Rosenbaum, with fine scorn. "You'd play the devil in disguise. You can't disguise your tongues. That's the worst. Anybody'd catch on to that Indianny lingo first thing. You've got to speak like an educated man—speak like I do—to keep people from finding out where you're from. I speak correct English always. Nobody can tell where I'm from."
The boys had hard work controlling their risibles over Mr. Rosenbaum's self-complacency.
"What clothes are we to wear, then?" asked Si, much puzzled.
"Wear what you please; wear the clothes you have on, or anything else. This is not to be a full-dress affair. Gentlemen can attend in their working clothes if they want to."
"I don't understand," mumbled Si.
"Of course, you don't," said Rosenbaum gaily. "If you did, you would know as much as I do, unt I wouldn't have no advantage."
"All right," said Shorty. "We've decided to go it blind. Go ahead. Fix it up to suit yourself. We are your huckleberries for anything that you kin turn up. It all goes in our $13 a month."
"O. K.," answered Rosenbaum. "That's the right way. Trust me, unt I will bring you out all straight. Now, let me tell you something. When you70 captured me, after a hard struggle, as you remember (and he gave as much of a wink as his prominent Jewish nose would admit), I was an officer on General Roddey's staff. It was, unt still is, my business to keep up express lines by which the rebels are supplied with quinine, medicines, gun-caps, letters, giving information, unt other things. Unt I do it."
The boys opened their eyes wide, and could not restrain an exclamation of surprise.
"Now, hold your horses; don't get excited," said Rosenbaum calmly. "You don't know as much about war as I do—not by a hundred per cent. These things are always done in every war, unt General Rosecrans understands the tricks of war better as any man in the army. He beats them all when it comes to getting information about the enemy. He knows that a dog that fetches must carry, unt that the best way is to let a spy take a little to the enemy, unt bring a good deal back.
"The trouble at the battle of Stone River was that the spies took more to General Bragg than they brought to General Rosecrans. But General Rosecrans was new to the work then. It won't be so in future. He knows a great deal more about the rebels now than they know about him, thanks to such men as me."
"I don't know as we ought to have anything to do with this, Shorty," said Si dubiously. "At least, we ought to inquire of the Colonel first."
"That's all right—that's all right," said Rosenbaum quickly. "I've got the order from the Colonel which will satisfy you. Read it yourself."
He handed the order to Si, who looked carefully71 at the printed heading, "Headquarters, 200th Ind., near Murfreesboro', Tenn.," and then read the order aloud to Shorty: "Corporal Josiah Klegg and one private, whom he may select, will report to Mr. Levi Rosenbaum for special duty, and will obey such orders and instructions as he may give, and on return report to these Headquarters. By order of the Colonel. Philip Blake, Adjutant."
"That seems all straight. Shorty," said Si, folding up the order, and putting it in his pocket.
"Straight as a string," assented Shorty. "I'm ready, anyway. Go ahead, Mr. Cheap Clothing. I don't care much what it is, so long's it ain't shovelin' and diggin' on the fortifications. I'll go down to Tullahoma and pull old Bragg out of his tent rather than handle a pick and shovel any longer."
"Well, as I was going to tell you, I have been back to Tullahoma several times since you captured me, unt I have got the express lines between here unt there running pretty well. I have to tell them all sorts of stories how I got away from the Yankees. Luckily, I have a pretty good imagination, unt can furnish them with first-class narratives.
"But there is one feller on the staff that I'm afraid of. His name is Poke Bolivar, unt he is a terrible feller, I tell you. Always full of fight, unt desperate when he gets into a fight. I've seen him bluff all those other fellers. He is a red-hot Secessionist, unt wants to kill every Yankee in the country. Of late he has seemed very suspicious of me, unt has said lots of things that scared me. I want to settle him, either kill him or take him prisoner, unt keep him away, so's I can feel greater ease when I'm in72 General Bragg's camp. I can't do that so long as I know he's around, for I feel that his eyes are on me, unt that he's hunting some way to trip me up.
"I'm going out now to meet him, at a house about five miles from the lines. I have my pockets unt the pockets on my saddles full of letters unt things. Just outside the lines I will get some more. He will meet me unt we will go back to Tullahoma together—that is, if he don't kill me before we get there. I have brought a couple of revolvers, in addition to your guns, for Poke Bolivar's a terrible feller to fight, unt I want you to make sure of him. I'd take more'n two men out, but I'm afraid he'd get on to so many.
"I guess we two kin handle him," said Shorty, slipping his belt into the holster of the revolver and buckling it on. "Give us a fair show at him, and we don't want no help. I wouldn't mind having it out with Mr. Bolivar all by myself."
"Well, my plan is for you to go out by yourselves to that place where you were on picket. Then take the right-hand road through the creek bottom, as if you were going foraging. About two miles from the creek you will see a big hewed-log house standing on the left of the road. You will know it by its having brick outside chimneys, unt de doors painted blue unt yaller. There's no other house in that country like it.
"You're to keep out of sight as much as you can. Directly you will see me come riding out, follered by a nigger riding another horse. I will go up to the house, jump off, tie my horse, go inside, unt presently come out unt tie a white cloth to73 a post on the porch. That will be a signal to Poke Bolivar, who will be watching from the hill a mile ahead. You will see him come in, get off his horse, unt go into the house.
"By this time it will be dark, or nearly so. You slip up as quietly as you can, right by the house, hiding yourselves behind the lilacs. If the dogs run at you bayonet them. You can look through the windows, unt see me unt Bolivar sitting by the fire talking, unt getting ready to start for Tullahoma as soon as the nigger who is cooking our supper in the kitchen outside gets it ready unt we eat it. You can wait till you see us sit down to eat supper, unt then jump us. Better wait until we are pretty near through supper, for I'll be very hungry, unt want all I can get to keep me up for my long ride.
"You run in unt order us to surrender. I'll jump up unt blaze away with my revolver, but you needn't pay much attention to me—only be careful not to shoot me. While you are 'tending to Bolivar I'll get on my horse unt skip out. You can kill Bolivar, or take him back to camp with you, or do anything that you please, so long's you keep him away from Tullahoma. You understand, now?"
"Perfectly," said Shorty. "I think we can manage it, and it looks like a pretty good arrangement. You are to git away, and we're to git Mr. Bolivar. Those two things are settled. Any change in the evening's program will depend on Mr. Bolivar. If he wants a fight he kin git whole gobs of it."
Going over the plan again, to make sure that the boys understood it, and cautioning them once more as to the sanguinary character of Polk Bolivar,74 Mr. Rosenbaum started for his horse. He had gone but a little ways when he came back with his face full of concern.
"I like you boys better than I can tell you," he said, taking their hands affectionately, "unt I never would forgive myself if you got hurt. Do you think that two of you'll be able to manage Poke Bolivar? If you're not sure I'll get another man to help you. I think that I had better, anyway."
"O, go along with you," said Shorty scornfully. "Don't worry about us and Mr. Bolivar. I'd stack Si Klegg up against any man that ever wore gray, in any sort of a scrimmage he could put up, and I'm a better man than Si. You just favor us with a meeting with Mr. Bolivar, and then git out o' the way. If it wasn't for dividing up fair with my partner here I'd go out by myself and tackle Mr. Bolivar. You carry out your share of the plan, and don't worry about us."
Rosenbaum's countenance brightened, and he hastened to mount and away. The boys shouldered their guns and started out for the long walk. They followed Rosenbaum's directions carefully, and arrived in sight of the house, which they recognized at once, and got into a position from which they could watch its front. Presently they saw Rosenbaum come riding along the road and stop in front of the house. He tied his horse to a scraggy locust tree, went in, and then reappeared and fastened the signal to a post supporting the roof of the porch.
They had not long to wait for the answer. Soon a horseman was seen descending from the distant hill. As he came near he was anxiously scanned,75 and appeared a cavalier so redoubtable as to fully justify Rosenbaum's apprehensions. He was a tall, strongly-built young man, who sat on his spirited horse with easy and complete mastery of him. Even at that distance it could be seen that he was heavily armed.
"Looks like a genuine fighter, and no mistake," said Si, examining the caps on his revolver. "He'll be a stiff one to tackle."76
"We must be very careful not to let him get the drop on us," said Shorty. "He looks quicker'n lightnin', and I've no doubt that he kin shoot like Dan'l Boone. We might drop him from here with our guns," he added suggestively.
"No," said Si, "that wouldn't be fair. And it wouldn't be the way Rosenbaum wants it done. He's got his reasons for the other way. Besides, I'd be a great deal better satisfied in my mind, if I could have it out with him, hand-to-hand. It'd sound so much better in the regiment."
"Guess that's so," assented Shorty. "Well, let's sneak up to the house."
When they got close to the house they saw that it had been deserted; there were no dogs or other domestic animals about, and this allowed them to get under the shade of the lilacs without discovery. The only inmates were Rosenbaum and Bolivar, who were seated before a fire, which Rosenbaum had built in the big fireplace in the main room. The negro was busy cooking supper in the outbuilding which served as a kitchen. The glass was broken out the window, and they could hear the conversation between Rosenbaum and Bolivar.
It appeared that Rosenbaum had been making a report of his recent doings, to which Bolivar listened with a touch of disdain mingled with suspicion.
The negro brought in the supper, and the men ate it sitting by the fire.
"I declare," said Bolivar, stopping with a piece of bread and meat in one hand and a tin-cup of coffee in the other, "that for a man who is devoted to the77 South you can mix up with these Yankees with less danger to yourself and to them than any man I ever knew. You never get hurt, and you never hurt any of them. That's a queer thing for a soldier. War means hurting people, and getting hurt yourself. It means taking every chance to hurt some of the enemy. I never miss any opportunity of killing a Yankee, no matter what I may be doing, or what the risk is to me. I can't help myself. Whenever I see a Yankee in range I let him have it. I never go near their lines without killing at least78 one."
Shorty's thumb played a little with his gunlock, but Si restrained him with a look.
"Well," said Rosenbaum, "I hates the enemy as badly as any one can, but I always have business more important at the time than killing men. I want to get through with what I have to do, unt let other men do the killing. There's enough gentlemen like you for that work."
"No, there's not enough," said Bolivar savagely. "It's treasonable for you to say so. Our enemies outnumber us everywhere. It is the duty of every true Southern man to kill them off at every chance, like he would rattlesnakes and wolves. You are either not true to the South, or you hain't the right kind of grit. Why, you have told me yourself that you let two Yankees capture you, without firing a shot. Think of it; a Confederate officer captured by two Yankee privates, without firing a shot."
"They had the dead drop on me," murmured Rosenbaum. "If I had moved they'd killed me sure."
"Dead drop on you!" repeated Bolivar scornfully. "Two men with muskets have the dead drop on you! And you had a carbine and a revolver. Why, I have ridden into a nest of 10 or 15 Yankees, who had me covered with their guns. I killed three of them, wounded three others, and run the rest away with my empty revolver. If I'd had another revolver, not one would've got away alive. I always carry two revolvers now."
"I think our guns'll be in the way in that room," said Shorty, sotting his down. His face bore a look of stern determination. "They're too long. I'm itching to have it out with that feller hand-to-hand.79 We'll rush in. You pretend to be goin' for Rosenbaum and leave me to have it out with Mr. Bolivar. Don't you mix in at all. If I don't settle him he ought to be allowed to go."
"No," said Si decisively. "I'm your superior officer, and it's my privilege to have the first shy at him. I'll 'tend to him. I want a chance singlehanded at a man that talks that way. You take care of Rosenbaum."
"We mustn't dispute," said Shorty, stooping down and picking up a couple of straws. "Here, pull. The feller that gits the longest 'tends to Bolivar; the other to Rosenbaum."
Si drew and left the longer straw in Shorty's hand. They drew their revolvers and rushed for the room, Shorty leading, Rosenbaum and Bolivar sprang up in alarm at the sound of their feet on the steps, and drew their revolvers.
"Surrender, you infernal rebels," shouted the boys, as they bolted through the door.
With the quickness of a cat, Rosenbaum had sidled near the door through which they had come. Suddenly he fired two shots into the ceiling, and sprang through the door so quickly that Si had merely the chance to fire a carefully-aimed shot through the top of his hat. Si jumped toward the door again, and fired a shot in the air, for still further make-believe. He would waste no more, but reserve the other four for Bolivar, if he should need them.
Shorty confronted Bolivar with fierce eyes and leveled revolver, eagerly watching every movement and expression. The rebel was holding his pistol pointed upward, and his eyes looked savage. As his eyes met Shorty's the latter was amazed to see him close the left with a most emphatic wink. Seeing this was recognized, the rebel fired two shots into the ceiling, and motioned with his left hand to Si to continue firing. Without quite understanding. Si fired again. The rebel gave a terrific yell and fired a couple of shots out the window.
"Do the same," he said to Shorty, who complied, as Si had done, in half-comprehension. The rebel handed his revolver to Shorty, stepped to the window and listened.
There came the sounds of two horses galloping away on the hard, rocky road.
"He's gone, and taken the nigger with him," he said contentedly, turning from the window, and giving another fierce yell. "Better fire the other two shots out of that pistol, to hurry him along."
Shorty fired the remaining shots out of the rebel's revolver.
"What regiment do you belong to, boys?" asked Bolivar calmly.
"The 200th Ind.," answered Si, without being able to control his surprise.
"A very good regiment," said the rebel. "What's your company?"
"Co. Q," answered Si.
"Who's your Colonel?"
"Col. Duckworth."
"Who's your Captain?"
"Capt. McGillicuddy."
"All right," said the rebel, with an air of satisfaction. "I asked those questions to make sure you were genuine Yankees. One can't be too careful in my business. I'm in the United States Secret Service, and have to be constantly on the watch to keep it from being played on me by men pretending to be Yankees when they are rebels, and rebels when they are Yankees. I always make it the first point to ask them the names of their officers. I know almost all the officers in command on both sides."
"You in the Secret Service?" exploded the boys.82
They were on the point of adding "too," but something whispered to them not to betray Rosenbaum.
"Yes," answered Bolivar. "I've just come from Tullahoma, where I've been around Bragg's Headquarters. I wanted to get inside our lines, but I was puzzled how to do it. That Jew you've just run off bothered me. I wish to the Lord you'd killed him. I'm more afraid of him than any other man in Bragg's army. He's smart as a briar, always nosing around where you don't want him, and anxious to do something to commend him to Headquarters, Jew like. I've thought he suspected me, for he'd been paying special attention to me for some weeks. Two or three times I've been on the point of tailing him into the woods somewhere and killing him, and so get rid of him. It's all right now. He'll go back to Tullahoma with a fearful story of the fight I made against you, and that I am probably killed. I'll turn up there in a week or two with my own story, and I'll give him fits for having skipped out and left me to fight you two alone. Say, it's a good ways to camp. Let's start at once, for I want to get to Headquarters as soon as possible."
"You've got another revolver there," said Si, who had prudently reloaded his own weapon.
"That's so," said Bolivar, pulling it out. "You can take and carry it or I'll take the cylinder out, if you are not convinced about me."
"You'd better let me carry it," said Shorty, shoving the revolver in his own belt. "These are queer times, and one can't be too careful with rebels who83 claim to be Yankees, and Yankees who claim to be rebels."
They trudged back to camp, taking turns riding the horse. When the rebel rode, however, one of the boys walked alongside with the bridle in his hand. All doubts as to Bolivar's story were dispelled by his instant recognition by the Provost-Marshal, who happened to be at the picket-post when they reached camp.
"The longer I live," remarked Shorty, as they made their way along to the Hoosier's Rest, "and I seem to live a little longer every day, the less I seem to understand about this war."
Shorty spoke as if he had had an extensive acquaintance with wars.
"The only thing that I've come to be certain about," assented Si, "is that you sometimes most always can't generally tell."
And they proceeded to get themselves some supper, accompanying the work of denunciations of the Commissary for the kind of rations he was drawing for the regiment, and of the Orderly-Sergeant for his letting the other Orderlies eucher him out of the company's fair share.
ONE MORNING the Orderly-Sergeant handed Si the following letter:
Deer Son: I got hoam safely a weke ago, thanks 2 all-protecting Providens; likewise 2 about 175 pound of tuff & helthy Josiah Klegg. Providens helpt rite along, but it tuk 50-year-old Injianny hickory & whit-leather 2 pull through sum ov the tite plasis.
Abraham Lincoln is as strong as an ox, but I never thought that anything that diddent wear horns or chew the cud could be so measly dumb. He kin eat as much as Buck, our off-steer, & I declare I don't believe he knows any more.
We had only bin on the train long enuff for Abe to finish up the whole of the 3 days rations you provided us with 2 last us home, when I notist that Blowhard Billings was on board. He was still dressed in full uniform, & playin off officer yit, but I happened 2 recolleck that he was no officer no more, & it wuz lucky that I done so. He wuz lookin at me & Abe hard with them mean, fatfish ize ov hizn.
Jest as a matter ov precaushon. I make Abe change seats with me & taik the inside. Billings85 caim up. You know what I thought ov him ov old, & there's never bin any love lost betwixt us sence I stopped him cheatin poor Eli Mitchell outen his plow-team. I told him then that the coppers on a dead nigger's eyes wuzzent saif when he wuz around, & I woulddent trust him ez fur ez I could sling a bull by the tale. He got mad at this & never got over it. I never encouraged him to. I woulddent feel satisfied with myself if he wuzzent mad at me. I coulddent change my opinion, even when he tried to steal into respectability by goin into the army. I knowed he'd do anything but fite, & woulddent've bin supprized any day by hearing that him and the other mules in camp had disappeared together.
Presently Billings he cum up very corjil like & says:
"Howdy, Deacon. I hope you air very well."
I told him I wuz tollable peart, and he says:
"I see a man in the third car forward that wuz inquiring for you, and wanted to see you powerful bad."
"That so?" says I, unconcernedlike.
"Yes," says he. "He wuz awful anxious to see you, and I said I'd send you to him if I cum acrost you."
Somehow, I dropped onto it in a minnit that he wuz schemin' to git me away from Abraham Lincoln—
"Well," says I, "it's about ez fur for me forward to him as it is for him back here to me. I don't know as I want to see him at all. If he wants to see me so bad let him cum back here."86
"I think I'd go forward and see him," said Billings, sort ov impatient-like. "You'll have no trouble finding him. He's in the third car from here, up at the front end, right-hand side, next to the watercooler. He inquired most partickerlerly for you."
"Probably he wants 2 borry money," says I, without stirrin'. "Men that want particularly 2 see me always do. Well, I hain't got none 2 lend—hain't got no more'n 'll talk me hoam."
"You'd better go forward & see him," he said very bossy like, as if he was orderin me.
"I'd better stay right here, & I'm goin' to stay," says I, so decided that Billings see that it was no use.
His patience gave clean away.
"Look here, Klegg," said he, mad as a hornet, "I'm after that ere nigger you're trying to steal away into Injianny, and by the holy poker I'm goin' to have him! Come along here, you black ape," and he laid his hand on Abe Lincoln's collar. Abe showed the white ov his eyes as big as buckeyes, put his arm around the piece betwixt the winders, and held on for deer life. I see by the grip he tuk that the only way 2 git him wuz 2 tear out the side of the car, and I thought I'd let them tussle it out for a minnit or 2.
The others in the car who thought it grate fun to see a Lieutenant-Kurnol wrastlin' with a nigger, laffed and yelled:
"Go it, nigger,"
"Go it, Kurnel,"
"Grab a root,"
"I'l bet on the nigger if the car is stout onuf,"87 and sich. Jest then Groundhog cum runnin' up to help Billings, and reached over and ketched Abe, but I hit him a good biff with the musket that changed his mind. Billings turned on me, and called out to the others:
"Men, I order you to arrest this man and tie him up."
Sum ov them seemed a-mind to obey, but I sung out:
"Feller-citizens, he ain't no officer—no more'n I am. He ain't got no right to wear shoulder-straps, and he knows it as well as I do."
At this they all turned agin him & began yellin at him 2 put his head in a bag. He turned 2 me savage as a meat-ax, but I ketched him by the throat, & bent him back over the seat. The Provo-Guard cum up, & I explained it 2 them, & showed my passes for me & Abe. So they made us all sit down & keep quiet.
Bimeby we got to Nashville. Abe Lincoln wuz hungry, & I stopped 2 git him something to eat. My gracious, the lot ov ham & aigs at 50 cents a plate & sandwiches at 25 cents a piece that contraband kin eat. He never seemed 2 git full. He looked longingly at the pies, but I let him look. I wuzzent runnin no Astor House in connexion with the Freedmen's buro.
We walked through the city, crost on the ferry, & wuz jest gittin in the cars which wuz about ready 2 start, when up comes Billings agin, with 2 or 3 other men in citizen's cloze. One ov these claps his hand on my shoulder & says:
"I'm a Constable, & I arrest you in the name ov88 the State ov Tennessee for abductin a slave. Make no trubble, but come along with me."
I jest shook him off, & clumb onto the platform, pullin Abe after me. The Constable & his men follered us, but I got Abe Lincoln inside the door, shet it & made him put his shoulders agin it. The Constable & his 2 assistants wuz buttin away at it, & me grinnin at them when the train pulled off, & they had 2 jump off. I begin 2 think there wuz something good in Abe Lincoln, after all, & when we stopped at an eatin-plais, about half-way 2 Louisville, & Abe looked at the grub as if he haddent had a mouthful sence the war begun, I busted a $2-bill all 2 pieces gittin' him a little supper. If I wuz goin into the bizniss ov freein slaves I'd want 2 have a mule train haulin grub follering me at every step.
Abe wuz awful hungry agin when we reached Louisville, but I found a place where a dollar would buy him enuf pork & beans 2 probably last him over the river.
But I begun 2 be efeard that sum nosin pryin Mike Medler might make trubble in gitting Abe safely acrost the Ohio. I tuk him 2 a house, & laid it down strong 2 him that he must stay inside all day, and 2 make sure I bargained with the woman 2 keep him eating as much as she could. I ruined a $5 bill, & even then Abe looked as if he could hold some more. I've always made it a pint 2 lend 2 the Lord for the benefit ov the heathen as much as my means would allow, but I begun 2 think that my missionary contribushions this year would beat what I was layin out on my family.89
After it got dark, me & Abe meandered down through the streets 2 the ferry. There wuzzent many people out, except soljers, & I've got 2 feel purty much at home with them. They seem more likely 2 think more nearly my way than folks in every-day clothes.
There wuz quite a passel ov soljers on the wharf boat waitin' for the ferry when we got there. They saw at wuns that I had probably bin down 2 the front 2 see my son, & sum ov them axed me 2 what rigiment he belonged. When I told them the 200th Injianny Volunteer Infantry they all made friends with me at wunst, for they said they knowed it wuz a good rigiment.
Bimeby a big, important-lookin' man, with a club with a silver head for a cane, cum elbowin through the crowd & scowling at everybody as if he owned the wharf-boat & all on it. He stopped in frunt ov Abraham Lincoln & says very sharp & cross:
"Boy, where did you come from?"
Abe diddent say nothin'. His ize got all white, he grinned sort ov scared like, showed his white teeth, & looked sickly over at me. I spoke up & says:
"I brung him along with me from Murfreesboro'."
"So I sposed," said he. "He's a slave you're tryin 2 steal from his master. You can't do it. I'll jest take charge ov him myself. That's my dooty here," & he ketched hold ov Abraham Lincoln's collar. Abe, in his scare, put out his arms to ketch hold ov something, & throwed them around the big important man, & lifted him clean offen his feet. I never before realized how strong Abe wuz. The soljers gethered around, purty mad, and then laffin and90 yellin when they see the man in Abe's arms. Suddenly sum one hollered:
"Throw him overboard; throw him in the river." Abe was wuss scared than ever when he found he had the man in his arms. He wuz afeared 2 hold on & still more afeared 2 let go. He heard them hollerin, & thought he had 2 do jest as they said, & begun edgin toward the river.
The man got more scared than Abe. He began kickin & wrigglin & hollerin:
"Don't let him do it. Help me. I can't swim a lick."
At this the men hollered worsen ever:
"Throw him in the river! Duck him! Baptize him! Drown him!"
I'm a Baptist, but I don't believe in immersion onless the convert has bin prepared for it, & is willin, which neither this man wuz. I stepped forward 2 make Abe let him down, but before T could do anything Abe had got 2 the edge of the wharfboat & let go, & plunk went the man into about 10 foot ov water. Abe, scared now nearly 2 death, stood there with his ize biggern sassers & whitern goose-eggs.
In a minnit the man cum up, sputterin & hollerin. A big Sergeant, with his left arm in a sling, reached over & ketchod him by the collar & held his head above water.
"If I pull you out will you promis 2 go out ov the niggor-kotchin bizniss forever?" axed the Sergeant.
"Pull me out & then I'll talk 2 you," says the man grabbin for the slippery sides ov the wharfboat.91
"No, I won't," said the Sergeant, sousin him under water agin.
"Yes, yes, I'll promise," says the man, when he come up agin.
"Will you swear it?" axed the Sergeant.
"Yes, I'll swear it before a Justice ov the Peace."
"Will you swear 2 support the Constitution ov the United States agin all enemies & opposers whatsumever, & vote for Abraham Lincoln every time?" axed the Sergeant.
"I'll take the oath ov allegiance," says the man, sputterin the water out ov his mouth, "but I'll never vote for that Abolition ape as long as I live."
"Then down you go," says the Sergeant, sousin him again.
"Yes, yes, I'll vote for Abe Lincoln, & anybody else, if you'll only pull me out," said the man, in a tired tone of voice, when he cum up agin. I begin 2 see that immersion had a great deal ov good in it, even if a man isn't prepared & willin.
"Will you swear 2 always love a nigger as a man & a brother, until death do you part, & aid & comfort all them who are tryin 2 git away from slavery?" axed the Sergeant.
"Damned if I will," says the man. "No nigger kin ever be a brother 2 me. I'll die first."
"Then you'll die right now," says the Sergeant, sendin him down as far as his long arm would reach & holding him there until I wuz scared for fear he wuz really goin 2 drown the man. When he brung him up the man whimpered:
"Yes, only pull me out—save my life—& I'll do anything you want."92
By this time the ferryboat had cum up. We got aboard & crost over to Injianny, & I felt so glad at bein on my nativ soil wuns more that I took Abe up 2 the eatin stand, & blowed in a dollar filin up the vacant plasis in his hide.
When we tried 2 git on the train there cum another trubble: The conductor woulddent let him ride in the car with white folks—not even in the smokin-car. He made him go into the baggage-car. Abe wuz so scared about leavin me for a minnit in' that strange country that I tried 2 go into the baggage-car with him, but the conductor woulddent let me. He said it wuz agin the rules for passengers to ride in the baggage-cars, but Abe could go in there, same as dogs, prize poultry, & household pets. I tried 2 joke with him, tellin him that in sum plasis I wuz considered a household pet, but he said Ide have 2 git another mug on me before he could believe it.
One of Zeke Biltner's hogs ditched the train jest before we got home, & turned the baggage-car over. Sum crates ov aigs wuz smashed over Abraham Lincoln, & he wuz a sight to behold. He wuz awfully scared, though, & begged me 2 let him go the rest ov the way on foot. He said he wuz a thousand years older than when he left his ole massa, & I could understand what he meant.
I found your mother & the girls bright & chipper & jest tickled 2 death to see me safe back. They axed me so many questions about you & Shorty that my head buzzed like a bee-hive. It is hard 2 git away from them 2 tend 2 my Spring work, but I've made an arrangement 2 giv em an hour mornin93 & evenin 2 answerin questions. I think this will keep me purty busy till the snow flise agin.
Wheat is lookin surprisinly well, though I found sum bare plasis in the north field. I think we'll have a fair crop ov apples and peaches. Your colt is growin up the purtiest thing that ever went on four legs, & jumped an eight-rail fence. My hogs wintered in good shape, & pork is risin. They have the measles over on the Crick, & school's broke up. Bill Scripp's out agin for Sheriff, & I spose I'le have 2 turn 2 agin & beat him. Singler, that he'll never know when he's got enuff.
If anything, Abraham Lincoln's appetite has bin improved by Wabash air. I wuzzent goin 2 have the wimmen folks wear theirselves out cookin for him. So I fix-ed up a place for him in the old log house, & took him over some sides ov meat, a few bushel ov pertaters, a jug ov sorghum molasses, & every time mother bakes she sends over some leaves ov bread. I jest turned him loose there. He seems 2 be very happy, & we hear him singin & yellin most all the time when he's by hisself. He's a good worker when I stand right over him, & he'll lift & dig as patient as an ox. But he hain't no more sense about goin ahead by hisself than a steer has, & the moment my back's turned he stops work. Ime af eared I've got a job on my hands makin a firstclass farmer out ov him. But if that's my share ov the work that Providens has chalked out for me, there's nothin left for me but 2 go ahead & do it in fear & tremblin.
No more from your affeckshionate father.
P. S. Give my best respects 2 Shorty.
SI AND SHORTY got the common feeling of men of some months' service, that they had fully mastered the art of war, and that there was little, if anything, left for them to learn. It did not take some men even so long as months to acquire this pleasant idea of themselves. Some entered the army feeling quite capable of giving advice to the oldest General in it, and they were not slow about offering their opinions.
Si and Shorty had had successes enough since their enlistment to develop a self-confidence which might be pardoned if it expanded into self-sufficiency and vanity.
The 200th Ind. had been sent out on a reconnoissance toward Shelbyville. No sign of rebels in force developed in any direction, and Si and Shorty got permission to go off on a little scout of their own.
"No use o' huntin' rebels with a brass band," said Si, who, since his association with Mr. Rosenbaum, had gotten some idea that stealth and cunning were efficient war powers. "We kin jest slip around out here somewhere, and if there is any rebels, find 'em, and git more information than the whole regiment kin."
"I'm not so thirsty for information and rebels95 as I am for some fresh buttermilk," said Shorty. "Somehow, I've been hankering for buttermilk and cornpone for days. I hain't had any for a coon's age, and it'd go mighty good as a change from camp rations. Buttermilk and rebels sometimes grow near together. You look for one, I'll look for the other. Mebbe we kin git both."
"I wouldn't mind havin' some buttermilk an' cornpone myself," said Si. "But I'd like much better to drop on some rebels somewhere, and bring 'em into camp, and show that we kin git more information than the whole regiment kin."
"All right," assented Shorty; "ask the Captain to let us go. I'll be bound we'll find something worth goin' for, if it's no more'n a chicken for the Captain's supper. I'd like to take in one for him. He's been mighty good to me and you in several ways, and I'd like to show him that we appreciate it."
As the regiment had gone as far as ordered without discovering anything that in the least threatened the peace in that portion of Tennessee, it would start on its return, after the men had rested and had dinner. Si and Shorty, consequently, had no difficulty in securing the desired permission.
They cut off through a side-road, which gave promise of leading into a better-settled part of the country than that they had been traversing. A mile or so of walking brought them in sight of the substantial chimneys of a farmhouse showing above the trees. A glimpse of a well-fenced field roused warm hopes in Shorty's heart.
"Now, I think we're comin' to a better thing than we've ever struck before," said he, as they stopped96 and surveyed the prospect. "We've got out o' the barren plateaus and into the rich farming country. That's likely a farm jest like they have up in Injianny, and it's way off where they hain't knowed nothin' o' the war. No soljer's ever anigh 'em, and they've jest got lots and plenty o' everything. They've got a great big barnyard full o' chickens and turkeys, pigs and geese and guineas. There, you kin hear the guineas hollerin' now. There's cows layin' in the shade chawin' the cud, while their calves are cavortin' around in the sun, hogs rootin' in the woods-pasture, horses and sheep in the medder, and everything like it is at home. And down a little ways from the house there's a cool springhouse, with clear, cold water wellin' up and ripplin' out over the clean, white sand, with crocks o' fresh milk setting in it with cream half an inch thick, and big jars o' buttermilk from the last churnin', and piggins o' fresh butter, and mebbe a big crock full o' smearkase. Si, do you like smearkase?"
"'Deed I do," answered Si, his mouth watering at the thought. "My goodness, you jest orter eat some o' mother's smearkase. She jest lays over all the women in the country for smearkase. Many's the time I've come in hot and sweatin from the field, and got a thick slice o' bread clear acrost the loaf from one o' the girls, and went down to our spring-house and spread it with fresh butter, and then put a thick layer o' smearkase on top o' that, and then got about a quart o' cool milk, that was half cream, from ono o' the crocks, and then—"
"Shot up, Si," shouted Shorty, desperately. "Do you want me to bang you over the head with my97 musket? Do you s'pose I kin stand everything? But I believe there's jest sich a spring-house down there, and we'll find it plumb-full o' all them sort o' things. Le's mosey on."
"Do you think there's any rebels around here?" said Si, the caution which experience had taught him making a temporary reassertion of itself.
"Naw," said Shorty, contemtpuously, "there ain't no rebel this side o' the Duck River, unless some straggler, who'd run if he saw us. If we ketch sight o' one we'll take him into camp, jest to gratify you. But I ain't lookin' for none. Buttermilk and cornpone's what I want."
The scene was certainly peaceful enough to justify Shorty's confidence. A calmer, quieter landscape could not have been found in the whole country. A negro was plowing in a distant field, with occasional sonorous yells to his team. He did not seem to notice the soldiers, nor did a gray-haired white man who was sitting on the fence superintending him. A couple of negresses were washing the family linen by a fire under a large kettle on the creek bank, at some distance from the house, and spreading the cleansed garments out on the grass to dry and bleach. Cattle and horses were feeding on the fresh Spring grass and sheep browsing on the bushes on the hillside. Hens cackled and roosters crowed; the guineas, ever on the lookout, announced their approach with shrill, crackling notes. Two or three dogs waked up and barked lazily at them as they walked up the path to where an elderly, spectacled woman sat on the porch knitting. She raised98 her eyes and threw her spectacles on top of her head, and looked curiously at them.
Whatever faint misgivings Si might have had vanished at the utter peacefulness of the scene. It was so like the old home that he had left that he could not imagine that war existed anywhere near. It seemed as if the camp at Murfreesboro' and the bloody field of Stone River must be a thousand miles away. The beds of roses and pinks which bordered the walk were the same as decorated the front yard at home. There were the same clumps of snowballs and lilacs at the corners of the house.
"Howdy, gentlemen?" said the woman, as they came up.
It seemed almost a wrong and insult to be carrying deadly arms in the presence of such a woman, and Si and Shorty let their guns slip down, as if they were rather ashamed of them.
"Good day, ma'am," said Shorty, taking off his hat politely and wiping his face. "We're lookin' around to git some cornpone and buttermilk, and didn't know but what you might let us have some. We're willin' to pay for it."
"If you want suthin' to eat," said the woman promptly, "I kin gin it to ye. I never turn no hungry man away from my door. Wait a minnit and I'll bring ye some."
She disappeared inside the house, and Si remarked to Shorty:
"Your head's level this time, as it generally is. We'll git something that's worth while comin' after."
The woman reappeared with a couple of good-size corn-dodgers in her hand.99
"This appears to be all the bread that's left over from dinner," she said. "And the meat's all gone. But the wenches 'll be through their washin' purty soon, and then I'll have them cook ye some more, if ye'll wait."
"Thankee, ma'am," said Shorty; "we can't wait. This'll be a plenty, if we kin only git some buttermilk to go with it. We don't want no meat. We git plenty o' that in camp."
"You can have all the buttermilk you want to drink," she answered, "if you'll go down to the spring-house thar and git it. It's fresh, and you'll find a gourd right beside o' the jar. I'd go with you, but it allers gives me rheumatiz to go nigh the spring-house."
"Don't bother, ma'am, to go with us," said Shorty politely. "We are very much obliged to you, indeed, and we kin make out by ourselves. How much do we owe you?" And he pulled a greenback dollar from his pocket.
"Nothin', nothin' at all," said the woman hastily. "I don't sell vittels. Never thought o' sich a thing. Ye're welcome to all ye kin eat any time."
"Well, take the money, and let us ketch a couple of them chickens there," said Shorty, laying down the bill on the banister rail.
After a little demur the woman finally agreed to this, and picked up the money. The boys selected two fat chickens, ran them down, wrung their necks, and, after repeating their thanks, took their bread and started for the spring-house. They found it the coolest and most inviting place in the world on a hot, tiresome day—just such a spot as Shorty had100 described. It was built of rough stones, and covered with a moss-grown roof. A copious spring poured out a flood of clear, cool water, which flowed over white pebbles and clean-looking sand until it formed a cress-bordered rivulet just beyond the house. In the water sat crocks of fresh milk, a large jar of buttermilk, and buckets of butter. The looks, the cool, pure freshness of the place, were delightful101 contrasts from the tiresome smells and appearances of the camp kitchens. The boys reveled in the change. They forgot all about war's alarms, stood their rifles up against the side of the spring-house, washed their dust-grimed faces and hands in the pure water, dried them with their handkerchiefs, and prepared to enjoy their meal. How good the buttermilk tasted along with the cornpone. The fresh milk was also sampled, and some of the butter spread upon their bread.
Si even went to the point of declaring that it was almost as good as the things he used to eat at home, which was the highest praise he could possibly give to any food. Si never found anywhere victuals or cooking to equal that of his mother.
He was pointing out to Shorty, as they munched, the likenesses and unlikenesses of this spring-house to that on the Wabash, when they were startled by the stern command:
"Surrender, there, you infernal Yankees!"
They looked up with startled eyes to stare into a dozen muskets leveled straight at their heads from the willow thickets. Corn-dodgers and milk-gourds dropped into the water as they impulsively jumped to their feet.
"If yo'uns move we'uns 'll blow the lights outen yo'uns," shouted the leader of the rebels. "Hold up yer hands."
It was a moment of the most intense anguish that either of them had ever known. Their thoughts were lightning-like in rapidity. The rebel muzzles were not a rod away, their aim was true, and it102 would be madness to risk their fire, for it meant certain death.
The slightest move toward resistance was suicide.
Si gave a deep groan, and up went his hands at the same moment with Shorty's.
The rebels rushed out of the clump of willows behind which they had crept up on the boys, and surrounded them. Two snatched up their guns, and the others began pulling off their haversacks and other personal property as their own shares of the booty. In the midst of this, Si looked around, and saw the woman standing near calmly knitting.
"You ain't so afeared o' rheumatism all at once," he said bitterly.
"My rheumatiz has spells, young man, same ez other people's," she answered, pulling one of the needles out, and counting the stitches with it. "Sometimes it is better, and sometimes it is wuss. Jest now it is a great deal better, thankee. I only wisht I could toll the whole Yankee army to destruction ez easy ez you wuz. My, but ye walked right in, like the fly to the spider. I never had nothin' do my rheumatiz so much good."
And she cackled with delight. "When you git through," she continued, addressing the leader of the rebels, "come up to the house, and I'll have some dinner cooked for ye. I know ye're powerful tired an' hungry. I s'pose nothin' need be cooked for them," and she pointed her knitting-needle contemptuously at Si and Shorty. "Ole Satan will be purvidin' fur them. I'll take these along to cook fur ye."103
She gathered up the dead chickens and stalked back to the house.
"Ef we're gwine t' shoot they'uns le's take they'uns over thar on the knoll, whar they'uns won't spile nothin'," said one evil-looking man, who had just ransacked Si's pockets and appropriated everything in them. "Hit'd be too bad t' kill they'uns here right in sight o' the house."
"Le'me see them letters, Bushrod;" said the leader, snatching a package of letters and Annabel's picture out of the other's hand. "Mebbe thar's some news in them that the Captain'd like to have."
Si gnashed his teeth as he saw the cherished missives rudely torn open and scanned, and especially when the ambrotype case was opened and Annabel's features made the subject of coarse comment. The imminent prospect of being murdered had a much lighter pang.
While the letters and ambrotype were being looked over the process of robbery was going on. One had snatched Si's cap, another had pulled off his blouse, and there was a struggle as to who should have possession of his new Government shoes, which were regarded as a great prize. Si had resisted this spoliation, but was caught from behind and held, despite his kicks and struggles, while the shoes were pulled off. Shorty was treated in the same way.
In a few minutes both, exhausted by their vigorous resistance, were seated on the ground, with nothing left on them but their pantaloons, while their captors were quarreling over the division of their personal effects, and as to what disposition was to be made of them. In the course of the discussion104 the boys learned that they had been captured by a squad of young men from the immediate neighborhood, who had been allowed to go home on furlough, had been gathered together when the regiment appeared, and had been watching every movement from safe coverts. They had seen Si and Shorty leave, and had carefully dogged their steps until such moment as they could pounce on them.
"Smart as we thought we wuz," said Si bitterly, "we played right into their hands. They tracked us down jest as if we'd bin a couple o' rabbits, and ketched us jest when they wanted us."
He gave a groan which Shorty echoed.
Bushrod and two others were for killing the two boys then and there and ending the matter.
"They orter be killed, Ike, right here," said Bushrod to the leader. "They deserve it, and we'uns hain't got no time to fool. We'uns can't take they'uns back with we'uns, ef we wanted to, and I for one don't want to. I'd ez soon have a rattlesnake around me."
But Ike, the leader, was farther-seeing. He represented to the others the vengeance the Yankees would take on the people of the neighborhood if they murdered the soldiers.
This developed another party, who favored taking the prisoners to some distance and killing them there, so as to avoid the contingency that Ike had set forth. Then there were propositions to deliver them over to the guerrilla leaders, to be disposed of as they pleased.
Finally, it occurred to Ike that they were talking entirely too freely before the prisoners, unless they105 intended to kill them outright, for they were giving information in regard to the position and operations of rebel bands that might prove dangerous. He drew his squad off a little distance to continue the discussion. At first they kept their eyes on the prisoners and their guns ready to fire, but as they talked they lost their watchful attitude in the eagerness of making their points.
Si looked at Shorty, and caught an answering gleam. Like a flash both were on their feet and started on a mad rush for the fence. Bushrod saw106 them start, and fired. His bullet cut off a lock of Si's auburn hair. Others fired as fast as they could bring their guns up, and the bullets sang viciously around, but none touched the fugitives. Their bare feet were torn by the briars as they ran, but they thought not of these. They plunged into the blackberry briars along the fence, climbed it, and gained the road some distance ahead of their pursuers, who were not impelled by the fear of immediate death to spur them on. Up the road went Si and Shorty with all the speed that will-power could infuse into their legs. Some of the rebels stopped to reload; the others ran after. A score of noisy dogs suddenly waked up and joined in the pursuit. The old white man mounted his horse and came galloping toward the house.
On the boys ran, gaining, if anything, upon the foremost of the rebels. The dogs came nearer, but before they could do any harm the boys halted for an instant and poured such a volley of stones into them that they ran back lamed and yelping. The fleetest-footed of the rebels, who was the sanguinary Bushrod, also came within a stone's throw, and received a well-aimed bowlder from Si's muscular hand full in his face. This cheered the boys so that they ran ahead with increased speed, and finally gained the top of the hill from which they had first seen the farmhouse.
They looked back and saw their enemies still after them. Ike had taken the old man's horse and was coming on a gallop. They knew he had a revolver, and shivered at the thought. But both stooped and selected the best stones to throw, to attack him with107 as soon as he came within range. They halted a minute to get their breath and nerve for the good effort. Ike had reached a steep, difficult part of the road, where his horse had to come down to a walk and pick his way.
"Now, Si," said Shorty, "throw for your life, if you never did before. I'm goin' to git him. You take his horse's head. Aim for that white blaze in his forehead."
Si concentrated his energy into one supreme effort.108
He could always beat the rest of the boys in throwing stones, and now his practice was to save him. He flung the smooth, round pebble with terrific force, and it went true to its mark. The horse reared with his rider just at the instant that a bowlder from Shorty's hand landed on Ike's breast. The rebel fell to the ground, and the boys ran on.
At the top of the next hill they saw the regiment marching leisurely along at the foot of the hill. It was so unexpected a deliverance that it startled them. It seemed so long since they had left the regiment that it might have been clear back to Nashville. They yelled with all their remaining strength, and tore down the hill. Co. Q saw them at once, and at the command of the Captain came forward at the double-quick. The rebels had in the meanwhile gained the top of the hill. A few shots were fired at them as they turned from the chase.
The Colonel rode back and questioned the boys. Then he turned to the Captain of Co. Q and said:
"Captain, take your company over to that house. If you find anything that you think we need in camp, bring it back with you. Put these boys in the ambulance."
The exhausted Si and Shorty were helped into the ambulance, the Surgeon gave them a reviving drink of whisky and quinine, and as they stretched themselves out on the cushioned seats Si remarked:
"Shorty, we ain't ez purty ez we used to be, but we know a durned sight more."
"I doubt it," said Shorty surlily. "I think me and you'll be fools as long as we live. We won't be fools the same way agin, you kin bet your life, but we'll find some other way."
IT TOOK many days for the boys' lacerated feet to recover sufficiently to permit their going about and returning to duty. They spent the period of enforced idleness in chewing the cud of bitter reflection. The thorns had cut far more painfully into their pride than into their feet. The time was mostly passed in moody silence, very foreign to the customary liveliness of the Hoosier's Rest. They only spoke to one another on the most necessary subjects, and then briefly. In their sour shame at the whole thing they even became wroth with each other. Shorty sneered at the way Si cleaned up the house, and Si condemned Shorty's cooking. Thenceforth Shorty slept on the floor, while Si occupied the bed, and they cooked their meals separately. The newness of the clothes they drew from the Quartermaster angered them, and they tried to make them look as dirty and shabby as the old.
Once they were on the point of actually coming to blows.
Si had thoughtlessly flung some dishwater into the company street. It was a misdemeanor that in ordinary times would have been impossible to him. Now almost anything was.
Shorty instantly growled:110
"You slouch, you ought to go to the guard-house for that."
Si retorted hotly:
"Slouch yourself! Look where you throwed them coffee-grounds this morning," and he pointed to the tell-tale evidence beside the house.
"Well, that ain't near so bad," said Shorty crustily. "That at least intended to be tidy."
"Humph," said Si, with supreme disdainfulness. "It's the difference betwixt sneakin' an' straightout. I throwed mine right out in the street. You tried to hide yours, and made it all the nastier. But111 whatever you do's all right. Whatever I do's all wrong. You're a pill."
"Look here, Mister Klegg," said Shorty, stepping forward with doubled fist, "I'll have you understand that I've took all the slack and impudence from you that I'm a-goin' to."
"Shorty, if you double your fist up at me," roared the irate Si, "I'll knock your head off in a holy minute."
The boys of Co. Q were thunderstruck. It seemed as if their world was toppling when two such partners should disagree. They gathered around in voiceless sorrow and wonderment and watched, developments.
Shorty seemed in the act of springing forward, when the sharp roll of the drum at Headquarters beating the "assembly" arrested all attention. Everyone looked eagerly toward the Colonel's tent, and saw him come out buckling on his sword, while his Orderly sped away for his horse. Apparently, all the officers had been in consultation with him, for they were hurrying away to their several companies.
"Fall in, Co. Q," shouted the Orderly-Sergeant. "Fall in promptly."
Everybody made a rush for his gun and equipments.
"Hurry up. Orderly," said Capt. McGillicuddy, coming up with his sword and belt in hand. "Let the boys take what rations they can lay their hands on, but not stop to cook any. We've got to go on the jump."
All was rush and hurry. Si and Shorty bolted for their house, forgetful of their mangled feet. Si112 got in first, took his gun and cartridge-box down, and buckled on his belt. He looked around for his rations while Shorty was putting on his things. His bread and meat and Shorty's were separate, and there was no trouble about them. But the coffee and sugar had not been divided, and were in common receptacles. He opened the coffee-can and looked in. There did not seem to be more than one ration there. He hesitated a brief instant what to do. It would serve Shorty just right to take all the coffee. He liked his coffee even better than Shorty did, and was very strenuous about having it. If he did not take it Shorty might think that he was either anxious to make up or afraid, and he wanted to demonstrate that he was neither. Then there was a twinge that it would be mean to take the coffee, and leave his partner, senseless and provoking as he seemed, without any. He set the can down, and, turning as if to look for something to empty it in, pretended to hear something outside the house to make him forget it, and hurried out.
Presently Shorty came out, and ostentatiously fell into line at a distance from Si. It was the first time they had not stood shoulder to shoulder.
The Orderly-Sergeant looked down the line, and called out:
"Here, Corp'l Klegg, you're not fit to go. Neither are you, Shorty. Step out, both of you."
"Yes, I'm all right," said Shorty. "Feet's got well. I kin outwalk a Wea Injun."
"Must've bin using some Lightning Elixir Liniment," said the Orderly-Sergeant incredulously.. "I saw you both limping around like string-halted113 horses not 15 minutes ago. Step out, I tell you."
"Captain, le' me go along," pleaded Si. "You never knowed me to fall out, did you?"
"Captain, I never felt activer in my life," asserted Shorty; "and you know I always kept up. I never played sore-foot any day."
"I don't believe either of you're fit to go," said Capt. McGillicuddy, "but I won't deny you. You may start, anyway. By the time we get to the pickets you can fall out if you find you can't keep up."
"The rebel calvary's jumped a herd of beef cattle out at pasture, run off the guard, and are trying to get away with them," the Orderly-Sergeant hurriedly explained as he lined up Co. Q. "We're to make a short cut across the country and try to cut them off. Sir, the company's formed."
"Attention, Co. Q!" shouted Capt. McGillicuddy. "Right face!—Forward, file left!—March!"
The company went off at a terrific pace to get its place with the regiment, which had already started without it.
Though every step was a pang. Si and Shorty kept up unflinchingly. Each was anxious to outdo the other, and to bear off bravery before the company. The Captain and Orderly-Sergeant took an occasional look at them until they passed the picket-line, when other more pressing matters engaged the officers' attention.
The stampeded guards, mounted on mules or condemned horses, or running on foot, came tearing back, each with a prodigious tale of the numbers and ferocity of the rebels.114
The regiment was pushed forward with all the speed there was in it, going down-hill and over the level stretch at a double-quick. Si felt his feet bleeding, and it seemed at times that he could not go another step, but then he would look back down the line and catch a glimpse of Shorty keeping abreast of his set of fours, and he would spur himself to renewed effort. Shorty would long to throw himself in a fence-corner and rest for a week, until, as they went over some rise, he would catch sight of Si's sandy hair, well in the lead, when he would drink in fresh determination to keep up, if he died in the attempt.
Presently they arrived at the top of the hill from which they could see the rebel cavalry rounding up and driving off the cattle, while a portion of the enemy's horsemen were engaged in a fight with a small squad of infantry ensconced behind a high rail fence.
Si and Shorty absolutely forgot their lameness as Co. Q separated from the column and rushed to the assistance of the squad, while the rest of the regiment turned off to the right to cut off the herd. But they were lame all the same, and tripped and fell over a low fence which the rest of the company easily leaped. They gathered themselves up, sat on the ground for an instant, and glared at one another.
"Blamed old tangle-foot," said Shorty derisively.
"You've got hoofs like a foundered hoss," retorted Si.
After this interchange of compliments they staggered painfully to their feet and picked up their115 guns, which were thrown some distance from their hands as they fell.
By this time Co. Q was a quarter of a mile away, and already beginning to fire on the rebels, who showed signs of relinquishing the attack.
"Gol darn the luck!" said Si with Wabash emphasis, beginning to limp forward.
"Wish the whole outfit was a mile deep in burnin' brimstone," wrathfully observed Shorty.
A couple of lucky shots had emptied two of the rebel saddles. The frightened horses turned away from the fighting line, and galloped down the road to the right of the boys. The leading one suddenly halted in a fence-corner about 30 yards away from Si, threw up his head and began surveying the scene, as if undecided what to do next. The other, seeing his mate stop, began circling around.
Hope leaped up in Si's breast. He began creeping toward the first horse, under the covert of the sumach. Shorty saw his design and the advantage it would give Si, and, standing still, began swearing worse than ever.
Si crept up as cautiously as he had used to in the old days when he was rabbit-hunting. The horse thrust his head over the fence, and began nibbling at a clump of tall rye growing there. Si thrust his hand out and caught his bridle. The horse made one frightened plunge, but the hand on his bridle held with the grip of iron, and he settled down to mute obedience.
Si set his gun down in the fence-corner and climbed into the saddle.
Shorty made the Spring air yellow with profanity116 until he saw Si ride away from his gun toward the other horse. When the latter saw his mate, with a rider, coming toward him he gave a whinney and dashed forward. In an instant Si had hold of his bridle and was turning back. His face was bright with triumph. Shorty stopped in the middle of a soul-curdling oath and yelled delightedly:
"Bully for old Wabash! You're my pardner after all Si."
He hastened forward to the fence, grabbed up Si's gun and handed it to him and then climbed into the other saddle.
The rebels were now falling back rapidly before Co. Q's fire. A small part detached itself and started down a side road.
Si and Shorty gave a yell, and galloped toward them, in full sight of Co. Q. who raised a cheer. The rebels spurred their horses, but Si and Shorty gained on them.
"Come on. Shorty." Si yelled. "I don't believe they've got a shot left. They hain't fired once since they started."
He was right. Their cartridge-boxes had been emptied.
At the bottom of the hill a creek crossing the road made a deep, wide quagmire. The rebels were in too much hurry to pick out whatever road there might have been through it. Their leaders plunged in, their horses sank nearly to the knees, and the whole party bunched up.
"Surrender, you rebel galoots." yelled Si reining up at a little distance, and bringing his gun to bear.117
"Surrender, you off-scourings of secession," added Shorty.
The rebels looked back, held up their hands, and said imploringly:
"Don't shoot, Mister. We'uns give up. We'uns air taylored."
"Come back up here, one by one," commanded Si,118 "and go to our rear. Hold on to your guns. Don't throw 'em away. We ain't afraid of 'em."
One by one the rebels extricated their horses from the mire with more or less difficulty and filed back. Si kept his gun on those in the quagmire, while Shorty attended to the others as they came back. Co. Q was coming to his assistance as fast as the boys could march.
What was the delight of the boys to recognize in their captives the squad which had captured them. The sanguinary Bushrod was the first to come back, and Si had to restrain a violent impulse to knock him off his horse with his gun-barrel. But he decided to settle with him when through with the present business.
By the time the rebels were all up, Co. Q had arrived on the scene. As the prisoners were being disarmed and put under guard, Si called out to Capt. McGillicuddy:
"Captain, one o' these men is my partickler meat. I want to 'tend to him."
"All right. Corporal," responded the Captain, "attend to him, but don't be too rough on him. Remember that he is an unarmed prisoner."
Si and Shorty got down off their horses, and approached Bushrod, who turned white as death, trembled violently, and began to beg.
"Gentlemen, don't kill me," he whined. "I'm a poor man, an' have a fambly to support. I didn't mean nothin' by what I said. I sw'ar't' Lord A'mighty I didn't."
"Jest wanted to hear yourself talk—jest practicin' your voice," said Shorty sarcastically, as he took the119 man by the shoulder and pulled him off into the bush by the roadside. "Jest wanted to skeer us, and see how fast we could run. Pleasant little pastime, eh?" "And them things you said about a young lady up in Injianny," said Si, clutching him by the throat.
"I want to wring your neck jest like a chicken's. What'd you do with her picture and letters?"
Si thrust his hand unceremoniously into Bushrod's pocket and found the ambrotype of Annabel. A brief glance showed him that it was all right, and he gave a sigh of satisfaction, which showed some amelioration of temper toward the captive.120
"What'd you do with them letters?" Si demanded fiercely.
"Ike has 'em," said Bushrod.
"You've got my shoes on, you brindle whelp," said Shorty, giving him a cuff in bitter remembrance of his own smarting feet.
"If we're goin' to shoot him, let's do it right off," said Si, looking at the cap on his gun. "The company's gittin' ready to start back."
"All right," said Shorty, with cheerful alacrity. "Johnny, your ticket for a brimstone supper's made out. How'd you rather be shot—standin' or kneelin'?"
"O, gentlemen, don't kill be. Ye hadn't orter. Why do ye pick me out to kill? I wuzzent no wuss'n the others. I wuzzent rayly half ez bad. I didn't rayly mean t' harm ye. I only talked. I had t' talk that-a-way, for I alluz was a Union man, and had t' make a show for the others. I don't want t' be shot at all."
"You ain't answerin' my question," said Shorty coolly and inexorably. "I asked you how you preferred to be shot. These other things you mention hain't nothin' to do with my question."
He leveled his gun at the unhappy man and took a deliberate sight.
"O, for the Lord A'mighty's sake, don't shoot me down like a dog," screamed Bushrod. "Le'me have a chance to pray, an' make my peace with my Maker."
"All right," conceded Shorty, "go and kneel down there by that cottonwood, and do the fastest prayin* you ever did in all your born days, for you have need of it. We'll shoot when I count three. You'd121 better make a clean breast of all your sins and transgressions before you go. You'll git a cooler place in the camp down below."
Unseen, the rest of Co. Q were peeping through the bushes and enjoying the scene.
Bushrod knelt down with his face toward the Cottonwood, and began an agonized prayer, mingled with confessions of crimes and malefactions, some flagrant, some which brought a grin of amusement to the faces of Co. Q.
"One!" called out Shorty in stentorian tones.
"O, for the love o' God, Mister, don't shoot me," yelled Bushrod, whirling around, with uplifted arms. "I'm too wicked to die, an' I've got a fambly dependin' on me."
"Turn around there, and finish your prayin'," sternly commanded Shorty, with his and Si's faces down to the stocks of their muskets, in the act of taking deliberate aim.
Bushrod flopped around, threw increased vehemence into his prayer, and resumed his recital of his misdeeds.
"Two!" counted Shorty.
Again Bushrod whirled around with uplifted hands and begged for mercy.
"Nary mercy," said Shorty. "You wouldn't give it to us, and you hain't given it to many others, according to your own account. Your light's flickerin', and we'll blow it out at the next count. Turn around, there."
Bushrod made the woods ring this time with his fervent, tearful appeals to the Throne of Grace. He was so wrought up by his impending death that he122 did not hear Co. Q quietly move away, at a sign from the Captain, with Si and Shorty mounting their horses and riding off noiselessly over the sod.
For long minutes Bushrod continued his impassioned appeals at the top of his voice, expecting every instant to have the Yankee bullets crash through his brain. At length he had to stop from lack of breath. Everything was very quiet—deathly so, it seemed to him. He stole a furtive glance around. No Yankees could be seen out of the tail of his eye on either side. Then he looked squarely around. None was visible anywhere. He jumped up, began cursing savagely, ran into the road, and started for home. He had gone but a few steps when he came squarely in front of the musket of the Orderly-Sergeant of Co. Q, who had placed himself in concealment to see the end of the play and bring him along.
"Halt, there," commanded the Orderly-Sergeant; "face the other way and trot. We must catch up with the company."
Si and Shorty felt that they had redeemed themselves, and returned to camp in such good humor with each other, and everybody else, that they forgot that their feet were almost as bad as ever.
They went into the house and began cooking their supper together again. Shorty picked up the coffeecan and said:
"Si Klegg, you're a gentleman all through, if you was born on the Wabash. A genuine gentleman is knowed by his never bein' no hog under no circumstances. I watched you when you looked into this coffee-can, and mad as I was at you, I said you was a thorobred when you left it all to me."
A LIGHT spring wagon, inscribed "United States Sanitary Commission," drove through the camp of the 200th Ind., under the charge of a dignified man with a clerical cast of countenance, who walked alongside, looking at the soldiers and into the tents, and stopping from time to time to hand a can of condensed milk to this one, a jar of jam to another, and bunches of tracts to whomsoever would take them.
Shorty was sitting in front of the house bathing his aching feet. The man stopped before him, and looked compassionately at his swollen pedals.
"Your feet are in a very bad way, my man," he said sadly.
"Yes, durn 'em," said Shorty impatiently. "I don't seem to git 'em well nohow. Must've got 'em pizened when I was runnin' through the briars."
"Probably some ivy or poison-oak, or nightshade among the briars. Poison-oak is very bad, and nightshade is deadly. I knew a man once that had to have his hand amputated on account of getting poisoned by something that scratched him—nightshade, ivy, or poison-oak. I'm afraid your feet are beginning to mortify."
"Well, you are a Job's comforter," thought Shorty.124
"You'd be nice to send for when a man's sick. You'd scare him to death, even if there was no danger o' his dyin'."
"My friend," said the man, turning to his wagon, "I've here a nice pair of home-made socks, which I will give you, and which will come in nicely if you save your legs. If you don't, give them to some needy man. Here are also some valuable tracts, full of religious consolation and advice, which it will do your soul good to peruse and study."
Shorty took the gift thankfully, and turned over the tracts with curiosity.
"On the Sin of Idolatry," he read the title of the first.
"Now, why'd he give that? What graven image have I bin worshipin'? What gods of wood and stone have I bin bowin' down before in my blindness? There've bin times when I thought a good deal more of a Commissary tent then I did of a church, but I got cured of that as soon as I got a square meal. I don't see where I have bin guilty of idolatry.
"On the Folly of Self-Pride," he read from the next one. "Humph, there may be something in that that I oughter read. I am very liable to git stuck on myself, and think how purty I am, and how graceful, and how sweetly I talk, and what fine cloze I wear. Especially the cloze. I'll put that tract in my pocket an' read it after awhile."
"On the Evils of Gluttony," he next read. "Well, that's a timely tract, for a fact. I'm in the habit o' goin' around stuffin' myself, as this says, with delicate viands, and drinkin' fine wines—'makin' my belly a god.' The man what wrote this must've bin125 intimately acquainted with the sumptuous meals which Uncle Sam sets before his nephews. He must've knowed all about the delicate, apetizin' flavor of a slab o' fat pork four inches thick, taken off the side of the hog that's uppermost when he's laying on his back. And how I gormandize on hardtack baked in the first place for the Revolutioners, and kept over ever since. That feller knows jest what he's writin' about. I'd like to exchange photographs with him."
"Thou Shalt Not Swear." Shorty read a few words, got red in the face, whistled softly, crumpled the tract up, and threw it away.
"On the Sin of Dancing," Shorty yelled with laughter. "Me dance with these hoofs! And he thinks likely mortification'll set in, and I'll lose 'em altogether. Well, he oughter be harnessed up with Thompson's colt. Which'd come out ahead in the race for the fool medal? But these seem to be nice socks. Fine yarn, well-knit, and by stretching a little I think I kin get 'em on. I declare, they're beauties. I'll jest make Si sick with envy when I show 'em to him. I do believe they lay over anything his mother ever sent him. Hello, what's this?"
He extracted from one of them a note in a small, white envelope, on one end of which was a blue Zouave, with red face, hands, cap and gaiters, brandishing a red sword in defense of a Star Spangled Banner which he held in his left hand.
"Must belong to the Army o' the Potomac," mused Shorty, studying the picture. "They wear all sorts o' outlandish uniforms there. That red-headed woodpecker'd be shot before he'd git a mile o' the rebels out here. All that hollyhock business'd jest be meat126 for their sharpshooters. And what's he doin' with that 'ere sword? I wouldn't give that Springfield rifle o' mine for all the swords that were ever hammered out. When I reach for a feller 600 or even 800 yards away I kin fetch him every time. He's my meat unless he jumps behind a tree. But as for swords, I never could see no sense in 'em except for officers to put on lugs with. I wouldn't pack one a mile for a wagonload of 'em."
He looked at the address on the envelope. Straight lines had been scratched across with a pin. On these was written, in a cramped, mincing hand:
"To the brave soljer who Gits these Socks."
"Humph," mused Shorty, "that's probably for me. I've got the socks, and I'm a soldier. As to whether I'm brave or not's a matter of opinion. Sometimes I think I am; agin, when there's a dozen rebel guns pinted at my head, not 10 feet away, I think I'm not. But we'll play that I'm brave enough to have this intended for me, and I'll open it."
On the sheet of paper inside was another valorous red-and-blue Zouave defending the flag with drawn sword. On it was written:
"Bad Ax, Wisconsin,
"Janooary the 14th, 1863.
"Braiv Soljer: I doant know who you air, or whair you may
bee; I only know that you air serving your country, and
that is enuf to entitle to the gratitude and afl'ection of
every man and woman who has the breath of patriotism in
their bodies.
"I am anxious to do something all the time, very little
though it may be, to help in some way the men127 who air
fiting the awful battles for me, and for every man and woman
in the country.
"I send these socks now as my latest contribution. They aint
much, but I've put my best work on them, and I hoap they
will be useful and comfortable to some good, braiv man.
"How good you may be I doant know, but you air sertingly a
much better man than you would be if you was not fiting for
the Union. I hoap you air a regler, consistent Christian.
Ide prefer you to be a Methodist Episcopal, but any church
is much better than none.
"He be glad to heer that you have received these things all
rite.
"Sincerely your friend and well-wisher,
"Jerusha Ellen Briggs."
Although Shorty was little inclined to any form of reading, and disliked handwriting about as much as he did work on the fortifications, he read the letter over several times, until he had every word in it and every feature of the labored, cramped penmanship thoroughly imprinted on his mind. Then he held it off at arm's length for some time, and studied it with growing admiration. It seemed to him the most wonderful epistle that ever emanated from any human hand. A faint scent of roses came from it to help the fascination.
"I'll jest bet my head agin a big red apple," he soliloquized, "the woman that writ that's the purtiest girl in the State o' Wisconsin. I'll bet there's nothin' in Injianny to hold a candle to her, purty as Si thinks his Annabel is. And smart—my! Jest look at that letter. That tells it. Every word spelled correckly,128 and the grammar away up in G. Annabel's a mighty nice girl, and purty, too, but I've noticed she makes mistakes in spelling, and her grammar's the Wabash kind—home-made."
He drew down his eyebrows, pursed his lips, and assumed a severely critical look for a reperusal of the letter and judgment upon it according to the highest literary standards.
"No, sir," he said, with an air of satisfaction, "not a blamed mistake in it, from beginnin' to end. Every word spelled jest right, the grammar straight as the Ten Commandments, every t crossed and i dotted accordin' to regulashuns and the Constitushun of the United States. She must be a school-teacher, and yit a school-teacher couldn't knit sich socks as them. She's a lady, every inch of her. Religious, too. Belongs to the Methodist Church. Si's father's a Baptist, and so's my folks, but I always did think a heap o' the Methodists. I think they have a little nicer girls than the Baptists. I think I'd like to marry a Methodist wife."
Then he blushed vividly, all to himself, to think how fast his thoughts had traveled. He returned to the letter, to cover his confusion.
"Bad Ax, Wis. What a queer name for a place. Never heard of it before. Wonder where in time it is? I'd like awfully to know. There's the 1st and 21st Wis. in Rousseau's Division, and the 10th Wis. Battery in Palmer's Division. I might go over there and ask some o' them. Mebbe some of 'em are right from there. I'll bet it's a mighty nice place."
He turned to the signature with increased interest.
"Jerusha Ellen Briggs. Why, the name itself is129 reg'lar poetry. Jerusha is awful purty. Your Mollies and Sallies and Emmies can't hold a candle to it. And Annabel—pshaw! Ellen—why that's my mother's name. Briggs? I knowed some Briggses once away-up, awfully nice people. Seems to me they wuz Presbyterians, though, and I always thought that Presbyterians wuz stuck-up, but they wuzzent stuck-up a mite. I wonder if Miss Jerusha Ellen Briggs—she must be a Miss—haint some beau? But she can't have. If he wuzzent in the army she wouldn't have him; and if he was in the army she'd be sending the socks to him, instead of to whom it may concern."
This brilliant bit of logic disposed of a sudden fear which had been clutching at his heart. It tickled him so much that he jumped up, slapped his breast, and grinned delightedly and triumphantly at the whole landscape.
"What's pleasin' you so mightily. Shorty?" asked Si, who had just come up. "Got a new system for beatin' chuck-a-luck, or bin promoted?"
"No, nothin'! Nothin's happened," said Shorty curtly, as he hastily shoved the letter into his blouse pocket. "Will you watch them beans bilin' while I go down to the spring and git some water?"
He picked up the camp-kettle and started. He wanted to be utterly alone, even from Si, with his new-born thought. He did not go directly to the spring, but took another way to a clump of pawpaw bushes, which would hide him from the observation of everyone. There he sat down, pulled out the letter again, and read it over carefully, word by word.
"Wants me to write whether I got the socks," he130 mused. "You jest bet I will. I've a great mind to ask for a furlough to go up to Wisconsin, and find out Bad Ax. I wonder how fur it is. I'll go over to the Suiter's and git some paper and envelopes, and write to her this very afternoon."
He carried his camp-kettle back to the house, set it down, and making some excuse, set off for the Sutler's shop.
"Le'me see your best paper and envelopes," he said to the pirate who had license to fleece the volunteers.
"Awfully common trash," said Shorty, looking over the assortment disdainfully, for he wanted something superlatively fine for his letter. "Why don't you git something fit for a gentleman to write to a lady on? Something with gold edges on the paper and envelopes, and perfumed? I never write to a lady except on gilt-edged paper, smellin' o' bergamot, and musk, and citronella, and them things. I don't think it's good taste."
"Well, think what you please," said the Sutler. "That's all the kind I have, and that's all the kind you'll git. Take it or leave it."
Shorty finally selected a quire of heavy letter paper and a bunch of envelopes, both emblazoned with patriotic and warlike designs in brilliant red and blue.
"Better take enough," he said to himself. "I've been handlin' a pick and shovel and gun so much that I'm afeared my hand isn't as light as it used to be, and I'll have to spile several sheets before I git it just right."
On his way back he decided to go by the camp of131 one of the Wisconsin regiments and learn what he could of Bad Ax and its people.
"Is there a town in your State called Bad Ax?" he asked of the first man he met with "Wis." on his cap.
"Cert'," was the answer. "And another one called Milwaukee, one called Madison, and another called Green Bay. Are you studying primary geography, or just getting up a postoffice directory?"
"Don't be funny, Skeezics," said Shorty severely. "Know anything about it? Mighty nice place, ain't it?"
"Know anything about it? I should say so. My folks live in Bad Ax County. It's the toughest, ornerist little hole in the State. Run by lead-miners. More whisky-shanties than dwellings. It's tough, I tell you."
"I believe you're an infernal liar," said Shorty, turning away in wrath.
Not being fit for duty, he could devote all his time to the composition of the letter. He was so wrought up over it that he could not eat much dinner, which alarmed Si.
"What's the matter with your appetite. Shorty?" he asked. "Haint bin eatin' nothin' that disagreed with you, have you?
"Naw," answered Shorty impatiently; "nothin' wuss'n army rations. They always disagree with me when I'm layin' around doin' nothin'. Why, in the name of goodness, don't the army move? I've got sick o' the sight o' every cedar and rocky knob in Middle Tennessee. We ought to go down and take a look at things around Tullahoma, where Mr. Bragg132 is."
It was Si's turn to clean up after dinner, and, making an excuse of going over into another camp to see a man who had arrived there, Shorty, with his paper and envelopes concealed under his blouse, and Si's pen and wooden ink-stand furtively conveyed to his pocket, picked up the checkerboard when Si's back was turned, and made his way to the pawpaw thicket, where he could be unseen and unmolested in the greatest literary undertaking of his life.
He took a comfortable seat on a rock, spread the paper on the checkerboard, and then began vigorously chewing the end of the penholder to stimulate his thoughts.
It had been easy to form the determination to write; the desire to do so was irresistible, but never before had he been confronted with a task which seemed so overwhelming. Compared with it, struggling with a mule-train all day through the mud and rain, working with pick and shovel on the fortifications, charging an enemy's solid line-of-battle, appeared light and easy performances. He would have gone at either, on the instant, at the word of command, or without waiting for it, with entire confidence in his ability to master the situation. But to write a half-dozen lines to a strange girl, whom he had already enthroned as a lovely divinity, had more terrors than all of Bragg's army could induce.
But when Shorty set that somewhat thick head of his upon the doing of a thing, the thing was tolerably certain to be done in some shape or another.
"I believe, if I knowed whore Bad Ax was, I'd git a furlough, and walk clean there, rather than write a line," he said, as he wiped from his brow the sweat133 forced out by the labor of his mind. "I always did hate writin'. I'd rather maul rails out of a twisted elm log any day than fill up a copy book. But it's got to be done, and the sooner I do it the sooner the agony 'll be over. Here goes."
He began laboriously forming each letter with his lips, and still more laboriously with his stiff fingers, adding one to another, until he had traced out:
"Headquarters Co. Q, 200th Injianny Volunteer Infantry,
Murfreesboro, Aprile the 16th eighteen hundred & sixty
three."
The sweat stood out in beads upon his forehead after this effort, but it was as nothing compared to the strain of deciding how he should address his correspondent. He wanted to use some term of fervent admiration, but fear deterred him. He debated the question with himself until his head fairly ached, when he settled upon the inoffensive phrase:
"Respected Lady."
The effort was so exhausting that he had to go down to the spring, take a deep drink of cold water, and bathe his forehead. But his determination was unabated, and before the sun went down he had produced the following:
"i talk mi pen in hand 2 inform U that ive reseeved the SOX
U so kindly cent, & i thank U 1,000 times 4 them. They are
boss sox & no mistake. They are the bossest sox that ever
wuz nit. The man is a lire who sez they aint. He dassent tel
Me so. U are a boss nitter. Even Misses Clinkun can't hold a
candle 2 U.
"The sox fit me 2 a t, but that is becaws they are nit so
wel, & stretch."134
"I wish I knowed some more real strong words to praise her knitting," said Shorty, reading over the laboriously-written lines. "But after I have said they're boss what more is there to say? I spose I ought to say something about her health next. That's polite." And he wrote:
"ime in fair helth, except my feet are" locoed, & i weigh
156 pounds, & hope U are injoying the saim blessing."
"I expect I ought to praise her socks a little more," said he, and wrote:
"The SOX are jest boss. They outrank anything in the Army of
the Cumberland."
After this effort he was compelled to take a long rest. Then he communed with himself:
"When a man's writin' to a lady, and especially an educated lady, he should always throw in a little poetry. It touches her."
There was another period of intense thought, and then he wrote:
"Dan Elliott is my name,
& single is my station,
Injianny is mi dwelling place,
& Christ is mi salvation."
"Now," he said triumphantly, "that's neat and effective. It tells her a whole lot about me, and makes her think I know Shakspere by heart. Wonder if I can't think o' some more? Hum—hum. Yes, here goes:
"The rose is red, the vilet's blue;
ime 4 the Union, so are U."
Shorty was so tickled over this happy conceit that he fairly hugged himself, and had to read it over135 several times to admire its beauty. But it left him too exhausted for any further mental labor than to close up with:
"No moar at present, from yours til death.
"Dan Elliott,
"Co. Q, 200th injianny Volunteer Infantry."
He folded up the missive, put it into an envelope, carefully directed to Miss Jerusha Ellen Briggs, Bad Ax, Wis., and after depositing it in the box at the Chaplain's tent, plodded homeward, feeling more tired than after a day's digging on the fortifications. Yet his fatigue was illuminated by the shimmering light of a fascinating hope.
THE 200th Ind. Volunteer Infantry had been pushed out to watch the crossings of Duck River and the movements of the rebels on the south bank of that narrow stream. The rebels, who had fallen into the incurable habit of objecting to everything that the "Yankees" did, seemed to have especial and vindictive repugnance to being watched.
Probably no man, except he be an actor or a politician, likes to be watched, but few ever showed themselves as spitefully resentful of observation as the rebels.
Co. Q was advanced to picket the north bank of the river, but the moment it reached the top of the hill overlooking the stream it had to deploy as skirmishers, and Enfield bullets began to sing viciously about its ears.
"Looks as if them fellers think we want to steal their old river and send it North," said Shorty, as he reloaded his gun after firing at a puff of smoke that had come out of the sumach bushes along the fence at the foot of the hill. "They needn't be so grouchy. We don't want their river—only to use it awhile. They kin have it back agin after we're through with it."
"Blamed if that feller didn't make a good line137 shot," said Si, glancing up just above his head to where a twig had been clipped off the persimmon tree behind which he was standing. "He put up his sights a little too fur, or he'd 'a' got me."
Si took careful aim at where he supposed the lurking marksman to be and fired.
There was a waving of the tops of the bushes, as if the men concealed there had rushed out.
"Guess we both landed mighty close," said Shorty triumphantly. "They seem to have lost interest in this piece o' sidehill, anyway."
He and Si made a rush down the hill, and gained the covert of the fence just in time to see the rails splintered by a bunch of shots striking them.
"Lay down, Yanks!" called out Shorty cheerily, dropping into the weeds. "Grab a root!"
To the right of them they could see the rest of Co. Q going through similar performances.
Si and Shorty pushed the weeds aside, crawled cautiously to the fence, and looked through. There was a road on the other side of the fence, and beyond it a grove of large beech trees extending to the bank of the river. Half concealed by the trunk of one of these stood a tall, rather good-looking young man, with his gun raised and intently peering into the bushes. He had seen the tops stir, and knew that his enemies had gained their cover. He seemed expecting that they would climb the fence and jump down into the road. At a little distance to his right could be seen other men on the sharp lookout.
Shorty put his hand on Si to caution and repress138 him.
With his eyes fixed on the rebel, Shorty drew his gun toward him. The hammer caught on a trailing vine, and, forgetting himself, he gave it an impatient jerk. It went off, the bullet whistling past Shorty's head and the powder burning his face.
The rebel instantly fired in return, and cut the leaves about four feet above Shorty.
"Purty good shot that, Johnny," called out Shorty as he reloaded his gun; "but too low. It went between my legs. You hain't no idee how tall I am."
"If I couldn't shoot no better'n you kin on a sneak," answered the rebel, his rammer ringing in his gun-barrel, "I wouldn't handle firearms. Your bullet went a mile over my head. Must've bin shootin' at an angel. But you Yanks can't shoot nary bit—you're too skeered."
"I made you hump out o' the bushes a few minutes ago," replied Shorty, putting on a cap. "Who was skeered then? You struck for tall timber like a cotton-tailed rabbit."
"I'll rabbit ye, ye nigger-lovin' whelp," shouted the rebel. "Take that," and he fired as close as he could to the sound of Shorty's voice.
Shorty had tried to anticipate his motion and fired first, but the limbs bothered his aim, and his bullet went a foot to the right of the rebel's head. It was close enough, however, to make the rebel cover himself carefully with the tree.
"That was a much better shot, Yank," he called out. "But ye orter do a powerful sight better'n that on a sneak. Ye'd never kill no deer, nor rebels nuthor, with that kind o' shootin'. You Yanks are139 great on the sneak, but that's all the good it does, yet ye can't shoot fer a handful o' huckleberries."
"Sneaks! Can't shoot!" roared Shorty. "I kin outshoot you or any other man in Jeff Davis's kingdom. I dare you to come out from behind your tree, and take a shot with me in the open, accordin' to Hardee's tactics. Your gun's empty; so's mine. My chum here'll see fair play; and you kin bring your chum with you. Come out, you skulkin' brindle pup, and shoot man fashion, if you dare."140
"Ye can't dare me, ye nigger-stealin' blue-belly," shouted the rebel in return, coming out from behind his tree. Shorty climbed over the fence and stood at the edge of the road, with his gun at order arms. Si came out on Shorty's left, and a rebel appeared to the right of the first. For a minute all stood in expectancy. Then Shorty spoke:
"I want nuthin' but what's fair. Your gun's empty; so's mine. You probably know Hardee's tactics as well as I do."
"I'm up in Hardee," said the rebel with a firm voice.
"Well, then," continued Shorty, "let my chum here call off the orders for loadin' and firin', and we'll both go through 'em, and shoot at the word."
"Go ahead—I'm agreed," said the rebel briefly.
Shorty nodded to Si.
"Carry arms," commanded Si.
Both brought their guns up to their right sides.
"Present arms."
Both courteously saluted.
"Load in nine times—Load," ordered Si.
Both guns came down at the same instant, each man grasped his muzzle with his left hand, and reached for his cartridge-box, awaiting the next order.
"Handle cartridges."
"Tear cartridges."
"Charge cartridges," repeated Si slowly and distinctly. The rebel's second nodded approval of his knowledge of the drill, and sang out:
"Good soldiers, all of yo'uns."
"Draw rammer," continued Si,141
"Turn rammer."
"Ram cartridge."
Shorty punctiliously executed the three blows on the cartridge exacted by the regulations, and paused a breath for the next word. The rebel had sent his cartridge home with one strong thrust, but he saw his opponent's act and waited.
"Return rammer," commanded Si. He was getting a little nervous, but Shorty deliberately withdrew his rammer, turned it, placed one end in the thimbles, deliberately covered the head with his little finger, exactly as the tactics prescribed, and sent it home with a single movement. The rebel had a little trouble in returning rammer, and Shorty and Si waited.
"Cast about,"
"Prime!"
Both men capped at the same instant.
"Ready!"
Shorty cocked his piece and glanced at the rebel, whose gun was at his side.
"Aim!"
Both guns came up like a flash.
Si's heart began thumping at a terrible rate. He was far more alarmed about Shorty than he had ever been about himself. Up to this moment he had hoped that Shorty's coolness and deliberation would "rattle" the rebel and make him fire wildly. But the latter, as Si expressed it afterward, "seemed to be made of mighty good stuff," and it looked as if both would be shot down.
"Fire!" shouted Si, with a perceptible tremor in his voice.142
Both guns flashed at the same instant. Si saw Shorty's hat fly off, and him stagger and fall, while the rebel dropped his gun, and clapped his hand to his side. Si ran toward Shorty, who instantly sprang up again, rubbing his head, from which came a faint trickle of blood.
"He aimed at my head, and jest scraped my scalp," he said. "Where'd I hit him? I aimed at his heart, and had a good bead."
"You seem to have struck him in the side," answered Si, looking at the rebel. "But not badly, for he's still standin' up. Mebbe you broke a rib though."
"Couldn't, if he's still up. I must file my trigger Gun pulls too hard. I had a dead aim on his heart, but I seem to've pulled too much to the right."
"Say, I'll take a turn with you," said Si, picking up his gun and motioning with his left hand at the other rebel.
"All right," answered the other promptly. "My gun ain't loaded, though."
"I'll wait for you," said Si, looking at the cap on his gun. A loud cheer was heard from far to the right, and Co. Q was seen coming forward on a rush, with the rebels in front running back to the river bank. Several were seen to be overtaken and forced to surrender.
The two rebels in front of the boys gave a startled look at their comrades, then at the boys, and turned to run. Si raised his gun to order them to halt.
"No," said Shorty. "Let 'em go. It was a fair bargain, and I'll stick to it. Skip out Johnnies, for every cent you're worth."143
The rebels did not wait for the conclusion of the sentence, but followed their comrades with alacrity.
The boys ran forward through the woods to the edge of the bank, and saw their opponents climbing up the opposite bank and getting behind the sheltering trees. Si waited till his particular one got good shelter behind a large sycamore, and then sent a bullet that cut closely above his head.
This was the signal for a general and spiteful fusillade from both sides of the river and all along the line. The rebels banged away as if in red-hot wrath at being run across the stream, and Co. Q retorted with such earnestness that another company was sent forward to its assistance, but returned when the Irish Lieutenant, who had gone forward to investigate, reported:
"Faith, its loike the divil shearing a hog—all cry and no wool at all."
So it was. Both sides found complete shelter behind the giant trunks of the trees, and each fired at insignificant portions of the anatomy allowed to momentarily protrude beyond the impenetrable boles.
After this had gone on for about half an hour those across the river from Si and Shorty called out:
"Say, Yanks, ye can't shoot down a beech tree with a Springfield musket, nohow ye kin do it. If we'uns hain't killin' more o' yo'uns than yo'uns is a-killin' o' we'uns, we'uns air both wastin' a powerful lot o' powder an' lead and good shootin'. What d' yo'uns say to King's excuse for awhile?"
"We're agreed," said Si promptly, stepping from144 behind the tree, and leaving his gun standing against it.
"Hit's a go," responded the rebels, coming out disarmed. "We'uns won't shoot no more till ordered, an' then'll give yo'uns warnin' fust."
"All right; we'll give you warning before we shoot," coincided Si.
"Say, have yo'uns got any Yankee coffee that145 you'll trade for a good plug o' terbacker?" inquired the man whom Si had regarded as his particular antagonist.
"Yes," answered Si. "We've got a little. We'll give you a cupful for a long plug with none cut off."
"What kind of a cupful?" asked the bartering "Johnny."
"A big, honest cupful. One o' this kind," said Si, showing his.
"All right. Hit's to be strike measure," said the rebel. "Here's the plug," and he held up a long plug of "natural leaf."
"O. K.," responded Si. "Meet me half way."
The truce had quickly extended, and the firing suspended all along the line of Co. Q. The men came out from behind their trees, and sat down on the banks in open view of one another.
Si filled his cup "heaping-full" with coffee, climbed down the bank and waded out into the middle of the water. The rebel met him there, while his companion and Shorty stood on the banks above and watched the trade.
"Y're givin' me honest measure, Yank," said the rebel, looking at the cup. "Now, if ye hain't filled the bottom o' yer cup with coffee that's bin biled before, I'll say y're all right. Some o' yo'uns air so dod-gasted smart that y' poke off on we'uns coffee that's bin already biled, and swindle we'uns."
"Turn it out and see," said Si.
The rebel emptied the cup into a little bag, carefully scrutinizing the stream as it ran in. It was all fine, fragrant, roasted and ground coffee.146
"Lord, thar's enough t' last me a month with keer," said the rebel, gazing unctuously at the rich brown grains. "I won't use more'n a spoonful a day, an' bile hit over twice. Yank, here's yer terbacker. I've made a good trade. Here's a Chatanooga paper I'll throw in to boot. Got a Northern paper about ye anywhar?"
Si produced a somewhat frayed Cincinnati Gazette.
"I can't read myself," said the rebel, as he tucked the paper away. "Never l'arned to. Pap wuz agin hit. Said hit made men lazy. He got erlong without readin', and raised the biggest fambly on Possum Crick. But thar's a feller in my mess kin read everything but the big words, and I like t' git a paper for him to read to the rest o' we'uns."
"Was your pardner badly hurt by mine's shot?" asked Si.
"No. The bullet jest scraped the bone. He'll be likely to have a stitch in his side for awhile, but he's a very peart man, and won't mind that. I'm s'prised he didn't lay your pardner out. He's the best shot in our company."
"Well, he was buckin' agin a mighty good shot, and I'm surprised your pardner's alive. I wouldn't 've given three cents for him when Shorty drawed down on him; but Shorty's bin off duty for awhile, and his gun's not in the best order. Howsumever, I'm awful glad that it come out as it did. His life's worth a dozen rebels."
"The blazes you say. I'd have you know, Yank, that one Confederit is wuth a whole rijimint o' Lincoln hirelings. I'll—"147
"O, come off—come off—that's more o' your old five-to-one gas," said Si irritatingly. "I thought we'd walloped that dumbed nonsense out o' your heads long ago. We've showed right along that, man for man, we're a sight better'n you. We've always licked you when we've had anything like a fair show. At Stone River you had easy two men to our one, and yit we got away with you."
"'Tain't so. It's a lie. If hit wuzzent for the148 Dutch and Irish you hire, you couldn't fight we'uns at all."
"Look here, reb," said Si, getting hot around the ears, "I'm neither a Dutchman nor an Irishman; we hain't a half dozen in our company. I'm a better man than you've got in your regiment. Either me or Shorty kin lick any man you put up; Co. Q kin lick your company single-handed and easy; the 200th Injianny kin lick any regiment in the rebel army. To prove it, I kin lick you right here."
Si thrust the plug of tobacco into his blouse pocket and began rolling up his sleeves.
The rebel did not seem at all averse to the trial and squared off at him. Then Shorty saw the belligerent attitude and yelled:
"Come, Si. Don't fight there. That's no place. If you're goin' to fight, come up on level ground, where it kin be fair and square. Come up here, or we'll go over there."
"O, come off," shouted the rebel on the other side. "Don't be a fool, Bill. Fist-foutin' don't settle nothin'. Come back here and git your gun if ye want to fout. But don't le's fout no more to-day. Thar's plenty of it for ter-morrer. Le's keep quiet and peaceful now. I want powerfully to take a swim. Air you fellers agreed?"
"Yes; yes," shouted Shorty. "You fellers keep to your side o' the river, and we will to ours."
The agreement was carried into instantaneous effect, and soon both sides of the stream were filled with laughing, romping, splashing men.
There was something very exhilarating in the cool, clear, mountain water of the stream. The boys149 got to wrestling, and Si came off victorious in two or three bouts with his comrades.
"Cock-a-doodle-doo," he shouted, imitating the crow of a rooster. "I kin duck any man in the 200th Injianny."
The challenge reached the ears of the rebel with whom Si had traded. He was not satisfied with the result of his conference.
"You kin crow over your fellers, Yank," he shouted; "but you dassent come to the middle an' try me two falls outen three."
Si immediately made toward him. They surveyed each other warily for a minute to get the advantages of the first clinch, when a yell came from the rebel side:
"Scatter, Confeds! Hunt yer holes, Yanks! The Cunnel's a-comin'."
Both sides ran up their respective banks, snatched up their guns, took their places behind their trees, and opened a noisy but harmless fire.
SHORTY had always been conspicuously lacking in the general interest which his comrades had shown in the mails. Probably at some time in his life he had had a home like the rest of them, but for some reason home now played no part in his thoughts. The enlistment and muster-rolls stated that he was born in Indiana, but he was a stranger in the neighborhood when he enrolled himself in Co. Q.
His revelations as to his past were confined to memories of things which happened "when I was cuttin' wood down the Mississippi," or "when I was runnin' on an Ohio sternwheel."
He wrote no letters and received none. And when the joyful cry, "Mail's come," would send everybody else in the regiment on a run to the Chaplain's tent, in eager anticipation, to jostle one another in impatience, until the contents of the mailpouch were distributed, Shorty would remain indifferent in his tent, without an instant's interruption in his gun cleaning, mending, or whatever task he might have in hand.
A change came over him after he sent his letter to Bad Ax, Wis. The cry, "Mail's come," would make151 him start, in spite of himself, and before he could think to maintain his old indifference. He was ashamed, lest he betray his heart's most secret thoughts.
The matter of the secure transmission of the mails between camp and home began to receive his earnest attention. He feared that the authorities were not taking sufficient precautions. The report that John Morgan's guerrillas had captured a train between Louisville and Nashville, rifled the mail car, and carried off the letters, filled him with burning indignation, both against Morgan and his band and the Generals who had not long ago exterminated that pestiferous crowd.
He had some severe strictures on the slovenly way in which the mail was distributed from the Division and Brigade Headquarters to the regiments. It was a matter, he said, which could not be done too carefully. It was a great deal more important than the distribution of rations. A man would much rather lose several days' rations than a letter from home. He could manage in some way to get enough to live on, but nothing would replace a lost letter.
Then, he would have fits of silent musing, sometimes when alone, sometimes when with Si in the company, over the personality of the fair stocking-knitter of Wisconsin and the letter he had sent her. He would try to recall the exact wording of each sentence he had laboriously penned, and wonder how it impressed her, think how it might have been improved, and blame himself for not having been more outspoken in his desire to hear from her again. He would steal off into the brush, pull out the socks152 and letter, which he kept carefully wrapped up in a sheet of the heavy letter paper, and read over the letter carefully again, although he knew every word of it by heart. These fits alarmed Si.
"I'm af eared," he confided to some cronies, "that rebel bullet hurt Shorty more'n he'll let on. He's not actin' like hisself at times. That bullet scraped so near his thinkery that it may have addled it. It was an awful close shave."
"Better talk to the Surgeon," said they. "Glancing bullets sometimes hurt worse'n they seem to."
"No, the bullet didn't hurt Shorty, any more than make a scratch," said the Surgeon cheerfully when Si laid the case before him. "I examined him carefully. That fellow's head is so hard that no mere scraping is going to affect it. You'd have to bore straight through it, and I'd want at least a six-pounder to do it with if I was going to undertake the job. An Indiana head may not be particularly fine, but it is sure to be awfully solid and tough. No; his system's likely to be out of order. You rapscallions will take no care of yourselves, in spite of all that I can say, but will eat and drink as if you were ostriches. He's probably a little off his feed, and a good dose of bluemass followed up with quinine will bring him around all right. Here, take these, and give them to him."
The Surgeon was famous for prescribing bluemass and quinine for every ailment presented to him, from sore feet to "shell fever." Si received the medicines with a proper show of thankfulness, saluted, and left. As he passed through the clump if bushes he was tempted to add them to the153 collection of little white papers which marked the trail from the Surgeon's tent, but solicitude for his comrade restrained him. The Surgeon was probably right, and it was Si's duty to do all that he could to bring Shorty around again to his normal condition. But how in the world was he going to get his partner to take the medicine? Shorty had the resolute antipathy to drugs common to all healthy men.
It was so grave a problem that Si sat down on a log to think about it. As was Si's way, the more he thought about it, the more determined he became to do it, and when Si Klegg determined to do a thing, that thing was pretty nearly as good as done.
"I kin git him to take the quinine easy enough," he mused. "All I've got to do is to put it in a bottle o' whisky, and he'd drink it if there wuz 40 'doses o' quinine in it. But the bluemass's a very different thing. He's got to swaller it in a lump, and what in the world kin I put it in that he'll swaller whole?"
Si wandered over to the Sutler's in hopes of seeing something there that would help him. He was about despairing when he noticed a boy open a can of large, yellow peaches.
"The very thing," said Si, slapping his thigh. "Say, young man, gi' me a can o' peaches jest like them."
Si took his can and carefully approached his tent, that he might decide upon his plan before Shorty could see him and his load. He discovered that Shorty was sitting at a little distance, with his back to him, cleaning his gun, which he had taken apart.
"Bully," thought Si. "Just the thing. His hands154 are dirty and greasy, and he won't want to tech anything to eat."
He slipped into the tent, cut open the can, took out a large peach with a spoon, laid the pellet of bluemass in it, laid another slice of peach upon it, and then came around in front of Shorty, holding out the spoon.
"Open your mouth and shut your eyes, Shorty," he said. "I saw some o' the nicest canned peaches down at the Sutler's, and I suddenly got hungry for some. I bought a can and brung 'em up to the tent. Jest try 'em."
He stuck the spoon out towards Shorty's mouth. The latter, with his gunlock in one hand and a greasy rag in the other, looked at the tempting morsel, opened his mouth, and the deed was done.
"Must've left a stone in that peach," he said, as he gulped it down.
"Mebbe so," said Si, with a guilty flush, and pretending to examine the others. "But I don't find none in the rest Have another?"
Shorty swallowed two or three spoonfuls more, and then gasped:
"They're awful nice, Si, but I've got enough. Keep the rest for yourself."
Si went back to the tent and finished the can with mingled emotions of triumph at having succeeded, and of contrition at playing a trick on his partner. He decided to make amends for the latter by giving Shorty an unusually large quantity of whisky to take with his quinine.
Si was generally very rigid in his temperance ideas, He strongly disapproved of Shorty's155 drinking, and always interposed all the obstacles he could in the way of it. But this was an extraordinary case—it would be "using liquor for a medicinal purpose"—and his conscience was quieted.
Co. Q had one of those men—to be found in every company—who can get whisky under apparently any and all circumstances. In every company there is always one man who seemingly can find something to get drunk on in the midst of the Desert of Sahara. To Co. Q's representative of this class Si went, and was piloted to where, after solemn assurances against "giving away," he procured a halfpint of fairly-good applejack, into which he put his doses of quinine.
In the middle of the night Shorty woke up with a yell.
"Great Cesar's ghost!" he howled, "what's the matter with me? I'm sicker'n a dog. Must've bin them dodgasted peaches. Si, don't you feel nothin'?"
"No," said Si sheepishly; "I'm all right. Didn't you eat nothin' else but them?"
"Naw," said Shorty disgustedly. "Nothin' but my usual load o' hardtack and pork. Yes, I chawed a piece o' sassafras root that one of the boys dug up."
"Must've bin the sassafras root," said Si. He hated to lie, and made a resolution that he would make a clean breast to Shorty—at some more convenient time. It was not opportune now. "That must've bin a sockdologer of a dose the Surgeon gave me," he muttered to himself.
Shorty continued to writhe and howl, and Si made156 a hypocritical offer of going for the Surgeon, but Shorty vetoed that emphatically.
"No; blast old Sawbones," he said. "He won't do nothin' but give me bluemass, and quinine, and I never could nor would take bluemass. It's only fit for horses and hogs."
Toward morning Shorty grew quite weak, and correspondingly depressed.
"Si," said he, "I may not git over this. This may be the breakin' out o' the cholera that the folks around here say comes every seven years and kills off the strangers. Si, I'll tell you a secret. A letter may come for me. If I don't git over this, and the letter comes, I want you to burn it up without reading it, and write a letter to Miss Jerusha Ellen Briggs, Bad Ax, Wis., tellin' her that I died like a man and soldier, and with her socks on, defendin' his country."
Si whistled softly to himself. "I'll do it. Shorty," he said, and repeated the address to make sure.
The crisis soon passed, however, and the morning found Shorty bright and cheerful, though weak.
Si was puzzled how to get the whisky to Shorty. It would never do to let him know that he had gotten it especially for him. That would have been so contrary to Si's past as to arouse suspicion. He finally decided to lay it where it would seem that someone passing had dropped it, and Shorty could not help finding it. The plan worked all right. Shorty picked it up in a few minutes after Si had deposited it, and made quite an ado over his treasure trove.
"Splendid applejack," he said, tasting it; "little bitter, but that probably comes from their using157 dogwood in the fires when they're 'stilhn'. They know that dogwood'll make the liquor bitter, but they're too all-fired lazy to go after any other kind o' wood." He drank, and as he drank his spirits rose. After the first dram he thought he would clean around the tent, and make their grounds look neater than anybody else's. After the second he turned his attention to his arms and accouterments. After the third he felt like going out on a scout and finding some rebels to vary the monotony of the camp-life. After the fourth, "Groundhog," unluckily for himself, came along, and Shorty remembered that he had long owed the teamster a licking, and he felt that the debt should not be allowed to run any longer. He ordered Groundhog to halt and receive his dues. The teamster demurred, but Shorty was obdurate, and began preparations to put his intention into operation, when the Orderly-Sergeant came down through the company street distributing mail.
"Shorty," he said, entirely ignoring the bellicosity of the scene, "here's a letter for you."
Shorty's first thought was to look at the postmark. Sure enough, it was Bad Ax, Wis. Instantly his whole demeanor changed. Here was something a hundred times more important than licking any teamster that ever lived.
"Git out, you scab," he said contemptuously. "I haint no time to fool with you now. You'll keep. This won't."
Groundhog mistook the cause of his escape. "O, you're powerful anxious to fight, ain't you, till you find I'm ready for you, and then you quiet down. I'll let you know, sir, that you mustn't give me no more o' your sass. I won't stand it from you. You jest keep your mouth shet after this, if you know when you're well off."
The temptation would have been irresistible to Shorty at any other time, but now he must go off somewhere where he could be alone with his letter, and to the amazement of all the spectators he made no reply to the teamster's gibes, but holding the159 precious envelope firmly in his hand, strode off to the seclusion of a neighboring laurel thicket.
His first thought, as he sat down and looked the envelope over again, was shame that it had come to him when he was under the influence of drink. He remembered the writer's fervent Christianity, and it seemed to him that it would be a gross breach of faith for him to open and read the letter while the fumes of whisky were on his breath. He had a struggle with his burning desire to see the inside of the envelope, but he conquered, and put the letter back in his pocket until he was thoroughly sober.
But he knew not what to do to fill up the time till he could conscientiously open the letter. He thought of going back and fulfilling his long-delayed purpose of thrashing Groundhog, but on reflection this scarcely commended itself as a fitting prelude.
He heard voices approaching—one sympathetic and encouraging, the other weak, pain-breathing, almost despairing. He looked out and saw the Chaplain helping back to the hospital a sick man who had over-estimated his strength and tried to reach his company. The man sat down on a rock, in utter exhaustion.
Shorty thrust the letter back into his blousepocket, sprang forward, picked the man up in his strong arms, and carried him bodily to the hospital. It taxed his strength to the utmost, but it sobered him and cleared his brain.
He returned to his covert, took out his letter, and again scanned its exterior carefully. He actually feared to open it, but at last drew his knife and carefully slit one side. He unfolded the inclosure as160 carefully as if it had been a rare flower, and with palpitating heart slowly spelled out the words, one after another:
"Bad Ax, Wisconsin,
"April the Twenty-First, 1863.
"Mister Daniel Elliott, Company Q, 200th Indiana Volunteer
Infantry.
"Respected Sir: I taik my pen in hand toe inform you that I
am wel, and hoap that you aire in joying161 the saim
blessing. For this, God be prazed and magnified forever."
"Goodness, how religious she is," said he, stopping to ruminate. "How much nicer it makes a woman to be pious. It don't hurt a man much to be a cuss—at least while he's young—but I want a woman to be awfully religious. It sets her off more'n anything else."
He continued his spelling exercise:
"I am verry glad that my sox reached you all rite, that they
fell into the hands of a braiv, pious Union soldier, and he
found them nice."
"Brave, pious Union soldier," he repeated to himself, with a whistle. "Jewhilikins, I'm glad Bad Ax, Wis., is so fur away that she never heard me makin' remarks when a mule-team's stalled. But I must git a brace on myself, and clean up my langwidge for inspection-day."
He resumed the spelling:
"I done the best I could on them, and moren that no one can
do. Wimmen cant fite in this cruel war, but they ought all
to do what they can. I only wish I could do more. But the
wimmen must stay at home and watch and wait, while the men
go to the front."
"That's all right. Miss Jerusha Ellen Briggs," said he, with more satisfaction. "You jest stay at home and watch and wait, and I'll try to do fightin' enough for both of us. I'll put in some extra licks in future on your account, and they won't miss you from the front."
The next paragraph read:
"I should like to hear more of you and your162 regiment.
The only time I ever beared of the 200th Indiana regiment
was in a letter writ home by one of our Wisconsin boys and
published in the Bad Ax Grindstone, in which he said they
wuz brigaded with the 200th Indiana, a good fighting
regiment, but which would stele even the shoes off the
brigade mules if they wuzzent watched, and sumtimes when
they wuz. Ime sorry to hear that any Union soldier is a
thief. I know that our boys from Wisconsin would rather die
than stele."
"Steal! The 200th Injianny steal!" Shorty flamed out in a rage. "Them flabbergasted, knock-kneed, wall-eyed Wisconsin whelps writin' home that the Injiannians are thieves! The idee o' them longhaired, splay-footed lumbermen, them chuckleheaded, wap-sided, white-pine butchers talking about anybody else's honesty. Why, they wuz born stealin'. They never knowed anything else. They'd steal the salt out o' your hardtack. They'd steal the lids off the Bible. They talk about the 200th Injiannny! I'd like to find the liar that writ that letter. I'd literally pound the head offen him."
It was some time before he could calm himself down sufficiently to continue his literary exercise. Then he made out:
"Spring's lait here, but things is looking very well. Wheat
wintered good, and a big crop is expected. We had a fine
singing-school during the Winter, but the protracted meeting
drawed off a good many. We doant complain, however, for the
revival brought a great many into the fold. No moar at
present, but belave me
"Sincerly Your Friend,
"Jerusha Ellen Briggs."163
Shorty's heart almost choked him when he finished. It was the first time in his hfe that he had received a letter from any woman. It was the first time since his mother's days that any woman had shown the slightest interest in his personality. And, true man like, his impulses were to exalt this particular woman into something above the mere mortal.
Then came a hot flush of indignation that the Wisconsin men should malign his regiment, which, of course, included him, to the mind of such a being. He burned to go over and thrash the first Wisconsin man he should meet.
"Call us thieves; say we'll steal," he muttered, as he walked toward the Wisconsin camp. "I'll learn 'em different."
He did not see anybody in the camp that he could properly administer this needed lesson to. All the vigorous, able-bodied members seemed to be out on drill or some other duty, leaving only a few sick moping around the tents.
Shorty's attention was called to a spade lying temptingly behind one of the tents. He and Si had badly wanted a spade for several days. Here was an opportunity to acquire one. Shorty sauntered carelessly around to the rear of the tent, looked about to see that no one was observing, picked up the implement and walked off with it with that easy, innocent air that no one could assume with more success than he when on a predatory expedition.
"DETAIL for guard to-morrow," sang out the Orderly-Sergeant, after he had finished the evening roll-call: "Bailey, Belcher, Doolittle, Elliott, Fracker, Gleason, Hendricks, Hummerson. Long, Mansur, Nolan, Thompson."
"Corp'l Klegg, you will act as Sergeant of the Guard.
"Dan Elliott will act as Corporal of the Guard." It is one of the peculiarities of men that the less they have to do the less they want to do. The boys of Co. Q were no different from the rest. When they were in active service a more lively, energetic crowd could not be found in the army. They would march from daybreak till midnight, and build roads, dig ditches, and chop trees on the way. They were ready and willing for any service, and none were louder than they in their condemnation when they thought that the officers did not order done what should be. But when lying around camp, with absolutely nothing to do but ordinary routine, they developed into the laziest mortals that breathed. To do a turn of guard duty was a heart-breaking affliction, and the Orderly-Sergeant's announcement of those who were detailed for the morrow brought forth a yell of protest from every man whose name was called.165
"I only come off guard day before yesterday," shouted Bailey.
"I'm sick, and can't walk a step," complained Belcher, who had walked 15 miles the day before, hunting "pies-an'-milk."
"That blamed Orderly's got a spite at me; he'd keep me on guard every day in the week," grumbled Doolittle.
"I was on fatigue dooty only yesterday," protested Fracker, who had to help carry the company rations from the Commissary's tent.
"I'm goin' to the Surgeon an' git an excuse," said Gleason, who had sprained his wrist a trifle in turning a handspring.
So it went through the whole list.
"I want to see every gun spick-and-span, every blouse brushed and buttoned, and every shoe neatly blacked, when I march you up to the Adjutant," said the Orderly, entirely oblivious to the howls. "If any of you don't, he'll have a spell of digging up roots on the parade. I won't have such a gang of scarecrows as I have had to march out the last few days. You fellows make a note of that, and govern yourselves accordingly."
"Right face—Break ranks—March!"
"Corp'l Klegg," said the Officer of the Day the next morning, as Si was preparing to relieve the old guard, "the Colonel is very much worked up over the amount of whisky that finds its way into camp. Now that we are out here by ourselves we certainly ought to be able to control this. Yet there was a disgusting number of drunken men in camp yesterday, and a lot of trouble that should not be. The Colonel has166 talked very strongly on this subject, and he expects us to-day to put a stop to this. I want you to make an extra effort to keep whisky out. I think you can do it if you try real hard."
"I'll do my best, sir," said Si, saluting.
"Shorty," Si communed with his next in rank before they started on their rounds with the first relief, "we must see that there's no whisky brung into camp this day."
"You jest bet your sweet life there won't be, either," returned Shorty. He felt not a little elated over his brevet rank and the responsibilities of his position as Corporal of the Guard. "This here camp'll be as dry as the State o' Maine to-day."
It was a hot, dull day, with little to occupy the time of those off guard. As usual, Satan was finding "some mischief for idle hands to do."
After he put on the first relief, Si went back to the guard tent and busied himself awhile over the details of work to be found there. There were men under sentence of hard labor that he had to find employment for, digging roots, cleaning up the camp, chopping wood and making trenches. He got the usual chin-music from those whom he set to enforced toil, about the injustice of their sentences and "the airs that some folks put on when they wear a couple of stripes," but he took this composedly, and after awhile went the rounds to look over his guard-line, taking Shorty with him.
Everything seemed straight and soldierly, and they sat down by a cool spring in a little shady hollow.
"Did you ever notice, Shorty," said Si, speculatively, as he looked over the tin cup of cool water he167 was sipping, "how long and straight and string-like the cat-brier grows down here in this country? You see 25 or 30 feet of it at times no thicker'n wooltwine. Now, there's a piece layin' right over there, on t'other side o' the branch, more'n a rod long, and no thicker'n a rye straw."
"I see it, an' I never saw a piece o' cat-brier move endwise before," said Shorty, fixing his eyes on the string-like green.
"As sure's you're alive, it is movin'," said Si, starting to rise.
"Set still, keep quiet an' watch," admonished Shorty. "You'll find out more."
Si sat still and looked. The direction the brier was moving was toward the guard-line, some 100 feet away to the left. About the same distance to the right was a thicket of alders, where Si thought he heard voices. There were indications in the weeds that the cat-brier extended to there.
The brier maintained its outward motion. Presently a clump of rags was seen carried along by it.
"They're sending out their money for whisky," whispered Shorty. "Keep quiet, and we'll confiscate the stuff when it comes in."
They saw the rag move straight toward the guardline, and pass under the log on which the sentry walked when he paced his beat across the branch. It finally disappeared in a bunch of willows.
Presently a bigger rag came out from the willows, in response to the backward movement of the long cat-brier, and crawled slowly back under the log and into camp. As it came opposite Si jumped out, put his foot on the cat-brier and lifted up the rag. He168 found, as he had expected, that it wrapped up a pint flask of whisky.
"O, come off, Si; come off, Shorty!" appealed some of Co. Q from the alders. "Drop that. You ain't goin' to be mean, boy's. You don't need to know nothin' about that, an' why go makin' yourselves fresh when there's no necessity? We want that awful bad, and we've paid good money for it."
"No, sir," said Shorty sternly, as he twisted the bottle off, and smashed it on the stones. "No whisky goes into this camp. I'm astonished at you. Whisky's a cuss. It's the bane of the army. It's the worm that never dies. Its feet lead down to hell. Who hath vain babblings? Who hath redness of eyes? The feller that drinks likker, and especially Tennessee rotgut."
"O, come off; stop that dinged preaching, Shorty," said one impatiently. "There's nobody in this camp that likes whisky better'n you do; there's nobody that'll go further to get it, an' there's nobody up to more tricks to beat the guard."
"What I do as a private soldier, Mr. Blakesley," said Shorty with dignity, "haint nothing to do with my conduct when I'm charged with responsible dooty. It's my dooty to stop the awful practice o' likker-drinkin' in this camp, an' I'm goin' to do it, no matter what the cost. You jest shet up that clam-shell o' your'n an' stop interfering with your officers."
Si and Shorty went outside the lines to the clump of willows, but they were not quick enough to catch Groundhog, the teamster, and the civilian whom our readers will remember as having his head shaved in the camp at Murfreesboro some weeks before. They169 found, however, a jug of new and particularly rasping apple-jack. There was just an instant of wavering in Shorty's firmness when he uncorked the jug and smelled its contents. He lifted it to his lips, to further confirm its character, and Si trembled, for he saw the longing in his partner's eyes. The latter's hand shook a little as the first few drops touched his tongue, but with the look of a hero he turned and smashed the jug on a stone.
"You're solid. Shorty," said Si.
"Yes, but it was an awful wrench. Le's git away from the smell o' the stuff," answered Shorty. "I'm afraid it'll be too much for me yit."
"Corporal of the Guard, Post No. 1."
"Sergeant of the Guard, Post No. 1," came down the line of sentries as the two boys were sauntering back to camp.
"Somethin's happening over there at the gate," said Si, and they quickened their steps in the direction of the main entrance to the camp.
They found there a lank, long-haired, ragged Tennesseean, with a tattered hat of white wool on his head. His scanty whiskers were weather-beaten, he had lost most of his front teeth, and as he talked he spattered everything around with tobacco-juice. He rode on a blind, raw-bone horse, which, with a dejected, broken-down mule, was attached by ropes, fragments of straps, withes, and pawpaw bark to a shackly wagon.
In the latter were some strings of dried apples, a pile of crescents of dried pumpkins, a sack of meal, a few hands of tobacco, and a jug of buttermilk.
"I want t' go inter the camps an' sell a leetle jag170 o' truck," the native explained, as he drenched the surrounding weeds with tobacco-juice. "My ole woman's powerful sick an' ailin', an' I need some money awfully t' git her some quinine. Yarbs don't seem t' do her no sort o' good. She must have some Yankee quinine, and she's nigh dead fer some Yankee coffee. This war's mouty hard on po' people. Hit's jest killin' 'em by inches, by takin' away their coffee an' quinine. I'm a Union man, an' allers have bin."
"You haint got any whisky in that wagon, have you?" asked Si.
"O, Lord, no! nary mite. You don't think I'd try t' take whisky into camp, do you? I'm not sich a bad man as that. Besides, whar'd I git whisky? The war's broke up all the 'stilleries in the country. What the Confedrits didn't burn yo'uns did. I've bin sufferin' for months fur a dram o' whisky, an' as fur my ole woman, she's nearly died. That's the reason the yarbs don't do her no good. She can't get no whisky to soak 'em in."
"He's entirely too talkative about the wickedness o' bringin' whisky into camp," whispered Shorty. "He's bin there before. He's an old hand at the business."
"Sure you've got no whisky?" said Si.
"Sartin, gentlemen; sarch my wagon, if you don't take my word. I only wish I knowed whar thar wuz some whisky. I'd walk 20 miles in the rain t' git one little flask fur my ole woman and myself. I tell you, thar haint a drap t' be found in the hull Duck River Valley. 'Stilleries all burnt, I tell you." And in the earnestness of his protestations he sprayed his team,171 himself, and the neighboring weeds with liquid tobacco.
Si stepped back and carefully searched the wagon, opening the meal sack, uncorking the buttermilk jug, and turning over the dried apples, pumpkins and tobacco. There certainly was no whisky there.
Shorty stood leaning on his musket and looking at the man. He was pretty sure that the fellow had had previous experience in running whisky into camp, and was up to the tricks of the trade. Instead of a saddle the man had under him an old calico quilt, whose original gaudy colors were sadly dimmed by the sun, rain, and dirt. Shorty stepped forward and lifted one corner. His suspicions were right. It had an under pocket, in which was a flat, half-pint flask with a cob stopper, and filled with apple-jack so new that it was as colorless as water.
"I wuz jest bringin' that 'ere in fur you, Capting," said the Tennesseean, with a profound wink and an unabashed countenance. "Stick hit in your pocket, quick. None o' the rest 's seed you."
Shorty flung the bottle down and ordered the man off his horse. The quilt was examined. It contained a half-dozen more flasks, each holding a "half-pint of throat-scorch and at least two fights," as Shorty expressed it. A clumsy leather contrivance lay on the hames of the mule. Flasks were found underneath this, and the man himself was searched. More flasks were pulled out from the tail pockets of his ragged coat; from his breast; from the crown of his ragged hat.
"Well," said Shorty, as he got through, "you're a regler grogshop on wheels. All you need is a lot172 o' loafers talkin' politics, a few picturs o' racin' hosses and some customers buried in the village graveyard to be a first-class bar-room. Turn around and git back to that ole woman o' your'n, or we'll make you sicker'n she is."
Si and Shorty marched around with the second relief, and then sat down to talk over the events of the morning.
"I guess we've purty well settled the whisky business for to-day, at least," said Si. "The Colonel can't complain of us. I don't think we'll have any more trouble. Seems to me that there can't be no more whisky in this part o' Tennessee, from the quantity we've destroyed."
"Don't be too dinged sure o' that," said Shorty. "Whisky seems to brew as naturally in this country as the rosin to run out o' the pine trees. I never saw sich a country fur likker. They have more stills in Tennessee than blacksmith shops, and they work stiddier."
Si looked down the road and saw returning a wagon which had been sent out in the morning for forage. It was well loaded, and the guards who were marching behind had a few chickens and other supplies that they had gathered up.
"Boys seem to be purty fresh, after their tramp," said he, with the first thought of a soldier looking at marching men. "They've all got their guns at carry arms. I noticed that as they came over the hill."
"Yes," answered Shorty, after a glance, "and they're holdin' 'em up very stiff an' straight. That gives mo an idee. Lo's go over there an' take a look at 'em."173
Shorty had sniffed at a trick that he had more than once played in getting the forbidden beverage past the lynx-eyed sentry.
"Don't you find it hard work to march at routstep with your guns at a carry?" he said insinuatingly. "No need o' doin' that except on parade or drill. Right-shoulder-shift or arms-at-will is the thing when you're on the road."
"H-s-sh," said the leading file, with a profound wink and a sidelong glance at Si. "Keep quiet, Shorty," he added in a stage whisper. "We'll give you some. It's all right. We'll whack up fair."
"No, it ain't all right," said Shorty, with properly offended official dignity. "Don't you dare offer to bribe me, Buck Harper, when I'm on duty. Hand me that gun this minute."
Harper shamefacedly handed over the musket, still holding it carefully upright. Shorty at once reversed it and a stream of whisky ran out upon the thirsty soil.
Si grasped the situation, and disarmed the others with like result.
"I ought to put every one o' you in' the guardhouse for this. It's lucky that the Officer of the Guard wasn't here. He'd have done it. There he comes now. Skip out after the wagon, quick, before he gits on to you."
"What next?" sighed Si. "Is the whole world bent on bringin' whisky into this camp? Haint they got none for the others?"
"Sergeant of the Guard, Post No. 1," rang out upon the hot air. Si walked over again to the entrance, and saw seeking admission a tall, bony174 woman, wearing a dirty and limp sunbonnet and smoking a corn-cob pipe. She was mounted on a slab-sided horse, with ribs like a washboard, and carried a basket on her arm covered with a coarse cloth none too clean.
"Looks as if she'd bin picked before she was ripe and got awfully warped in the dryin'. All the same she's loaded with whisky," commented Shorty as the woman descended from her saddle and approached the sentry with an air of resolute demand.
"You haint got no right to stop me, young feller," she said. "I come in hyar every day an' bring pies. Your Jinerul said I could, an' he wanted me to. His men want my pies, an' they do 'em good. Hit's homecookin', an' takes the taste o' the nasty camp vittles out o' their mouths, an' makes 'em healthy. You jest raise yer gun, an' let me go right in, or I'll tell yer Jinerul, an' he'll make it warm fur yer. I've got a pass from him."
"Let me see your pass," said Si, stepping forward. The woman unhooked her linsey dress, fumbled around in the recesses, and finally produced a soiled and crumpled paper, which, when straightened out, read:
"Mrs. Sarah Bolster has permission to pass in and out of the
camp of the 200th Indiana Volunteer Infantry.
"By order of Col. Quackenbush.
"D. L. Blakemore, Lieut. & Adj't."
"What've you got in that basket?" asked Si, still hesitating.
"Pies," she answered confidently. "The best pies you ever seed. Some of 'em pumpkin; but the rest175 of 'em dried apple, with lots o' 'lasses in fur sweetenin'. Your mother never baked better pies 'n 'em."
"To my mind," muttered Shorty, as he stepped forward to investigate the basket, "she's the kind o' a woman I'd like to have bake pies for a gang o' State's prison birds that I wanted to kill off without the trouble o' hangin'. Say, ma'am, are your pies pegged or sewed? What'd you use for shortenen'—injy rubber or Aunt Jemimy's plaster?" he continued as he turned back the cloth and surveyed the well-known specimens of mountain baking which were as harmful to Uncle Sam's boys as the bullets of their enemies.
"Young feller, none o' yer sass," she said severely. "Them's better pies than ye're used ter. Folks that's never had nothin' air allers the most partickeler, an' turnin' up thar noses at rayly good things. Don't fool with me no more, but let me go on inter camp, fur the soljers air expectin' me."
"Sure you haint got no whisky down in the bottom o' that basket?" said Si, pushing the pies about a little, to get a better look.
The indignation of the woman at this insinuation was stunning. She took her pipe out of her mouth to better express her contempt for men who would insult a Southern lady by such a hint—one, too, that had been of so much benefit to the soldiers by toiling over the hot oven to prepare for them food more acceptable than the coarse rations their stingy Government furnished them. She had never been so insulted in her life, and she would bring down on them dire punishment from the Colonel.
Several experiences with the tongue-lashings of176 Southern viragoes had made Si and Shorty less impressed by them than they had been earlier in their service. Still, they had the healthy young man's awe of anything that wore skirts, and the tirade produced its effect, but not strong enough to eradicate the belief that she was a whisky-bringer. While she stormed Si kept his eyes fixed upon the scant linsey dress which draped her tall form. Presently he said to Shorty:
"What do you think? Shall we let her go in?" Shorty whispered back with great deliberation: "Si, what I know about the female form don't amount to shucks. Least of all the Tennessee female form. But I've been lookin' that 'ere woman over carefully while she's been jawin', an' while she's naturally covered with knots and knobs in places where it seems to me that women generally don't have 'em, I can't help believin' that she's got some knots and knobs that naturally don't belong to her. In other words, she's got a whole lot o' flasks of whisky under her skirts."
"Jest what I've been suspicionin'," said Si. "I've heard that that's the way lots o' whisky is brung into camp. Shorty, as Corporal o' the Guard, it's your duty to search her."
"What!" yelled Shorty, horror-struck at the immodest thought. "Si Klegg, are you gone plum crazy?"
"Shorty," said Si firmly, "it's got to be done. She's got a pass, and the right to go into camp. We're both o' the opinion that she's carryin' in whisky. If she was a man there'd be no doubt that she'd have to be searched. I don't understand that the law177 knows any difference in persons. No matter what you may think about it, it is your duty, as Corporal o' the Guard, to make the search."
"No, sir-ree," insisted Shorty. "You're Sergeant o' the Guard, and it's your dooty to make all searches."
"Shorty," expostulated Si, "I'm much younger and modester'n you are, an' haint seen nearly so much o' the world. You ought to do this. Besides, you're under my orders, as Actin' Corporal. I order you to make the search."
"Si Klegg," said Shorty firmly, "I'll see you and all the Corporals and Sergeants betwixt here and Washington in the middle o' next week before I'll do it. You may buck-and-gag me, and tie me up by the thumbs, and then I won't. I resign my position as Corporal right here, and'll take by gun and go on post."
"What in the world are we goin' to do?" said Si desperately. "If we let her in, she'll fill the camp full o' whisky, and she'll have to go in, unless we kin show some reason for keepin' her out. Hold on; I've got an idee."
He went up to the woman and said:
"You say you want to go into camp to sell your pies?"
"Yes, sir, an' I want to go in right off—no more foolin' around," she answered tartly.
"How many pies've you got?"
She went through a laborious counting, and finally announced: "Eight altogether."
"How much are they worth?"
"Fifty cents apiece."178
"Very good," announced Si taking some money from his pocket. "That comes to $4. I'll take the lot and treat the boys. Here's your money. Now you've got no more business in camp, jest turn around and mosey for home. You've made a good day's business, and ought to be satisfied."
The woman scowled with disappointment. But she wisely concluded that she h'd better be content with the compromise, remounted her horse and disappeared down the road.
"That was a sneak out of a difficulty," Si confessed to Shorty; "but you were as big a coward as I was."
"No, I wasn't," insisted Shorty, still watchful. "You'd no right to order me do something that you was afraid to do yourself. That's no kind o' officering."
"I WONDER what has become of our Jew spy, Shorty?" said Si, as he and Shorty sat on the bank of Duck River and watched the rebel pickets lounging under the beeches on the other side. "We hain't heard nothin' of him for more'n a month now."
"He's probably hung," answered Shorty. "He was entirely too smart to live long. A man can't go on always pokin' his finger into a rattlesnake's jaw without gittin' it nipped sooner or later."
"I'm looking fur a man called Si Klegg," they heard behind them. Looking around they saw the tall, gaunt woman whom they had turned back from entering the camp a few days before, under the belief that she was trying to smuggle in whisky.
"What in the world can she want o' me?" thought Si; but he answered:
"That's my name. What'll you have?"
A flash of recognition filled at once her faded blue eyes. Without taking her pipe from between her yellow, snaggly teeth she delivered a volley of tobacco-juice at an unoffending morning-glory, and snapped out:
"O, y'r him, air ye? Y'r the dratted measly180 sapsucker that bounced me 'bout takin' likker inter camp. What bizniss wuz hit o' your'n whether I tuk likker in or not? Jest wanted t' be smart, didn't ye? Jest wanted t' interfere with a lone, lorn widder lady makin' a honest livin' for herself and 10 children. My ole man ketched the black ager layin' out in the brush to dodge the conscripters. It went plumb to his heart an' killed him. He wa'n't no great loss, nohow, fur he'd eat more in a week than he'd kill, ketch, or raise in a year. When his light went out I'd only one less mouth to feed, and got rid o' his jawin' an' cussin' all the time. But that hain't nothin' t' do with you. You 's jest puttin' on a lettle authority kase ye could. But all men air alike that-a-way. Elect a man Constable, an' he wants t' put on more airs than the Guv-nor; marry him, an' he makes ye his slave."
"I should think it'd be a bold man that'd try to make you his slave. Madam," Si ventured.
"Y' she'd think," she retorted, with her arms akimbo. "Who axed y' t' think, young feller? What d' y' do hit with. Why d' y' strain y'rself doin' somethin' y' ain't used t'?"
It did Shorty so much good to see Si squelched, that he chuckled aloud and called out:
"Give it to him, old Snuff-Dipper. He's from the Wabash, an' hain't no friends. He's bin itchin' a long time for jest such a skinnin' as you're givin' him."
"Who air y' callin' Snuff-Dipper?" she retorted, turning angrily on Shorty. "What've ye got t' say agin snuff-dippin', anyway, y' terbacker-chawin', likker-guzzlin', wall-oyed, splay-footed, knock-kneed181 oaf? What air y' greasy hirelings a-comin' down heah fo', t' sass and slander Southern ladies, who air yo' superiors?"
"Give it to him, old Corncob Pipe," yelled Si "He needs lambastin' worse'n any man in the regiment. But what did you want to see me for?"
"I wanted to see yo' bekase I got a letter to yo' from a friend o' mine, who said yo' wuz gentlemen, an' rayly not Yankees at all. He said that yo' wuz forced into the army agin yo' will."
"Gracious, what a liar that man must be," murmured Shorty to himself.
"An' yo' rayly had no heart to fight for the nigger, an' that yo'd treat me like a sister."
"A sister," Shorty exploded internally. "Think of a feller's havin' a sister like that. Why, I wouldn't throw her in a soap-grease barrel."
"Who was this friend. Madam?" said Si, "and where is his letter?"
"I don't know whether to give it to yo' or not," said she. "Y're not the men at all that he ascribed to me. He said yo' wuz very good-lookin', perlite gentlemen, who couldn't do too much for a lady."
"Sorry we're not as handsome as you expected," said Si; "but mebbe that's because we're in fatigue uniforms. You ought to see my partner there when he's fixed up for parade. He's purtier'n a red wagon then. Let me see the letter. I can tell then whether we're the men or not."
"Kin yo' read?" she asked suspiciously.
"O, yes," answered Si laughingly at the thought almost universal in the South that reading and writing were—like the Gift of Tongues—a special182 dispensation to a few favored individuals only. "I can read and do lots o' things that common people can't. I'm seventh son of a seventh son, born with a caul on my head at the time o' the full moon. Let me see the letter."
She was not more than half convinced, but unhooked her dress and took a note from her bosom, which she stuck out toward Si, holding tightly on to one end in the meanwhile. Si read, in Levi Rosenbaum's flourishing, ornate handwriting:
"Corporal Josiah Klegg, Co. Q, 200th Indiana Volunteers,
in Camp on Duck River."
"That means me," said Si, taking hold of the end of the envelope. "There ain't but one 200th Injianny Volunteers; there's no other Co. Q, and I'm the only Josiah Klegg."
The woman still held on to the other end of the letter.
"It comes," continued Si, "from a man a little under medium size, with black hair and eyes, dresses well, talks fast, and speaks a Dutch brogue."
"That's him," said the woman, relinquishing the letter, and taking a seat under the shade of a young cucumber tree, where she proceeded to fill her pipe, while awaiting the reading of the missive.
Si stepped off a little ways, and Shorty looked over his shoulder as he opened the letter and read:
"Dear Boys: This will be handed you, if it reaches you at
all, by Mrs. Bolster, who has more about her than you
think."183
"I don't know about that," muttered Shorty; "the last time I had the pleasure o' meetin' the lady she had 'steen dozen bottles o' head-bust about her."
"She's a Confederate, as far as she goes."
Si continued reading,
"which is not very far. She don't go but a little ways. A
jay-bird that did not have any more brains would not build
much of a nest. But she is very useful to me, and I want you
to get in with her. As soon as you read this I want Si to
give her that pair of horn combs I gave him. Do it at once.
Sincerely your friend,
"Levi Rosenbaum."
Si knit his brows in perplexity and wonderment over this strange message. He looked at Shorty, but Shorty's face was as blank of explanation as his own. He fumbled around in his blouse pocket, drew forth the combs, and handed them to the woman. Her dull face lighted up visibly. She examined the combs carefully, as if fitting them to a description, and, reaching in her bosom, pulled out another letter and handed it to Si.
When this was opened Si read:
"Dear Boys: Now you will understand the comb business. I
wanted to make sure that my letter reached the right men,
and the combs were the only things I could think of at the
moment. Mrs. B. will prize them, though she will never think
of using them, either on herself or one of her shock-headed
brats. I want you to play it on her as far as your
consciences will allow. Pretend that you are awful sick of
this Abolition war, and tired fighting for the nigger, and
all that stuff. Make her the happiest184 woman in
Tennessee by giving her all the coffee you can spare. That
will fetch her quicker and surer than anything else. Like
most Southern women, she is a coffee-drinker first and a
rebel afterward, and if some preacher would tell her that
heaven is a place where she will get all the Yankee coffee
she can drink, she would go to church regularly for the rest
of her life. Tell her a lot of news—as much of it true as
you can and think best; as much of it otherwise as you can
invent. Follow her cautiously when she leaves camp. Don't
let her see you do so. You will find that she will lead you
to a nest of spies, and the place where all the whisky is
furnished to sell in camp. I write you thus freely because I
am certain that this will get in your hands. I know that
your regiment is out here, because I have been watching it
for a week, with reference to its being attacked. It won't
be for at least awhile, for there's another hen on. But make
up to the old lady as much as your consciences and stomachs
will allow you. It will be for the best interests of the
service.
"Sincerely your friend, Levi Rosenbaum."
"I wonder what game Levi is up to?" Si said, as he stood with the letter in his hand and looked at the woman. "I'll give her all the coffee I can and be very civil to her, but that's as far as I'll go. The old rebel cat. I'll not lie to her for 40 Levi Rosenbaums."
"Well, I will," said Shorty. "You fix her up with the coffee, and leave the rest to me. I always had a fancy for queer animals, and run off from home once to travel with a menagerie. I'd like to take her up185 North and start a side-show with her. 'The Queen o' the Raccoon Mountains,' or the 'Champion Snuff-Dipper o' the Sequatchie Valley.' How'd that do for a sign?"
"Well, go ahead," said Si. "But expect no help from me."
"Mr. Klegg, when I want your help in courtin' a lady I'll let you know," said Shorty with dignity. Si went back to the tent to see about getting the coffee, and Shorty approached Mrs. Bolster with an engaging expression on his countenance. She was knocking the ashes out of her pipe.
"Let me fill your pipe up again. Madam, with something very choice," said he, pulling out a plug of bright natural leaf. "Here's some terbacker the like o' which you never see in all your born days. It was raised from seed stole from the private stock of the High-muk-a-muk o' Turkey, brung acrost the ocean in a silver terbacker box for the use o' President Buchanan, and planted in the new o' the moon on a piece o' ground that never before had raised nothin' but roses and sweet-williams. My oldest brother, who is a Senator from Oshkosh, got just one plug of it, which he divided with me."
"O, my! is that true?" she gurgled.
"It's as true as that you are a remarkably fine lookin' woman," he said with unblushing countenance, as he began whittling off some of the tobacco to fill her pipe. "I was struck by your appearance as soon as I saw you. I always was very fond of the Southern ladies."
"Sakes alive, air y'?" she asked; "then what air yo'uns down here foutin' we'uns fur?"186
"That's a long story, m'm," answered Shorty. "It was a trick o' the Abolition politicians that got us into it. I'm awful sick o' the war (that we hain't gone ahead and knocked the heads offen this whole crowd instead o' layin' 'round here in camp for months)" he added as a mental reservation, "and wisht I was out of it (after we've hung Jeff Davis on a sour-apple tree). Then I might settle down here and marry some nice woman. You're a widder, I believe you said."
"Yes, I'm a widder," she answered, taking her pipe from her mouth and giving him what she intended for a languishing smile, but which Shorty afterward said reminded him of a sun-crack in a mud fence. "Yes, I'm a widder. Bin so for gwine on six months. Sakes alive, but ye do talk nice. You air the best-lookin' Yankee I've ever seed." "Nothin' painfully bashful about her," thought Shorty. "But I must be careful not to let her get me near a Justice of the Peace. She'd marry me before I could ketch my breath. Madam," he continued aloud.
"Yo' may call me Sophrony," she said, with another cavernous smile.
"Well, Sophrony, let me present you with half o' this plug o' famous terbacker." He drew his jackknife and sliced the plug in two. "Take it, with my warmest respects. Here comes my partner with some coffee I've sent him for, and which I want you to have. It is not as much as I'd like to give you, but it's all that I have. Some other day you shall have much more."
"Law's sakes." she bubbled, as the fragrant odor187 of the coffee reached her nose, and she hefted the package. "Yo' air jest the nicest man I ever did see in all my born days. I didn't s'pose thar wuz so nice a man, or sich a good-lookin' one, in the hull Yankee army, or in the oonfederit either, fur that matter. But, then, yo' ain't no real blue-bellied Yankee."
"No, indeed, Sophrony. I never saw New England in all my life, nor did any o' my people. They wuz from Virginny (about 500 miles, as near as I kin calculate)" he added to himself as a mental poultice.
"Say, Mister, why don't you leave the Yankee army?"
"Can't," said Shorty, despairingly. "If I tried to git back home the Provos 'll ketch me. If I go the other way the rebel's ketch me. I'm betwixt the devil and the deep sea."
She sat and smoked for several minutes in semblance of deep thought, and spat with careful aim at one after another of the prominent weeds around. Then she said:
"If yo' want t' splice with me, I kin take keer o' yo'. I've helped run off several o' the boys who wuz sick o' this Abolition war. Thar's two o' them now with Bill Phillips's gang makin' it hot for the Yankee trains and camps. They're makin' more'n they ever did soljerin', an' havin' a much better time, for they take whatever they want, no matter who it belongs to. D' yo' know Groundhog, a teamster? He's in cahoots with us."
"Oh!" said Shorty to himself. "Here's another lay altogether. Guess it's my duty to work it for all that it's worth."188
"Is it a bargain?" she said suddenly, stretching out her long, skinny hand.
"Sophrony," said Shorty, taking her hand, "this is so sudden. I never thought o' marryin'—at least till this cruel war is over. I don't know what kind of a husband I'd make. I don't know whether I could fill the place o' your late husband!"
"Yo're not gwine t' sneak out," she said, with a fierce flash in her gray eyes. "If yo' do I'll have yo' pizened."
"Now, who's talkin' about backin' out?" said Shorty in a fever of placation, for he was afraid that some of the other boys would overhear the conversation. "Don't talk so loud. Come, let's walk on toward your home. We kin talk on the way."
The proposition appeared reasonable. She took the bridle of her horse in her arm, and together they walked out through the guard-line. The sentries gave Shorty a deep, knowing wink as he passed. He went the more willingly, as he was anxious to find out more about the woman, and the operations of the gang with which she was connected. She had already said enough to explain several mysterious things of recent occurrence. Night came down and as her ungainliness was not thrust upon him as it was in the broad glare of day, he felt less difficulty in professing a deep attachment for her. He even took her hand. On her part she grew more open and communicative at every step, and Shorty had no difficulty in understanding that there was gathered around her a gang that was practicing about everything detrimental to the army. They were by turns spies, robbers, murderers, whisky189 smugglers, horse-thieves, and anything else that promised a benefit to themselves. Ostensibly they were rebels, but this did not prevent their preying upon the rebels when occasion offered. Some were deserters from the rebel army, some were evading the conscript laws, two or three were deserters from our army.
Shorty and the woman had reached a point nearly a half-mile outside of the guard-line when he stopped and said:
"I can't go no farther now. I must go back." "Why must yo' go back?" she demanded, with a190 sudden angry suspicion. "I thought yo' wuz gwine right along with me."
"Why, no. I never thought o' that. I must go back and get my things before I go with you," said Shorty, as the readiest way of putting her off.
"Plague take y'r things," she said. "Let 'em go. Yo' kin git plenty more jest as good from the next Yankee camp. Yo' slip back some night with the boys an' git yo'r own things, if y'r so dratted stuck on 'em. Come along now."
She took hold of his wrist with a grip like iron. Shorty had no idea that a woman could have such strength.
"I want to go back and git my partner," said Shorty. "Me and him 've bin together all the time we've bin in the army. He'll go along with me, I'm sure. Me and him thinks alike on everything, and what one starts the other jines in. I want to go back an' git him."
"I don't like that partner o' your'n. I don't want him. I'll be a better partner t' yo' than ever he was. Yo' mustn't think more o' him than yo' do o' me."
"Look here, Sophrony," said Shorty desperately, "I cannot an' will not go with you to-night. I'm expectin' important letters from home to-morrow, and I must go back an' git 'em. I've a thousand things to do before I go away. Have some sense. This thing's bin sprung on me so suddenly that it ketches me unawares."
With the quickness of a flash she whipped out a long knife from somewhere, and raised it, and then hesitated a second.
"I believe yo're foolin' me, and if I wuz shore I'd191 stick yo'. But I'm gwine t' give yo' a chance. Yo' kin go back now, an' I'll come for yo' ter-morrer. If you go back on me hit'll be a mouty sorry day for yo'. Mind that now."
Shorty gallantly helped her mount, and then hurried back to camp.
SHORTY sauntered thoughtfully back to the tent, and on the way decided to tell Si the whole occurrence, not even omitting the deceit practiced.
He had to admit to himself that he was unaccountably shaken up by the affair.
Si was so deeply interested in the revelations that he forgot to blame Shorty's double-dealing.
"Never had my nerve so strained before," Shorty frankly admitted. "At their best, women are curiouser than transmogrified hullaloos, and when a real cute one sets out to hornswoggle a man he might as well lay down and give right up, for he hain't no earthly show. She gits away with him every time, and one to spare. That there woman's got the devil in her bigger'n a sheep, and she come nigher makin' putty o' your Uncle Ephraim than I ever dreamed of before. It makes me shivery to think about it."
"I don't care if she's more devils in her than the Gadarene swine, she must be stopped at once," said Si, his patriotic zeal flaming up. "She's doin' more mischief than a whole regiment o' rebels, and must be busted immediately. We've got to stop193 her."
"But just how are we goin' to stop her?" Shorty asked. There was a weak unreadiness in Shorty's tones that made Si look at him in surprise. Never before, in any emergency, had there been the slightest shade of such a thing in his bold, self-reliant partner's voice.
"I'd rather tackle any two men there are in the Southern Confederacy than that woman," said Shorty. "I believe she put a spell on me."
"Le's go up and talk to Capt. McGillicuddy about it," said Si. Ordinarily, this was the last thing that either of them would have thought of doing. Their usual disposition was to go ahead and settle the problem before them in their own way, and report about it afterward. But Shorty was clearly demoralized.
Capt. McGillicuddy listened very gravely to their story.
"Evidently that old hen has a nest of bad, dangerous men, which has to be broken up," he said. "We can get the whole raft if we go about it in the right way, but we've got to be mighty smart in dealing with them, or they'll fly the coop, and leave the laugh on us. You say she's coming back to-morrow?"
"Yes," said Shorty, with a perceptible shiver.
"Well, I want you to fall right in with all her plans—both of you. Pretend to be anxious to desert, or anything else that she may propose. Go back home with her. I shall watch you carefully, but without seeming to, and follow you with a squad big enough to take care of anything that may be out there. Go back to your tent now, and think it194 all over, and arrange some signal to let me know when you want me to jump the outfit."
The boys went back to their tent, and spent an hour in anxious consideration of their plans. Si saw the opportunity to render a great service, and was eager to perform it, but he firmly refused to tell any lies to the woman or those around her. He would not say that he was tired of the service and wanted to desert; he would not pretend liking for the Southern Confederacy or the rebels, nor hatred to his own people. He would do nothing but go along, share all the dangers with Shorty, and be ready at the moment to co-operate in breaking up the gang.
"Some folks's so durned straight that they lean over backwards," said Shorty impatiently. "What in thunder does it amount to what you tell these onery gallinippers? They'll lie to you as fast as a hoss kin trot. There's no devilment they won't do, and there kin be nothin' wrong in anything you kin do and say to them."
"Everybody settles some things for himself," said the unchangeable Si. "I believe them folks are as bad as they kin be made. I believe every one o' 'em ought to be killed, and if it wuz orders to kill 'em I'd kill without turnin' a hair. But I jest simply won't lie to nobody, I don't care who he is. I'll stand by you until the last drop; you kin tell 'em what you please, but I won't tell 'em nothin', except that they're a pizen gang, and ought t've bin roastin' in brimstone long ago."
"But," expostulated Shorty, "if you only go along with me you're actin' a lie. If you go out o' camp with mo you'll pretend to bo desertin' and j'inin' in195 with 'em. Seems to me that's jest as bad as tellin' a lie straight out."
"Well," said the immovable Si, "I draw the line there. I'll go along with you, and they kin think what they like. But if I say anything to 'em, they'll git it mighty straight."
"Well, I don't know but, after all, we kin better arrange it that way," said Shorty, after he had thought it over in silence for some time. "I'm sure that if you'd talk you'd give us dead away. That clumsy basswood tongue o' your'n hain't any suppleness, and you'd be sure to blurt out something that'd jest ruin us. An idee occurs to me. You jest go along, look sour and say nothin'. I'll tell 'em you ketched cold the other night and lost your speech. It'll give me a turn o' extra dooty talkin' for two, but I guess I kin do it."
"All right," agreed Si. "Let it go that way."
"Now, look here, Si," said Shorty, in a low, mysterious tone, "I'm goin' to tell you somethin' that I hadn't intended to. I'm scared to death lest that old hag'll git the drop on me some way and marry me right out of hand. I tell you, she jest frightens the life out o' me. That worries me more'n all the rest put together. I expect I ought t 'v' told you so at the very first."
"Nonsense," said Si contemptuously. "The idee o' you're being afeared o' such a thing."
"It's all very well for you to snort and laugh, Si Klegg," persisted Shorty. "You don't know her. I sneered at her, too, at first, but when I was left alone with her she seemed to mesmerize me. I found myself talkin' about marryin' her before I knowed196 it, and the next thing I was on the p'int o' actually marryin' her. I believe that if she'd got me to walk a half-mile further with her she'd a run me up agin a Justice o' the Peace and married me in spite of all that I could do. I'd much ruther have my head blowed off than married to that old catamount.
"Bah, you can't marry folks unless both are willin'," insisted Si. "A man can't have a marriage rung in on him willy-nilly."
"There's just where you're shootin' off your mouth without any sense. You don't know what you're talkin' about. Men are lassoed every day and married to women that they'd run away from like a dog from a porcupine, if they could. You jest look around among the married folks you know, and see how many there are that wouldn't have married one another if they'd bin in their senses."
"Well, I don't think o' many," said Si, whose remembrances were that the people in Posey County seemed generally well-mated.
"Well, there mayn't be many, but there's some, and I don't propose to be one of 'em. There's some spell or witchcraft about it. I've read in books about things that gave a woman power to marry any man she wanted to, and he couldn't help himself. That woman's got something o' that kind, and she's set her eye on me. I'm goin' to meet her, and I want to help break up her gang, but I'd a great deal rather tackle old Bragg and his entire army. I want you to stay right by me every minnit, and keep your eye on me when she's near me."197
"All right," said Si sleepily, as he crawled into bed.
The next morning, as they were discussing the question of signals, they happened to pass the Sutler's, and Si caught a glimpse of packages of firecrackers, which the regimental purveyor had, for some inscrutable reason, thought he might sell. An idea occurred to Si, and he bought a couple of packages, and stowed them away in his blouse pocket and told the Captain that their firing would be the signal, unless a musket-shot should come first.
It was yet early in the forenoon as they walked on the less-frequented side of the camp. Shorty gave a start, and gasped:
"Jewhilikins, there she is already."
Si looked, and saw Mrs. Bolster striding toward them. Shorty hung back instinctively for an instant, and then braced up and bade her good morning.
She grunted an acknowledgment, and said rather imperiously:
"Y're a-gwine, air yo'?"
"Certainly," answered Shorty.
"And yo'?" she inquired, looking at Si.
"He's a-goin', too," answered Shorty. "Mustn't expect him to talk. He's short on tongue this mornin'. Ketched a bad cold night before last. Settled on his word-mill. Unjinted his clapper. Can't speak a word. Doctor says it will last several days. Not a great affliction. Couldn't 've lost anything o' less account."
"Must've bin an orful cold," said she, taking her pipe from her mouth and eyeing Si suspiciously.198
"Never knowed a cold to shut off any one's gab afore. Seems t' me that hit makes people talk more. But these Yankees air different. Whar air yer things? Did yo' bring plenty o' coffee?'
"We've got 'em hid down here in the brush," said Shorty. "We'll git 'em when we're ready to start."
"We're ready now," she answered. "Come along."
"But we hain't no passes," objected Shorty. "We must go to the Captain and git passes."
"Yo' won't need no passes," she said impatiently. "Foller me."
Shorty had expected to make the pretext about the passes serve for informing Capt. McGillicuddy of the presence of the woman in the camp. He looked quickly around and saw the Captain sauntering carelessly at a little distance, so that any notification was unnecessary. He turned and followed Mrs. Bolster's long strides, with Si bringing up the rear.
They went to the clump of brush where they had hidden their haversacks and guns. Mrs. Bolster eagerly examined the precious package of coffee.
"I'll take keer o' this myself," she said, stowing it away about her lanky person. "I can't afford to take no resks as to hit."
Si and Shorty had thought themselves very familiar with the campground, but they were astonished to find themselves led outside the line without passing under the eye of a single guard. Si looked at Shorty in amazement, and Shorty remarked:
"Well, I'll be durned."
The woman noticed and understood. "Yo' Yanks,"199 she said scornfully, "think yourselves moughty smart with all your book-larnin', and yo'uns put on heaps o' airs over po' folks what hain't no eddication; but what you don't know about Tennessee woods would make a bigger book than ever was printed."
"I believe you," said Shorty fervently. His superstition in regard to her was rapidly augmenting to that point where he believed her capable of anything. He was alarmed a'bout Capt. McGillicuddy's being able to follow their mysterious movements. But they soon came to the road, and looking back from the top of a hill, Shorty's heart lightened as he saw a squad moving out which he was confident was led by Capt. McGillicuddy.
But little had been said so far. At a turn of the road they came upon a gray-bearded man, wearing a battered silk hat and spectacles, whom Mrs. Bolster greeted as "'Squire."
The word seemed to send all the blood from Shorty's face, and he looked appealingly to Si as if the crisis had come.
The newcomer looked them over sharply and inquired:
"Who are these men, Mrs. Bolster?"
"They'uns 's all right. They'uns 's had enough o' Abolition doin's, and hev come over whar they'uns allers rayly belonged. This one is a partickler friend o' mine," and she leered at Shorty in a way that made his blood run cold.
"Hain't yo' time t' stop a minute, 'Squire?" she asked appealingly, as the newcomer turned his horse's head to renew his journey.200
"Not now; not now," answered the 'Squire, digging his heels into his steed's side. "I want to talk t' yo' and these 'ere men 'bout what's gwine on in the Lincoln camps, but I must hurry on now to meet Capt. Solomon at the Winding Blades. I'll come over to your house this evening," he called back.
"Don't fail, 'Squire," she answered, "fur I've got a little job for yo', an' I want hit partickerly done this very evenin'. Hit can't wait."
"I'll be there without fail," he assured her.
"Capt. Solomon's the man what sent the letter to you," she explained, which somewhat raised Shorty's depressed heart, for he began to have hopes that Rosenbaum might rescue him if Capt. McGillicuddy should be behind time.
As they jogged onward farther from camp Mrs. Bolster's saturnine earnestness began to be succeeded by what were intended to be demonstrations of playful affection for her future husband, whom she now began to regard as securely hers. She would draw Shorty into the path a little ahead of Si, and walk alongside of him, pinching his arm and jabbering incoherent words which were meant for terms of endearment. When the narrowness of the road made them walk in single file she would come up from time to time alongside with cuffs intended for playful love-taps.
At each of these Shorty would cast such a look of wretchedness at Si that the latter had difficulty in preserving his steadfast silence and rigidity of countenance.
But the woman's chief affection seemed to be called forth by the package of coffee. She would201 stop in the midst of any demonstration to pull out the bag containing the fragrant berry, and lovingly inhale its odor.
It was long past noon when she announced: "Thar's my house right ahead." She followed this up with a ringing whoopee, which made the tumbledown cabin suddenly swarm with animation. A legion of loud-mouthed dogs charged down toward the road. Children of various ages, but of no variety in their rags and unkempt wildness, followed the dogs, or perched upon the fence-corners and stumps, and three or four shambling, evil-faced mountaineers lunged forward, guns in hand, with eyes fiercer than the dogs, as they looked over the two armed soldiers.
"They'uns is all right, boys," exclaimed the woman. "They'uns 's plum sick o' doggin' hit for Abe Lincoln an' quit."
"Let 'em gin up thar guns, then," said the foremost man, who had but one eye, reaching for Shorty's musket. "I'll take this one. I've been longin' for a good Yankee gun for a plum month to reach them Yankee pickets on Duck River."
Though Shorty and Si had schooled themselves in the part they were to play, the repugnant thought of giving up their arms to the rebels threatened to overset everything. Instinctively they threw up their guns to knock over the impudent guerrillas. The woman strode between them and the others, and caught hold of their muskets.
"Don't be fools. Let 'em have your guns," she said, and she caught Si's with such quick unexpectedness that she wrenched it from his grasp and flung202 it to the man who wanted Shorty's. She threw one arm around Shorty's neck, with a hug so muscular that his breath failed, and she wrenched his gun away. She kept this in her hand, however.
"Now, I want these 'ere men treated right," she announced to the others, "and I'm a-gwine to have 'em treated right, or I'll bust somebody's skillet. They'uns is my takings, and I'm a-gwine to have all the say 'bout 'em. I've never interfered with any Yankees any o' yo'uns have brung in. Yo've done with them as you pleased, an' I'm a-gwine to do with these jest as I please, and yo'uns that don't like hit kin jest lump hit, that's all."
"'Frony Bolster, I want yo' to take yo'r arms from around that Yank's neck," said the man who had tried to take Shorty's gun. "I won't 'low yo' to put yo'r arm 'round another man's neck as long's I'm alive to stop it."
"Ye won't, Jeff Hackberry," she sneered. "Jealous, air ye? You've got no bizniss o' bein'. Done tole ye 'long ago I'd never marry yo', so long as I could find a man who has two good eyes and a 'spectable character. I've done found him. Here he is, and 'Squire Corson 'll splice us to-night."
How much of each of the emotions of jealousy, disappointment, hurt vanity, and rebel antagonism went into the howl that Mr. Jeff Hackberry set up at this announcement will never be known. He made a rush with clenched fists at Shorty.
A better description could be given of the operations of the center of a tornado than of the events of the next few minutes. Shorty and Hackberry grappled fiercely. Mrs. Bolster mixed in to stop the fight and save Shorty. Si and the other three rebels flung themselves into the whirlpool of strikes, kicks, and grapples. The delighted children came rushing in, and eagerly joined the fray, striking with charming impartiality at every opportunity to get a lick in anywhere on anybody; and finally the legion of dogs, to whom such scenes seemed familiar and gladsome, rushed in with an ear-splitting clamor, and jumped and bit at the arms and legs that went flying around.204
This was too violent to last long. Everybody and everything had to stop from sheer exhaustion. But when the stop came Mrs. Bolster was sitting on the prostrate form of Jeff Hackberry. The others were disentangling themselves from one another, the children and the dogs, and apparently trying to get themselves into relation with the points of the compass and understand what had been happening.
"Have yo' had enough, Jeff Hackberry," inquired Mrs. Bolster, "or will yo' obleege me to gouge yer other eye out afore yo' come to yer senses?"
"Le' me up, 'Frony," pleaded the man, "an' then we kin talk this thing over."
WHEN physical exhaustion called a halt in the fracas, Mrs. Bolster was seated on Jeff Hackberry's breast with her sinewy hands clutching his long hair, and her thumb, with a cruel, long nail, pressing the ball of his one good eye. Shorty was holding down one of the guerrillas who had tried to climb on his back when he was grappling with Hackberry. Si had knocked one guerrilla senseless with his gun-barrel, and now came to a breathless standstill in a struggle with another for the possession of his gun. The children and dogs had broken up into several smaller stormcenters, in each of which a vicious fight was going on. In some it was dog and dog; in some child and child, and in others dogs and children mixed.
Then they all halted to observe the outcome of the discussion between Mrs. Bolster and Jeff Hackberry.
"Holler 'nuff, Jeff, or out goes yer last light," commanded Mrs. Bolster, emphasizing her words by rising a little, and then settling down on Jeff's breast with a force that drove near every spoonful of breath out of him.
"'Frony, le' me up," he begged in gasps.206
"Mrs. Bolster," she reminded him, with another jounce upon his chest.
"Mrs. Bolster, le' me up. I'd 'a' got away with that 'ere Yank ef ye' hedn't tripped me with them long legs o' your'n."
"I'm right smart on the trip, aint I," she grinned. "I never seed a man yit that I couldn't throw in any sort of a rastle."
"Le' me up, Mrs. Bolster, an le's begin over agin, an' yo' keep out," begged Hackberry.
"Not much I won't. I ain't that kind of a chicken," she asserted with another jounce. "When I down a man I down him fer good, an' he never gits up agin 'till he caves entirely. If I let yo' up, will yo' swar to quite down peaceable as a lamb, an' make the rest do the same?"
"Never," asserted Hackberry. "I'm ergwine to have it out with that Yank."
"No you haint," she replied with a still more emphatic jounce that made Hackberry use all the breath left him to groan.
"I'll quit," he said, with his next instalment of atmosphere.
"Will yo' agree t' let me marry this Yank, an' t' give me away as my oldest friend, nearest o' kin, an' best man?" she inquired, rising sufficiently to let him take in a full breath and give a free, unforced answer.
"Nary a time," he shrieked. "I'll die fust, afore I'll 'low yo' t' marry ary other man but me."
"Then you'll lose yor bClinker, yo' pigheaded, likker-guzzling', ornery, no-account sand-hill crane," she said, viciously coming down on his chest with207 her full weight and sticking the point of hei nail against his eye. "I wouldn't marry yo' if ye wuz the last nubbin' in the Lord A'mighty's crib, and thar'd never be another crap o' men. Ye'll never git no chance to make me yer slave, and beat me and starve me t' death as yo' did Nance Brill. I ain't gwine t' fool with yer pervarsity nary a minnit longer. Say this instant whether yo'll do as I say with a freewill and good heart, or out goes yer peeper." "I promise," groaned Jeff.208
"Yo' sw'ar hit?" she demanded.
"Yes, I sw'ar hit," answered Jeff.
Mrs. Bolster rose, and confirmed the contract by giving him a kick in the side with her heavy brogan.
"That's jest a lovetap," she remarked, "'t let yo' know t' le' me alone hereafter. Now, le's straighten things around here fer a pleasant time."
She initiated her proposed era of good feeling by a sounding kick in the ribs of the most obstreperous of the dogs, and a slap on the face of a 12-year-old girl, who was the noisest and most pugnacious of the lot. Each of these set up a howl, but there was a general acquiescence in her assertion of authority.
Jeff Hackberry sat up, scratched and rubbed himself, seemed to be trying to once more get a full supply of air in his lungs, and turned a one-eyed glare on his surroundings. The guerrilla whom Si had knocked down began to show signs of returning consciousness, but no one paid any attention to him. One of the other two pulled out a piece of tobacco, split it in two, put the bigger half in his mouth and handed the remainder to his partner. Both began chewing meditatively and looking with vacant eyes for the next act in the drama. Shorty regained his gun, and he and Si looked inquiringly at one another and the mistress of the ranch.
"Come on up t' the house," she said, starting in that direction. The rest followed, with Si and Shorty in the lead.
The boys gazed around them with strong curiosity. The interior was like that of the other log cabins they had seen—a rough puncheon floor for the single room, a fireplace as big as a barn door, built of rough209 stones, with a hearth of undressed flat stones, upon which sat a few clumsy cooking utensils of heavy cast-iron, three-legged stools for chairs, a table of rough whip-sawed boards held together by wooden pins. In two of the corners were beds made of a layer of poles resting upon a stick supported at one end upon a log in the wall and at the other end a forked stick driven between the puncheons into the ground below. Upon this was a pile of beech leaves doing duty as a mattress. The bed-clothes were a mass of ragged fabrics, sheepskins, etc., used in the daytime for saddle-blankets and at night upon the bed. There had been added to them, however, looking particularly good and rich in contrast with their squalor, several blankets with "U. S." marked upon them. Around the room were canteens, shoes, and other soldier belongings.
"Have they killed and robbed the men to whom these belonged, or merely traded whisky for them?" was the thought that instantly flashed through Si's and Shorty's minds. The answer seemed to be favorable to murder and robbery. "Set down an' make yourselves at home. I'll git yo' out suthin' t' wet yer whistles," said Mrs. Bolster, wreathing as much graciousness as she could into her weathered-wood countenance. She apparently kicked at the same instant a stool toward them with her left foot, and a dog out of the way with her right, a performance that excited Shorty's admiration.
"When I see a woman kick in different directions with both feet at the same time, I understood how dangerous her trip would be in a rastle," he said afterward.210
Si and Shorty shoved two of the stools so that they could sit with their backs to the wall, still holding their guns.
The guerrillas came filing in, with an expectant look on their faces. Even Jeff Hackberry looked more thirstily longing than wrathful. The man who had fallen under Si's gunbarrel had gotten able to walk, was rubbing his head and moaning with the design of attracting attention and sympathy.
Mrs. Bolster produced a key from her pocket. The others understood what this meant. They lifted aside some sacks of meal and shelled corn, and revealed a puncheon which had been cut in two, and the short piece was garnished by rude iron hinges and hasp, all probably taken from some burned barn. The hasp was locked into the staple by one of the heavy padlocks customary on the plantations, and this Mr. Bolster proceeded to open with her key. When the puncheon was turned up it revealed a pit beneath, from which she lifted a large jug of whisky. She poured some out in a tin cup and handed it to Shorty.
"Take a big swig," she said; "hit's mouty good stuff—ole Jeff Thompson's brewin' from yaller corn raised on rich bottom land."
Si trembled as he saw his partner take the cup. Shorty smelled it appreciatively. "That is good stuff," he said. "Roses ain't nowhere alongside."
He put the cup to his lips and took a sip.
"Tastes as good as it smells," he said, heartily, while the mouths of the guerrillas were watering. He put the cup again to his lips, as if to take a deep draft. Then came a short cough and a tremendous211 sputter, followed by more painful coughing and strangling.
"Jest my infernal luck," gasped Shorty. "I would talk, an' I got some down the wrong way.
"Lord, it's burnin' my lights out. Gi' me a drink o' water, somebody."
One of the children handed him a gourdful of water, while he continued to cough and sputter and blame himself for talking when he was drinking.
The woman handed the cup to Si, who feared that the liquor might be poisoned or drugged. He made a pretense of drinking, and then handed the cup back, making motions that his throat was so sore that he could not drink much. Mrs. Bolster looked at him suspiciously, but the clamor of the guerillas distracted her attention, and she turned to supply them.
"No, Jeff Hackberry," she said firmly, "yo' can't have more'n two fingers. I know yo' of old, an' jest how much yo' orter tote. Two fingers'll make yo' comfortable an' sociable; three'll raise the devil in yo,' an' four'll make yo' dancin' drunk, when yo'll have t' be held down. Yo'll have jest two fingers, an' not a drap more."
"Jest another finger, 'Frony. Remember, yo've bin orful rough on me, an' I need more. I'll promise t' be good," pleaded Hackberry.
"No, not a drap more'n two fingers now. If yo' behave yo'self I'll give yo' another two fingers by-an'-by."
"Hackberry swallowed his portion at a thirsty gulp and sat down on the door-sill to let it do its invigorating work. The other two guerrillas were212 given each two fingers, and the man whom Si knocked down had his moanings rewarded by three fingers and a liberal application in addition to the wound on his head, which he declared was much relieved by it.
"Set your guns up agin the wall an' ack nacherul," commanded Mrs. Bolster. "Nobody's a-gwine to hurt yo'. The 'Squire'll be here soon, we'll git spliced, an' have a good time all around."
The noisy barking of the dogs announced the approach of someone.
"Lord, I hope that's 'Squire Corson," said Mrs. Bolster, running eagerly to the door. "If hit's him, we kin go right ahead with the weddin'."
"If that's the 'Squire," said Shorty, in a low whisper, without turning his head, "we'll grab our guns and fight to the death. We may clean out this gang."
Si's attention had been in the meanwhile attracted to some boxes concealed under the beds, and his curiosity was aroused as to what such unusual things in a cabin might contain.
"No; hit's Capt. Sol. Simmons," said she in a tone of disappointment mixed with active displeasure. "Now, he'll be cavortin' and tearin' around, and wantin' t' kill somebody. I wish he wuz whar hit's a good deal hotter."
She came over to where the boys were sitting, and said in a low tone:
"This man's allers makin' trouble, an' he's bad from his boots up. Keep a stiff upper lip, both on yo', an' we'll try t' manage him. Don't weaken. Hit'll do no good. He'll be wuss'n ever then."213
Si and Shorty instinctively felt for the revolvers in their pockets.
The newcomer tied his horse to a sapling and strode into the house. The guerrillas seemed rather more fearful than otherwise to see him, but met him with manners that were ranged from respectful by Jeff Hackberry to absolute servility by the others. He was a burly, black-bearded man, wearing a fairly-good uniform of a rebel Captain. His face showed that he was a bully, and a cruel one.
He acknowledged in an overbearing way the greetings of the others, and called out imperiously:
"'Frony, gi' me a stiff dram o' yer best at wunst. My throat's drier'n a lime-kiln. Bin ridin' all mornin'."
"Folks wantin' likker don't say must t' me, but will yo', an' please," she answered sulkily.
"'Must,' 'please,' yo' hag," he said savagely. "Talk that a-way to me. I'll 'please' yo'. I've killed two Yankees this mornin', an' I'm not in the humor to fool around with an old pennyroyal huzzy like yo'. Gi' me some whisky at wunst, or I'll baste yo'."
If ever Mrs. Bolster had been favorably disposed to him, she could not endure to have him treat her this way before Shorty. She would assert herself before him if ever.
She put her arms akimbo and retorted vigorously:
"Nary drap o' likker yo'll git from me, Sol. Simmons. Go and git yer likker whar y're welcome. Y're not welcome here. I don't keer if yo' have killed two Yankees or 20 Yankees. Y're allers talkin' about killin' Yankees, but nobody never sees none that y've killed. I'm a better Confederit than yo'214 ever dared be. I'm doin' more for the Southern Confedrisy. Y're allers a-blowin' while I'm allers adoin.' Everybody knows that. Talk about the two Yankees y've killed, an' which nobody's seed, here I've brung two Yankees right outen their camps, an' have 'em to show. More'n that, they're gwine to jine we'uns."
She indicated the two boys with a wave of her hand. Simmons seemed to see them for the first time.
"Yankees here, an' yo' haint killed 'em," he yelled. He put his hand to his revolver and stepped forward. The two boys jumped up and snatched their guns, but before another move could be made Mrs. Bolster's unfailing trip brought Simmons heavily to the floor, with his revolver half out the holster. In an instant she sat down heavily upon him, and laid her brawny hand upon his pistol. The dogs and children gathered around in joyous expectation of a renewal of general hostilities. But the dogs broke away at the scent or sight of someone approaching.
"Mebbe that's 'Squire Corson,'" said Mrs. Bolster with a renewed flush of pleasant anticipation.
Instead, a rather, good-looking young rebel officer wearing a Major's silver stars dismounted from his horse and, followed by two men, entered the cabin.
"Hello, Simmons," said the Major in a tone of strong rebuke as soon as he entered. "What in the world are you doing here? Is this the way you carry out the General's orders? You're at your old tricks again. You were sent out here early this morning, to capture or drive away that Yankee picket at Raccoon Ford, so as to let Capt. Gillen come through215 with his pack-mules. I expected to meet him here and go on with him. Your men have been waiting at the crossroads for you since daylight, while you've been loitering around the rear. I ought to have you shot, and you would be if I reported this to the General. You skulking whelp, you ought to be shot. But I'll give you one more chance. It may not be too late yet. Break for your place as fast as you can, and take these whelps with you. I'll wait here till sundown for you. If you don't report back to me by that time you'd better make your will. Jump now."
Mrs. Bolster had let go of Simmons as this exordium proceeded, as she felt that he was in good hands.
As they disappeared the Major turned to Mrs. Bolster and inquired:
"Did Capt. Gillen get through with that quinine and guncaps?"
"They're thar," she said, pointing to the boxes under the beds.
"Very good. I've brought some men to take them away. We need them very badly. Who are these men?"
Mrs. Bolster told her story about how they were tired of the Abolition war, and had yielded to her persuasions to join the Southern army.
The Major looked them over sharply, and began a close cross-questioning as to where they were born, what regiment they belonged to, how long they had been in the service, what battles they had been engaged in and on what part of the field, where their regiment now was, its brigade, division and corps, commanders, etc., etc.216
As Shorty did not see any present occasion for lying, he had no trouble in telling a convincing straightforward story. Si successfully worked the loss-of-voice racket, and left the burden of conversation to his partner.
The Major seemed satisfied, and said at the conclusion:
"Very good. I'll take you back with me when I return, and place you in a good regiment."
This was a new and startling prospect, which was almost too much for Shorty's self-control. For a minute he had wild thoughts of assassinating the Major then and there, and making a run for life. But he decided to wait a little longer and see what would develop.
If Mrs. Bolster's hue had permitted she would have turned pale at this threatened loss of a husband and upsetting of all her plans. She merely gulped down a lump in her throat and seemed to be thinking.
She became very attentive to the Major, and brought for his edification a private bottle of fine old whisky. She set about preparing something for them to eat.
Again the dogs barked, and in walked a man dressed in the fatigue uniform of a Union soldier with the chevrons of a Sergeant. The boys gave a start of surprise, and a great one when they saw on his cap:
A
200 Ind. Vols.
Si would have sprung up to greet him, but Shorty laid a restraining hand, and whispered:217
"He don't belong to our regiment."
A second glance satisfied Si of this. While it is hardly possibly for a man to know every other man in his regiment, yet in a little while there comes something which enables him to know whether any man he meets does or does not belong to his regiment.
The Major and Mrs. Bolster instantly recognized the newcomer.
"Awful glad to see you, Tuggers," said the Major, rising and shaking his hand. "Did you get through without any trouble?"
"Not a bit o' trouble, thanks to you and Mrs. Bolster here. She got me this uniform and this cap," said Tuggers, taking off the latter article and scanning the lettering. "Rather more brass than I'm in the habit of carrying on top of my head, no matter how much I have in my face. I got your not giving me the positions of the Yankee regiments, for which I suppose we must also thank Mrs. Bolster. I found them all correct. As the 200th Ind. was the farthest out, I had no difficulty getting through the rest of them by saying that I was on my way to my regiment. Of course, I didn't come through the camp of the 200th Ind., but modestly sought a byroad which Mrs. Bolster had put me onto. I've got a lot of important letters from the mail in Nashville, among which are some letters for the General, which I am told are highly important. I'm mighty glad to be able to place them in your hands, and relieve myself of the responsibility. Here they are. Thanks, I don't care if I do, since you press me so hard,"218 said he, without change of voice, as he handed over the letters and picked up the bottle and tin cup.
"Excuse me, Tuggers, for not asking you before," said the Major. "I was so interested in you and your letters I forgot for the moment that you might be thirsty. Help yourself."
"I didn't forget it," said Tuggers, pouring out a liberal dram. "Here's to our deserving selves and our glorious Cause."
A shy girl of about eight had responded to Si's persistent encouragement, and sidled up to him, examining his buttons and accouterments. Si gave her some buttons he had in his pocket, and showed her his knife and other trinkets in his pockets. The other children began to gather around, much interested in the elaborate dumb show he was making of his inability to speak.
Again the dogs barked. Mrs. Bolster ran to the door. "Hit's 'Squire Corson," she exclaimed joyously, and hustled around to make extra preparations for his entertainment.
The 'Squire entered, mopping his face with his bandana, and moving with the deliberation and dignity consistent with his official position.
He looked at the boys with a severe, judicial eye, and gave the ominous little cough with which he was wont to precede sentences. But he recognized the Major and Tuggers, and immediately his attention was centered in them. They were connected with Army Headquarters; they were repositories of news which he could spread among his constituents. He greeted them effusively, and was only too glad to accept their invitation to sit down and drink. But219 he suggested, with official prudence, that they go out in front and sit under a tree where they could converse wore at liberty.
"Afore you go out, 'Squire," said Mrs. Bolster, with an attempt at coyness, "I want yo' t' do a little job fer me."
Shorty's hair tried to stand on end.
"Jest wait a little, my good woman," said the 'Squire patronizingly. "I want to talk to these gentlemen first; I kin 'tend to your matter any time."
They lighted their pipes, and talked and talked, while Mrs. Bolster fidgeted around in growing anxiety. Finally, as the sun was going down, she could stand it no longer, and approached the group.
"'Squire," she said, "I'm orferly anxious to have a little job o' mine done. 'Twon't take yo' five minits. Please 'tend to it right away."
"What is it she wants?" inquired the Major.
"I think she wants me to marry her to a Yankee deserter in there. She whispered suthin' o' that kind to me awhile ago."
"That reminds me," said the Major; "I want you to swear those two men into the service of the Southern Confederacy. You might as well do it now, if you please, for I want to take them back with me and put them into a regiment."
"That won't give much of a honeymoon to Mrs. Bolster," grinned the 'Squire.
"Well, we've all got to make sacrifices for the Cause," said the Major; "her honeymoon'll be the sweeter for being postponed. I've had to postpone mine."
"Well, bring the men out," said the 'Squire, pouring himself out another drink.220
Si and Shorty had moved to the front door when Mrs. Bolster went out, and could hear the whole conversation. They looked at one another. Their faces were whiter than they had ever been on the field of battle.
"Take the oath of allegiance to the Southern Confederacy? Die right here a hundred times," surged through both their hearts.
Si pulled the bunches of firecrackers from his pocket, undid them before the children's wondering eyes. He went through a pantomime to tell them to take a coal from the fire, run out back with them, and touch it to the fuses.
"Take a coal, run back, and tech it to them strings," said Shorty, forgetting himself in his excitement. "It'll be the greatest fun ye ever saw."
"What's that y're sayin'?" said Mrs. Bolster.
"Jest talkin' to the children," said Shorty, seeing with relief the children bolt out of the back door. He slipped his hand on his revolver, determined to kill the 'Squire, the Major, and the other three men before he would take a syllable of the oath.
"Come out here, men," said the Major authoritatively. Si slipped his hand into his pocket, grasped his revolver, and walked forward very slowly.
"Ahem," said the 'Squire, with an official cough. "Raise yer right hands, and repeat these words after me, givin' your own names."
The other rebels took off their hats.
The dogs raised a clamor, which directed all eyes to the road. Sol Simmons and the rest could be seen coming on a dead run.
"What does that mean?" said the Major anxiously.221
At the same instant there was a series of crashes behind the house; the firecrackers were going off like a volley of rifle-shots. The Major whirled around to see what that meant, and looked into the muzzle of Shorty's revolver.
"Surrender, or I'll kill you," shouted Shorty desperately. "Don't stop a minit. Throw up your hands, I tell you."
Si was making a similar demand on Tuggers, while the 'Squire was standing, open-mouthed, with the first word of the oath apparently still on his tongue.
The Major sprang at Shorty, whose bullet cut his hair. The next bullet caught the officer in the shoulder, and he reeled and went down. Si was not so fortunate with Tuggers, who succeeded in grappling him. Simmons dashed by and struck Si, in passing, with his fist, which sent him to the ground, with Tuggers on top.
The next minute the 'Squire, who was the only one who had any opportunity to look, saw Yankees pop out of the brush and jump the fences in a long, irregular line which immediately surrounded the house. Capt. McGillicuddy cut down Simmons with his sword, and the rest incontinently surrendered.
"We had got tired of waiting, and were on the point of dashing in, anyhow, when we heard the firecrackers," said Capt. McGillicuddy, after the prisoners had been secured and things quieted down. "That feller that I cut down was out there with a squad and caught sight of us, and started back this way, and I concluded to follow him up and jump the house. Neither of you hurt, are you?"222
"Not hurt a mite," answered Shorty cheerfully, "but it's the closest squeak I ever had. Wouldn't go through it agin for a pile o' greenbacks big as a cornshock. Say, Cap., you've made a ten-strike today that ought to make you a Major. That house's plum full o' contraband, and there's a lot o' important letters there. But, say, Cap., I want you to either kill that 'Squire or git him as fur away as possible. I ain't safe a minnit as long as him and that woman's a-nigh me."
THE REBEL Major accepted the unexpected turn of events with soldierly philosophy. Tuggers, captured in a blue uniform, saw the ignominious fate of a spy loom up before his eyes. His face grew very white and set. He sat down on a log, looked far away, and seemed oblivious to everything around him.
Jeff Hackberry and Sol Simmons were frightened into nerveless terror, and occasionally sighed and groaned audibly. Their men huddled together like frightened sheep, and looked anxiously at every move of their captors.
'Squire Corson had ventured two or three remarks in a judicial and advisory way, but had been ordered by Capt. McGillicuddy to sit down and keep quiet. He took a seat on a stump, pulled a large bandana out of his beaver crowned hat, wiped his bald head, and anxiously surveyed the scene as if looking for an opportunity when the power and dignity of the State of Tennessee might be invoked to advantage.
Only Mrs. Bolster retained her aggressiveness and her tongue. If anything, she seemed to be more savage and virulent than ever. She was wild that she had been outwitted, and particularly by Si, whose fluent speech had returned the moment the224 firecrackers went oif. She poured out volleys of scorching epithets on all the Yankees from President Lincoln down to Corp'l Si Klegg, and fervently invoked for them speedy death and eternal torment where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched.
Capt. McGillicuddy rounded up his prisoners, took arms from those who still retained them, had Si and Shorty do what they could toward dressing the Major's wound, and then began an examination of the house.
He found abundant evidence of all that he, Si and Shorty had believed of it. It was a rendezvous for spies, both great and small—both those, like Mrs. Bolster, who infested our camps, and got news of whatever was going on there, and those who operated on a larger scale, passing directly from the Headquarters of the rebels to the Headquarters of ours, and to the rear, and the sources of information at Nashville and Louisville. It was an important station on the route for smuggling gun-caps, quinine, medicines and other contraband from the North. Quantities of these were there waiting to be forwarded. As the source of the fighting whisky introduced into the camp of the 200th Ind. too much was known of it to require any further information. And it was more than probable that it was the scene of darker crimes—Union soldiers lured thither under some pretext, murdered and robbed.
"How in the world am I going to break this infernal nest up?" said Capt. McGillicuddy, with a puzzled air, after he had ordered the whisky destroyed and the other things gotten in shape to send225 back to camp. "By rights, I ought to burn that house down, but that would leave all these children without shelter. By the same token, I ought to shoot or at least send off to prison that old she-catamount, but that would mean starving the children to death. I declare, I don't know what to do."
He had drawn apart a little with Si and Shorty, to whom he spoke confidentially, while casting his eyes about him as if seeking some solution of the problem.
"If you'll allow me. Captain," said Shorty, "I've an idee. Now that we've got the trap, let's set it agin, and see if we can't ketch some more."
"Splendid idea. Shorty," said the Captain, catching on at once.
"And my idee," said Shorty, emboldened by the reception of his first suggestion, "is that you take all the company but me and Si and four or fire of the boys back to camp, leavin' us here until to-morrow at least. There'll probably some very interestin' men happen along here to-night, not knowing what's happened, and we'll jest quietly yank 'em in."
"That's good," assented the Captain.
"In the meantime," continued Shorty, "you kin be considerin' what you'll do with the house. It may be best to let it stand, and watch it. That's a good way to do with a bee-tree or a woodchuck hole.
"I believe you are right. I'll do as you say. Si, you and Shorty pick out as many men as you want to stay with you. I'll leave one of these horses with you. If you should happen to need any more, mount one of the boys and send him back for help. I'll come out with the whole company."226
Shorty and Si consulted together for a few minutes, picked out their men, gave their names to the Captain, and received his assent to the selection. Then Shorty said:
"Captain, you don't want to take that old woman, the 'Squire and that skunk they call Jeff Hackberry back to camp with you, do you? Leave 'em here with us. I've got a little scheme."
"The old woman and the 'Squire you can take and welcome," answered the Captain. "I'll be glad to have them oif my hands. But Hackberry is a rebel soldier. I don't know about giving him up."
"Leave him with us, then. We'll turn him back to you all right, and the old woman and the 'Squire, too, if you want 'em."
"No," said the Captain, with an impatient wave of his hand. "Keep them, do what you please with them. If you should accidentally kill the old woman I should not be unduly distressed. But don't let Hackberry get away from you. I'll take the rest back to camp, and I must start at once, for it's getting late, and we didn't bring any rations with us. Do you suppose you can find enough around the house to keep you till morning?"
"O, yes," said Si. "There's a sack of meal in there and some side-meat. We gave the old woman a lot of coffee. We'll make out all right."
The prisoners had been watching the Captain and his men with greatest anxiety. They now saw Si with his squad take the 'Squire. Mrs. Bolster and Hackberry off to one side, while the Captain placed the remainder of the prisoners in the center of his company and started back to camp with them.227
There was something in this separation that terrified even Mrs. Bolster, who stopped railing and began to look frightened.
"What are yo'uns goin' to do with we'uns?" she inquired hoarsely of Si.
"You'll find out soon enough," said Si significantly. "Set down there on that log and think about what you deserve. You might put in any spare time you have in doing some big repentin'."
Hackberry began to whine and beg for mercy, but Shorty ordered him to keep silent.
"I want you to understand," said the 'Squire, "that I'm a regerlarly elected and qualified Magistrate o' the State o' Tennessee; that I'm not subjeck to military laws, and if any harm comes to me you'll have to answer for it to the State o' Tennessee."
"Blast the State o' Tennessee," said Shorty contemptuously. "When we git through there won't be no State o' Tennessee. It'll be roasting in the same logheap with South Caroliny and Virginny, with Jeff Davis brilin' in the middle."
"Boys," ordered Si, "a couple of you look around the house and see if you can't find a mattock and shovel."
Terrible fears assailed the three unhappy prisoners at this. What could a mattock and shovel be wanted for but to dig their graves?
Shorty stepped over a little distance to a large clump of "red-sticks." These grow in long wands of brilliant red, as straight as a corn-stalk, and slenderer. They are much used about the farms of the South for rods for rough measurement. He cut one off about six feet long and stripped off its leaves.228
The anxious eyes of the prisoners followed every movement.
Two of the boys appeared with an old mattock and shovel.
"Guess you'd better dig right over there," said Si, indicating a little bare knoll.
"Nothin' else's ever bin planted there. At least nothin's ever come up. The chances are agin their comin' up if we plant 'em there."
"Stand up," said Shorty, approaching Hackberry with the bright crimson rod in his hand. "I'm goin' to measure you for a grass-green suit that'll last you till Gabriel blows his horn."
Hackberry gave a howl of terror. The 'Squire and Mrs. Bolster began a clamor of protests.
"Don't fuss," said Shorty calmly to them, as he took Hackberry's dimensions. "I ain't goin' to show no partiality. I'll serve you both the same way. Your turns 'll come after his'n."
The children, aware that something unusual was going on, yet unable to comprehend what it was, stood silently around, their fingers in their mouths and their vacant eyes fixed in the stolid stare of the mountaineer youth. Even the dogs were quiet, and seemed watching the scene with more understanding than the children.
Mrs. Bolster's mood suddenly changed from bitter vituperation. She actually burst into tears, and began pleading for her life, and making earnest promises as to better conduct in the future. The 'Squire and Hackberry followed suit, and blubbered like schoolboys. Mrs. Bolster reminded Si and Shorty how she had saved them from being killed by the229 fierce Hackberry and the still fiercer Simmons. This seemed to move them. She tried a ghastly travesty of feminine blandishments by telling Shorty how handsome she had thought him, and had fallen in love with him at first sight. Shorty gave a grimace at this. He and Si stepped back a little for consultation.
When they came back Shorty said oracularly:
"Our orders is strict, and we should've carried 'em out at once. But, talkin' with my partner here, we're reminded o' somethin'. We believe it's the law that when a man or woman is sentenced to death the execution kin be put off if they kin find anybody to marry 'em. Is that good law, 'Squire?"
"H-m-m," answered the Magistrate, resuming his judicial manner at once; "that is a general belief, and I've heard o' some instances of it. But before sayin' positively, I should like to examine the authorities an' hear argument."
"Well, there hain't goin' to be no continuance in this case for you to look up authorities and hear arguments," said Shorty decisively. "We're the higher court in this case, and we decided that the law's good enough for it. We've settled that if Mrs. Bolster 'll marry Hackberry, and Hackberry 'll marry Mrs. Bolster, and you'll marry 'em both, we'll grant a stay o' proceedings in the matter o' the execution o' the sentence o' death until we kin be advised by the higher authorities."
"I'll do anything. Mister," blubbered Hackberry. "I'll marry her this minnit. Say the words, 'Squire."
"I've said I'd rather die 10 times over than marry yo', Jeff Hackberry," murmured Mrs. Bolster. "I've280 bin the wife o' one ornery snipe of a whisky-sucking sand-digger, and when the Lord freed me from him I said I'd never git yoked with another. But I s'pose I've got to live for my children, though the Lord knows the yaller-headed brats hain't wuth hit. They're everyone of 'em their dad over agin—all Bolsters, and not wuth the powder to blow 'em to kingdom come. I'd a heap ruther marry Jeff Hackberry to make sure o' havin' him shot than to save him from shootin'."
"You hain't no choice, Madam," said Shorty severely. "Law and orders is strict on that pint."
"Well, then," said she, "since hit's a ch'ice betwixt death and Jeff Hackberry, I'll take Jeff Hackberry, though I wouldn't take him on no other terms, and I'm afeared I'm makin' a mistake as hit is."
"What do you say, 'Squire?" asked Shorty.
"I've bin studyin' on jest whar I come in," answered the Magistrate. "These two save their necks by marryin', but do you understand that the law says that the Magistrate who marries 'em gits his neck saved?"
"The court is not clear on that as a p'int o' law," said Shorty; "but in the present case it'll hold that the 'Squire who does the splicin' gets as much of a rake-off as the rest. This is not to be considered a precedent, however."
"All right," assented the 'Squire; "let the couple jine hands."
With an air of glad relief, Hackberry sprang up and put out his hand. Mrs. Bolster came up more slowly and reluctantly grasped his hairy fist in her231 large, skinny hand. The 'Squire stood up before them in his most impressive attitude.
"Hold on," suddenly called out Tom Welch, who was the "guard-house lawyer" of Co. Q, and constantly drawing the "Regulations," the "Tactics," and the "Constitution and Laws of the United States," in which he was sharply proficient, upon the members of the regiment. "I raise the point that the 'Squire can't officiate until he has taken the oath of allegiance to the United States."
Si and Shorty looked at one another.
"That's a good point," said Si. "He's got to take the oath of allegiance."
"Never," shouted the 'Squire, who had begun to recover his self-confidence. "Never, as long as I live. I've sworn allegiance to the Southern Confederacy, and won't take no other oath."
"Grave for one!" called out Shorty to the boys with the pick and shovel, as if he were giving an order in a restaurant. "Full size, and hurry up with it."
He picked up his measuring rod and started to take the 'Squire's dimensions.
The 'Squire wilted at once. "I s'pose I've got to yield to force," he muttered. "I'll take the oath."
"Who knows the oath?" inquired Si. "Do you, Tom?"
"Not exactly," replied Tom, non-plused for once. "But I know the oath we took when mustered in. That ought to do. What's good enough for us is good enough for him."
"Go ahead," ordered Si.
"We ought to have a Bible by rights," said Tom.232
"Where kin we find your Bible, Mrs. Bolster, asked Si.
"We'uns air done clean out o' Bibles," she said, rather shamefacedly. "Thar hain't nary one in the house. I allers said we orter have a Bible. Hit looked 'spectable to have one in the house. But Andy allers wanted every cent to guzzle on."
"Here's a Testament. That'll do," said Tom, handing Si one which some of the boys had about him. "Le's make 'em all take the oath while we're at it."
"You'll all raise your right hands," said Si, opening the book. "Place your left on this book, and repeat the words after that man there, givin' your own names." Si was as solemn about it as he believed everyone should be at such a ceremony. Hackberry and Mrs. Bolster were not sure which were their right hands, but Si finally got them started, and Tom Welch repeated slowly and impressively:
"You do solemnly swear to support the Constitution and laws of the United States, and all laws made in pursuance thereof, against all enemies and opposers whatsoever, whether foreign or domestic, and to obey the orders of all officers duly appointed over you. So help you God, and kiss this book."
"And to quit liquor selling, smuggling, spying and giving aid and comfort to the enemy," added Shorty, and this was joined to the rest of the oath.
"I ought to have added that they wash their faces once a day, and put more shortenin' and fillin' in Mrs. Bolster's pies," said Shorty in an undertone to233 Si. "But I suppose we oughtn't to ask impossible things."
"Now go ahead with the wedding ceremony," ordered Si.
Again the 'Squire commanded them to join hands, and after mumbling over the fateful words, pronounced Thomas Jefferson Hackberry and Mrs. Sophronia Bolster man and wife.
"Now," said Shorty, who felt at last fully insured against a great danger, "I believe it's the law and custom for all the witnesses to a weddin' to see the bride and bridegroom in bed together. You'll go inside the house and take one of them beds, and after we've seen you there we'll consider your cases further. You're all right, anyway, until we hear from camp to-morrow."
Amid the grins of the rest the boys conducted the newly-weds into the house.
He and Si brought out the sack of meal, a few cooking utensils, a side of bacon, and the package of coffee, which they gave to the other boys to get supper with. They closed the door behind them, excluding the children and dogs, and left the pair to their own reflections.
"Gentlemen, what air you gwine to do with me?" asked the 'Squire. "I'd powerful like to git on home, if you've no further use for me."
"We hain't decided what to do with you, you old fomenter o' rebellion," said Si. "We ought to shoot you for what you've done in stirring up these men to fight us. We'll settle your case to-morrow. You'll stay with us till then. We'll give you your234 supper, and after awhile you kin go in and sleep in that other bed, with the children."
The 'Squire gave a dismal groan at the prospect, which was lost on the boys, who were very hungry and hurrying around helping to get supper.
They built a fine fire and cooked a bountiful meal, of which all, including the 'Squire and children, partook heartily. A liberal portion, with big cups of strong coffee, were sent into the bridal couple. As bed-time drew near, they sent the 'Squire and the children into the house, and divided themselves up into reliefs to watch during the night.
THE boys were sitting around having another smoke before crawling into their blankets, spread under the shade of the scraggly locusts and mangy cedars, when the dogs raised an alarm.
"Get back under the shadow of the trees, boys, and keep quiet," said Si.
"Hello, the house!" came out of the darkness at the foot of the hill.
"Hello, thar' yourself," answered Shorty, imitating Mrs. Bolster's voice.
"Hit's me—Brad Tingle. Don't yo' know my voice? Call off yer dogs. They'll eat me up."
"Hullo, Brad; is that yo'? Whar'd yo' come from? Git out, thar, Watch! Lay down, Tige! Begone, Bones! Come on up, Brad."
Shorty's imitations of Mrs. Bolster's voice and manner were so good as to deceive even the dogs, who changed their attitude of shrill defiance to one of fawning welcome.
"Whar'd yo' come from, Brad?" repeated Shorty as the newcomer made his way up the narrow, stony path.
"Jest from the Yankee camps," answered the newcomer. "Me an' Jim Wyatt's bin over thar by that236 Hoosier camp tryin' to git the drop on their Kurnel as he was gwine t' Brigade Headquarters. We a'most had him when a company o' Yankees that'd bin out in the country for something a'most run over us. They'uns wuz a-nigh on top o' we'uns afore we seed they'uns, an' then we'uns had t' scatter. Jim run one way an' me another. I come back here t' see ef yo' had any o' the boys here. I hearn tell that a passel o' Yankee ossifers is at a dance over at the Widder Brewster's an' I thought we'uns might done gether they'uns in ef we'uns went about it right."
"So you kin—so you kin," said Shorty, reaching out from behind the bushes and catching him by the collar. "And to show you how, I'll jest gether you in."
A harsh, prolonged, sibilant, far-reaching hiss came from the door of the cabin, but came too late to warn Brad Tingle of the trap into which he was walking.
Shorty understood it at once. He jerked Tingle forward into Si's strong clutch, and then walked toward the cabin, singing out angrily:
"Jeff Hackberry, I want you to make that wife o' your'n mind her own bisness, and let other people's alone. You and her've got quite enough to do to tend to your honeymoon, without mixing into things that don't concern you. Take her back to bed and keep her there."
He went back to where Si was disarming and searching Tingle. The prisoner had a United States musket, cartridge-box, canteen, and a new haversack, all of which excited Shorty's ire.237
"You hound, you," he said, taking him by the throat with a fierce grasp, "you've bin bushwhacking, and got these things off some soldier you sneaked onto and killed. We ought to kill you right now, like we would a dog."
"No, Mister, I haint killed nobody; I swar t' God I haint," gurgled the prisoner, trying to release his throat from Shorty's grip.
"Where'd you git these things?" demanded Shorty.
"Mrs. Bolster gi' me the gun an' cartridge-box; I done found the canteen in the road, an' the poke with the letters in hit the Yank had done laid down beside him when he stopped t' git a drink, an' me an' Jim crep' up on him an' ordered him to surrender. He jumped an' run, an' we wuz af eared to shoot least we bring the rest o' the Yanks down onto us."
At the mention of letters Si began eagerly examining the contents of the haversack. He held some of them down to the light of the fire, and then exclaimed excitedly:
"Why, boys, this is our mail. It was Will Gobright they were after."
A sudden change came over Shorty. He took the prisoner by the back of the neck and ran him up to the door of the house and flung him inside. Then he hastened back to the fire and said:
"Le's see them letters."
A pine-knot had been thrown on the fire to make a bright blaze, by the light of which Si was laboriously fumbling over the letters. Even by the flaring, uncertain glare it could be seen that a ruddy hue came into his face as he came across one with a gorgeous flag on one end of the envelope, and directed in a238 pinched, labored hand on straight lines scratched by a pin. He tried to slip the letter unseen by the rest into his blouse pocket, but fumbled it so badly that he dropped the rest in a heap at the edge of the fire.
"Look out, Si," said Shorty crossly, and hastily snatching the letters away from the fire. "You'll burn up somebody's letters, and then there'll be no end o' trouble. You're clumsier'n a foundered horse. Your fingers are all thumbs."
"Handle them yourself, if you think you kin do any better," said Si, who, having got all that he wanted, lost interest in the rest. If Si's fingers were all thumbs. Shorty's seemed all fists. Besides, his reading of handwriting was about as laborious as climbing a ladder. He tackled the lot bravely, though, and laboriously spelled out and guessed one address after another, until suddenly his eye was glued on a postmark that differed from the others. "Wis." first caught his glance, and he turned the envelope around until he had spelled out "Bad Ax" as the rest of the imprint. This was enough. Nobody else in the regiment got letters from Bad Ax, Wis. He fumbled the letter into his blouse pocket, and in turn dropped the rest at the edge of the fire, arousing protests from the other boys.
"Well, if any o' you think you kin do better'n I kin, take 'em up. There they are," said he. "You go over 'em, Tom Welch. I must look around a little."
Shorty secretly caressed the precious envelope in his pocket with his great, strong fingers, and pondered as to how he was going to get an opportunity to read the letter before daylight. It was too sacred239 and too sweet to be opened and read before the eyes of his unsympathetic, teasing comrades, and yet it seemed an eternity to wait till morning. He stole a glance out of the corner of his eye at Si, who was going through the same process, as he stood with abstracted air on the other side of the fire. The sudden clamor of the dogs recalled them to present duties.
"Hullo, the house!" came out of the darkness.
"Hullo, yourself!" replied Shorty, in Mrs. Bolster's tones.
"It's me—Groundhog. Call off yer dogs."
Si and Shorty looked startled, and exchanged significant glances. "Needn't 've told it was him," said Shorty. "I could smell his breath even this far. Hullo, Groundhog," he continued in loud tones. "Come on up. Git out, Watch! Lay down, Tige! Begone, Bones! Come on up, Groundhog. What's the news?"
A louder, longer, more penetrating hiss than ever sounded from the house. Shorty looked around angrily. Si made a break for the door.
"No, I can't come up now," said Groundhog; "I jest come by to see if things wuz all right. A company went out o' camp this mornin' for some place that I couldn't find out. I couldn't git word t' you, an' I've bin anxious 'bout whether it come this way."
"Never tetched us," answered Shorty, in perfect reproduction of Mrs. Bolster's accents. "We'uns is all right."
The hissing from the cabin became so loud that it seemed impossible for Groundhog not to hear it.240
"Blast it, Si, can't you gag that old guinea-hen," said Shorty, in a savage undertone.
Si was in the meanwhile muttering all sorts of savage threats at Mrs. Bolster, the least of which was to go in and choke the life out of her if she did not stop her signalling.
"Glad t' hear it," said Groundhog. "I was a leetle skeery all day about it, an' come out as soon's I could. Have yo' seed Brad Tingle?"
"Yes; seen him to-day."
"D' yo' know whar he is? Kin yo' git word to him quick?"
"Yes, indeed; right off."
"Well, send word to him as soon as you kin, that I've got the mules ready for stampedin' an' runnin' off at any time, an' waitin' for him. The sooner he kin jump the corral the better. To-night, if he kin, but suttinly not later'n to-morrer night. Be sure and git word to him by early to-morrer mornin' at the furthest."
"I'll be sure t' git word t' him this very night," answered the fictitious Mrs. Bolster.
"Well, good-night. I must hurry along, an' git back afore the second relief goes off. All my friends air on it. See yo' ter-morrer, if I kin."
"You jest bet you'll see me to-morrow," said Shorty grimly, as he heard Groundhog's mule clatter away. "If you don't see me the disappointment 'll come nigh breaking my heart. Now I'll go in and learn Mr. and Mrs. Hackberry how to spend the first night o' their wedded lives."
"I don't keer ef yo' do shoot me. I'd a heap ruther be shot than not," she was saying to Si as Shorty241 came up. "I've changed my mind sence I've bin put in here. I'd a heap ruther die than live with Jeff Hackberry."
"Never knowed married folks to git tired o' one another so soon," commented Shorty. "But I should've thought that Jeff' d got tired first. But this it no time to fool around with fambly jars. Look here, Jeff Hackberry, you must make that wife o' yourn keep quiet. If she tries to give another signal we'll tie you up by the thumbs now, besides shoot you in the mornin'."
"What kin I do with her?" whined Jeff.
"Do with her? You kin make her mind. That's your duty. You're the head o' the fambly."
"Head o' the fambly?" groaned Jeff, in mournful sarcasm. "Mister, you don't seem to be acquainted with 'Frony.
"Head o' the fambly," sneered his wife. "He aint the head o' nothin'. Not the head o' a pin. He haint no more head'n a fishworm."
"Look here, woman," said Shorty, "didn't you promise to love, honor and obey him?"
"No, I didn't nuther. I said I'd shove, hammer an' belay him. Hit's none o' yer bizniss, nohow, yo' sneakin' Yankee' what I do to him. You hain't no call t' mix betwixt him an' me. An' my mouth's my own. I'll use hit jest as I please, in spite o' yo' an' him, an' 40 others like yo'. Hear that?"
"Well, you git back into that bed, an' stay there, and don't you dare give another signal, or I'll buck-and-gag you on your wedding-night."
"Don't you dar tetch me," she said menacingly.
"I aint goin' to tech you. I'm too careful what I242 touch. But I'll tie you to that bed and gag you, if you don't do as I say. Get back into bed at once."
"I ain't gwine t', and yo' can't make me," she said defiantly.
"Take hold of her, Jeff," said Shorty, pulling out his bayonet and giving that worthy a little prod.
Jeff hesitated until Shorty gave him a more earnest prod, when he advanced toward his wife, but, as he attempted to lay his hands on her shoulders, she caught him, gave him a quick twist and a trip, and down he went; but he had clutched her to save himself from falling, and brought her down with him. Shorty caught her elbows and called to Si to bring him a piece of cord, with which he tied her arms. Another piece bound her ankles. She lay on the floor and railed with all the vehemence of her vicious tongue.
"Pick her up and lay her on the bed there," Shorty ordered Jeff. Jeff found some difficulty in lifting the tall, bony frame, but Shorty gave him a little help with the ponderous but agile feet, and the woman was finally gotten on the bed.
"Now, we'll gag you next, if you make any more trouble," threatened Shorty. "We don't allow no woman to interfere with military operations."
They had scarcely finished this when the dogs began barking again, and Si and Shorty hurried out. The operations in the house had rather heated them, the evening was warm, and Shorty had taken off his blouse and drawn it up inside of his belt, in the rear.
The noise of the dogs betokened the approach of something more than usual visitors. Through the clamor the boys' quick ears could detect the clatter243 of an ominous number of hoofs. The other boys heard it, too, and were standing around, gun in hand, waiting developments.
"Hullo, dere, de house!" came in a voice Si and Shorty dimly recognized having heard somewhere before.
"Hullo, yourself," answered Shorty. "Who air yo?"243
"I'm Capt. Littles," came back above the noise of barking. "Call off your togs. I'm all righdt. Is it all right up dere?"
"Yes. Lay down. Watch! Git out, Tige!" Shorty started to answer, when he was interrupted by the apparition of Mrs. Bolster-Hackberry flying out of the door, and yelling at the top of her voice:
"No, hit ain't all right at all. Captain. The Yankees 've got us. Thar's a right smart passel o' 'em here, with we'uns prisoners. Jump 'em, if you' kin. If yo' can't, skeet out an' git enough t' down 'em an' git us out."
Si and Shorty recognized that the time for words was passed. They snatched up their guns and fired in the direction of the hail. The other boys did the same. There was a patter of replying shots, aimed at the fire around which they had been standing, but had moved away from.
Apparently, Capt. Littles thought the Yankees were in too great force for him to attack, for his horses could be heard moving away. The boys followed them with shots aimed at the sound. Si and Shorty ran down forward a little ways, hoping to get a better sight. The rebels halted, apparently244 dis mounted, got behind a fence and began firing back at intervals.
Si and Shorty fired from the point they had gained, and drew upon themselves quite a storm of shots.
"Things look bad," said Si to Shorty. "They've halted there to hold us while they send for reinforcements. We'd better go back to the boys and get things in shape. Mebbe we'd better send back to camp for help."
"We'll wait till we find out more about 'em," said Shorty, as they moved back. They had to cross the road, upon the white surface of which they stood out in bold contrast and drew some shots which came uncomfortably close.
The other boys, after a severe struggle, had caught Mrs. Bolster-Hackberry and put her back in the cabin. After a brief consultation, it was decided to hold their ground until daylight. They could get into the cabin, and by using it as a fortification, stand off a big crowd of enemies. The rest of the boys were sent inside to punch out loop-holes between the logs, and make the place as defensible as possible. Si and Shorty were to stay outside and observe.
"I've got an idee how to fix that old woman," said Shorty suddenly.
"Buck-and-gag her?" inquired Si.
"No; we'll go in there and chuck her down that hole where she kept her whisky, and fasten the hasp in the staple."
"Good idee, if the hole will hold her."
"It's got to hold her. We can't have her245 rampaging round during the fight. I'd rather have a whole company o' rebels on my back."
They did not waste any words with the old woman, but despite her yells and protests Si took hold of one shoulder Shorty the other, and forced her down in the pit and closed the puncheon above her.
They went out again to reconnoiter. The enemy was quiet, apparently waiting. Only one shot, fired in the direction of the fire, showed that they were still there.
Shorty suddenly bethought him of his blouse, in the pocket of which was the precious letter. He felt for it. It was gone. He was stunned.
"I remember, now," he said to himself, "it was working out as I ran, and it slipped down as I climbed the fence."
He said aloud:
"Si, I've lost my blouse. I dropped it down there jest before we crossed the road. I'm goin' to get it."
"Blast the blouse," said Si; "let it be till mornin'. You need something worse'n a blouse to-night. You'll ketch a bullet sure's you're alive if you try to go acrost that road agin. They rake it."
"I don't care if they do," said Shorty desperately. "I'd go down there if a battery raked it. There's a letter in the pocket that I must have."
Si instinctively felt for the letter in his own pocket. "Very well," he said, "if you feel as if you must go I'll go along."
"No, you sha'n't. You stay here in command; it's your duty. You can't help if you do go. I'll go alone. I'll tell you what you might do, though. You might go over there to the left and fire on 'em, as if246 we wuz feelin' around that way. That'll draw some o' their attention."
Si did as suggested.
Shorty crept back to the point they had before occupied. The rebels saw him coming over a httle knoll, and fired at him. He ran for the fence. He looked over at the road, and thought he saw the blouse lying in the ditch on the opposite side. He sprang over the fence and ran across the road. The rebels had anticipated this and sent a volley into the road. One bullet struck a small stone, which flew up and smote Shorty's cheek so sharply that he reeled. But he went on across, picked up the blouse, found the dear letter, and deliberately stopped in the road until he transferred it to the breast of his shirt. Then he sprang back over the fence, and stopped there a moment to rest. He could hear the rebel Captain talking to his men, and every moment the accents of the voice became more familiar.
"Don't vaste your shods," he was saying. "Don'd vire undil you sees somedings to shood ad, unt den vire to hid. See how many shods you haf alretty vired mitout doing no goot. You must dink dat ammunition's as blenty as vater in de Southern Confederacy. If you hat as much druble as I haf to ket cartridges you vould pe more garcful of dem."
Capt. Littles was Rosenbaum, the Jew spy, masquerading in a new role. Shorty's heart leaped. Instantly he thought of a way to let Rosenbaum know whom he had run up against.
"Corporal Si Klogg!" he called out in his loudest tones.
"What is it, Shorty?" answered the wondering Si.247
"Don't let any more o' the boys shoot over there to the left. That's the way Capt. McGillicuddy's a-comin' in with Co. Q. I think I kin see him now jest raisin' the hill. Yes, I'm sure it's him."
The next instant he heard the rebel Captain saying to his men:
"Boys, dey're goming up in our rear. Dey're de men ve saw a liddle vhile ago. De only vay is to mount unt make a rush past de house. All mount unt vollow me as vast as dey gan."
There was a gallop of horsemen up the road, and they passed by like the wind, while Si and Shorty fired as fast as they could load—Shorty over their heads. Si at the noise. Just opposite the house the Captain's horse stumbled, and his rider went over his head into a bank of weeds. The rest swept on, not heeding the mishap.
"Surrender, Levi," said Shorty, running up.
"Certainly, my tear poy," said Rosenbaum. "Anyding dat you vant. How are you, any vay? Say, dat vas a nead drick, vasn't it? Haf your horse sdumble unt trow you jest ad de righd dime unt place? It dook me a long dime to deach my horse dot. I'm mighty glat to see you."
"HIST, boys, don't talk friendly to me out loud," said the prudent Rosenbaum. "What's happened? I know you have got the house. I have been expecting for a long time that there would be a raid made upon it. What the devil is that saying you have: 'It's a long worm that don't have a turn.' No; that isn't it. 'It's an ill lane that blows nobody no good.' No; that's not it, neither. Well, anyway, Mrs. Sophronia unt her crowd got entirely too bold. They played too open, unt I knew they'd soon get ketched. Who did you get in the house?"
Si started to call over the names, and to recite the circumstances, but as he reached that of Brad Tingle, Rosenbaum clutched him by the arm and said earnestly:
"Hold on. Tell me the rest after a while. I'm afraid of that man. He's come pretty near getting on to me several times already. He's listening now, unt he'll be sure to suspect something if he don't hear you treating me as you did the others. Begin swearing at me as you did at the rest."
Si instantly took the hint.
"I'll stand no more foolishness," he called out249 angrily. "If you don't surrender at once I'll blow your rebel head off."
"I have to give up," Rosenbaum replied in an accent of pain, "for I believe I broke my leg when I fell. I find I can't stand up."
"Give up your arms, then, and we'll help you up to the fire, and see how badly you're hurt," said Si.
Rosenbaum gave groans of anguish as Si and Shorty picked him up and carried him over to the fire.
"Now we're out of ear-shot o' the house," said Si, as they deposited him on the opposite side, and somewhat behind a thicket of raspberries, "and we can talk. Where did you come from this time, Levi?"
"Straight from General Bragg's Headquarters at Tullahoma, and I have got information that will make General Rosecrans's heart jump for joy. I have got the news he has been waiting for all these weeks to move his army. I have got the number of Bragg's men, just where they are stationed, and how many is at each place. I'm crazy to get to General Rosecrans with the news. I have been cavorting around the country all day trying some way to get in, unt at my wits' ent, for some of the men with me had their suspicions of me, unt wouldn't have hesitated to shoot me, if they didn't like the way I was acting. To tell the truth, it's been getting pretty hot for me over there in the rebel lines. Too many men have seen me in Yankee camps. This man. Brad Tingle, has seen me twice at General Rosecrans's Headquarters, unt has told a lot of stories that made much trouble. I think that this is the last250 visit I'll pay General Bragg. I'm fond of visiting, but it rather discourages me to be so that I can't look at a limb running out from a tree without thinking that it may be where they will hang me."
"Excuse me from any such visitin'," said Si sympathetically. "I'd much rather stay at home. I've had 12 or 15 hours inside the enemy's lines, playin' off deserter, and I've had enough to last me my three years. I'll take any day o' the battle o' Stone River in preference. I ain't built for the spy business in any shape or form. I'm plain, out-and-out Wabash prairie style—everything above ground and in sight."
"Well, I'm different from you," said Shorty. "I own up that I'm awfully fond o' a game o' hocuspocus with the rebels, and tryin' to see which kin thimble-rig the other. It's mighty excitin' gamblin' when your own head's the stake, an' beats poker an' faro all holler. But I want the women ruled out o' the game. Never saw a game yit that a woman wouldn't spile if she got her finger in."
"Mrs. Bolster came mighty near marrying him, and he's pale yet from the scare," Si explained.
"Yes," said Shorty frankly. "You'll see I'm still while all around the gills. Never wuz so rattled in my life. That woman's a witch. You could only kill her by shooting her with a silver bullet. She put a spell on me, sure's you're a foot high. Lord, wouldn't I like to be able to manage her. I'd set her up with a faro-bank or a sweat-board, and she'd win all the money in the army in a month."
"Yes, she's a terror," accorded Rosenbaum. "She251 made up her mind to marry me when I first come down here. I was awfully scared, for I was sure she saw through me sharper than the men did, and would marry me or expose me. But I got some points on her about poisoning a neighboring woman that she hated unt was jealous of, unt then I played an immediate order from General Bragg to me to report to his Headquarters. But it took all the brains I had to keep her off me."
"She's safe now from marryin' anybody for awhile," said Shorty, and he related the story of her nuptials, which amused Rosenbaum greatly.
"But you have signed Jeff Hackberry's death warrant," he said. "If he tries to live with her she'll feed him wild parsnip, unt he'll get a house of red clay, that you put the roof on with a shovel. It'll be no great loss. Jeff ain't worth in a year the bread he'll eat in a day."
"She may be smothered in that hole," Shorty bethought himself. "I guess we'd better let her out for awhile."
"Yes," said Rosenbaum. "She can't do no harm now. Nobody else will come this way to-night. The men that were with me will scatter the news that the house is in Yankee hands. They think there's a big force here, unt so we won't be disturbed till morning."
"Then I'll go in and let her out," said Shorty.
The other inmates of the cabin were asleep when he entered, but they waked up, and begged him not to let the woman out until morning.
"Keep her in there till daylight," said 'Squire Corson, "and then restore me to my home and functions,252 and I'll call out a posse comitatus, and have her publicly ducked, according to the laws of the land, as a common scold. I've never heard such vile language as she applied to me when I gave her the advice it was my duty to give to live in peace and quietness with her husband. That there woman's a Niagary of cuss words and abuse."
"If yo' let her out, take me outside with yo'," begged Jeff Hackberry. "She'll kill me, sho', if I've to stay in here till mornin' with her. She begun by flingin' a bag o' red pepper in my face, and set us all to sneezin' until I thought the 'Squire'd sneeze his durned head off. Then she jobbed me with a bayonet, and acted as no woman orter act toward her lawful husband, no matter how long they'd bin married, let alone their weddin' night."
"Sorry, but it's agin all my principles to separate man and wife," said Shorty, as he moved to the puncheon trap-door and undid the hasp. "You took her for better or worse, and it's too early in the game to complain that you found her a blamed sight worse than you took her for. You're one now, you know, and must stay that way until death do you part."
Shorty lifted up the trap-door, and Si helped the woman out with some difficulty. They expected a torrent of abuse, but she seemed limp and silent, and sank down on the floor. The boys picked her up and laid her on the bed beside Jeff Hackberry. "She's fainted; she's dead. She's bin sufferkated in that hole," said Jeff.
"No, yo' punkin-headed fool," she gasped. "I hain't dead, nor I hain't fainted, nor I hain't253 sufferkated. Yo'll find out when I git my wind back a little, I'm so full o' mad an' spite that I'm done tuckered clean out. I'm clean beat, so clean beat that I hain't no words to fit the 'casion. I've got t' lay still an' think an' gether up some."
"She's comin' to, Shorty," said Si. "It'll be pleasanter outside."
"You say you have been having unusually exciting times," said Si to Rosenbaum, as the boys again seated themselves by the fire.
"Veil, I should say so," replied Rosenbaum with emphasis. "Do you know that General Bragg is the very worst man that ever lived?"
"All rebels are bad," said Shorty oracularly. "But I suppose that some are much worse than others. I know that the private soldiers are awful, and I suppose the higher you go the wuss they are. The Corporals are cussider than the privates, the Sergeants can give the Corporals points in devilishness, and so it goes on up until the General commanding an army must be one of the devil's favorite imps, while Jeff Davis is Old Horney's junior partner."
"No; it isn't that," said Rosenbaum. "I've known a good many rebel Generals, unt some of them ain't really bad fellers, outside of their rebelness. But old Bragg is a born devil. He has no more heart than a rattlesnake. He actually loves cruelty. He'd rather kill men than not. I've seen plenty of officers who were entirely too willing to shoot men for little or nothing. General Bragg is the only man I ever saw who would shoot men for nothing at all—just 'for example,' as he says, unt to make the others254 afraid unt ready to obey him. He coolly calculates to shoot so many every month. If they've done anything to deserve it, all right. If they hain't, he shoots them all the same, just to 'preserve discipline.'"
Si and Shorty uttered exclamations of surprise at this cold-blooded cruelty.
"I know it's hard to believe," said Rosenbaum, "but it's true all the same, as anybody around his Headquarters will tell you. Jeff Davis knows it unt approves it. He is the same kind of a man as General Bragg—no more heart than a tiger, I have seen a good deal of the inside of the rebel army, unt General Bragg is the coldest-blooded, cruelest man in it or in the whole world. It's true that the men he orders shot are generally of no account, like our man Jeff Hackberry—but it's the principle of the thing that shocks me. He just takes a dislike to the way a man looks or acts, or the way he parts his hair, looks at him with his steely-gray eyes, unt says coldly: 'Put him in the bull-pen.' In the bullpen the poor devil goes, unt the next time General Bragg gets an idea that the discipline of the army is running down, unt he must stiffen it up with a few executions, he orders all the men that happen to be in the bull-pen taken out unt shot."
"Without any trial, any court-martial, any evidence against them?" gasped Si.
"Absolutely without anything but General Bragg's orders. It is like you read of in the books about those Eastern countries where the Sultan or other High-muk-a-muk says, 'Cut that man's head off,' unt the man's head is cut off, unt no questions asked.255 unt no funeral ceremonies except washing up the blood."
"Lucky for you, Levi," said Shorty, "that he didn't have any of the common prejudices against Jews, and slap you in the bull-pen."
"O, but he did," said Rosenbaum. "He hated a Jew worse than any man I ever met. Unt it brought me so near death that I actually watched them digging my grave.
"While I had my ups unt downs, unt some very narrow escapes," continued Rosenbaum, "when I first went inside Bragg's lines, I got along very well generally. I played the peddler unt smuggler for the Southern Confederacy in great shape, unt run them through a lot of gun-caps, quinine, medicines, unt so so on, unt brought in a great deal of information which they found to be true. Some of dis General Rosecrans gave me himself, for he is smart enough to know that if he wants his Secret Service men to succeed he must give them straight goods to carry to the enemy.
"I brought in exact statements of what divisions, brigades unt regiments were at this place unt that place, how many men was in them, who their commanders were, unt so on. General Rosecrans would have these given me. It helped him in his plans to know just what information was reaching the enemy, for he knew just how old Bragg would act when he had certain knowledge. If he knew that Sheridan with 6,000 men was at this place, with Tom Wood 10 miles away with 6,000 more, he would do a certain thing, unt Rosecrans would provide for it. The news that I brought in the rebels could test by256 the reports they got from others, unt they always found mine correct.
"My work pleased the rebel Generals so well that they made me a Captain in their army, transferred me from Brigade Headquarters to Division, unt then to Corps Headquarters. I was given command of squads of scouts. I can draw very well, unt I made good maps of the country unt the roads, with the positions of Yankee unt rebel forces. This was something that the other rebel spies could not do, unt it helped me lots. I was careful to make copies of all these maps, unt they got to General Rosecrans's Headquarters.
"The other rebel spies got very jealous of me because I was promoted over them, unt they laid all sorts of plans to trip me up. They came awful near catching me several times, but I was too smart for them, unt could outwit them whenever I got a pointer as to what they were up to. Once they watched me go to a hollow sycamore tree, which I used as a postoffice for Jim Jones to get the things I wanted to send to General Rosecrans. They found there maps I had made at Shelbyville, with the positions of the rebel un Yankee forces unt the fortifications all shown.
"That was an awful close call, unt I could feel the rope tightening around my neck. But I kept my nerve, unt told a straight story. I said that that tree was my regular office where I kept lots of things that I was afraid to carry around with me when I was in danger of falling into the Yankee hands, as I was every day when I was scouting. Luckily for me I had some other private things unt a lot of257 Confederate money hid there, too, which I showed them. They didn't more than half believe my story, but they led me off, probably because they needed me so bad.
"I saw that the thing was only skimmed over, unt was ready to break out again any minute worse than ever, unt I kept my eyes peeled all the time. That's one reason why you have not seen me for so long. I didn't dare send General Rosecrans anything or go near outside the rebel lines. I had to play very good, but I kept gathering up information for the day when I should make a final break unt leave the rebels for good.
"A week ago I was ordered to go up to General Bragg's Headquarters to help them with their maps unt reports. They had nobody there that could do the work, unt Jeff Davis, who always wants to know everything about the armies, was bunching them up savagely for full information. He wanted accurate statements about the Yankee strength unt positions, unt about the rebel strength unt positions, to see if he couldn't do something to pull the Yankees off of Pemberton at Vicksburg. Bragg's Adjutant-General sent word through all the army for to find good rapid penmen unt map-makers, unt I was sent up.
"The Adjutant-General set me to work under a fly near Headquarters, unt he was tickled almost to death with the way I did my work. Old Bragg himself used to walk up unt down near, growling unt cussing unt swearing at everything unt everybody. Once or twice the Adjutant-General called his attention to my work. Old Bragg just looked it over, grunted, unt bored me through unt through with258 those sharp, cold, gray eyes of his. But I thought I was safe so long as I was at Headquarters, unt I gave a great stiff to other Secret Service men who had been trying to down me.
"One morning old Bragg was in an awful temper—the worst I had ever seen. Every word unt order was a cruelty to somebody. Finally, up comes this Brad Tingle that you have inside. He is a sort of a half-spy—not brains enough to be a real one, but with a good deal of courage unt activity to do small work. He had been sent by General Cheatham to carry some papers unt make a report. Whatever it was, it put old Bragg in a worse temper than ever. Brad Tingle happened to catch sight of me, unt he said in a surprised way:
"'Why, there's that Jew I saw sitting in General Rosecrans's tent talking to him, when I was playing off refugee Tennesseean in the Yankee camps.'
"'What's that? What's that, my man?' said old Bragg, who happened to overhear him.
"Brad Tingle told all he knew about me. Old Bragg turned toward me unt give me such a look. I could feel those cold, cruel eyes boring straight through me.
"'Certainly he is a Jew, unt one of old Rosecrans's best spies,' he said. 'Old Rosecrans is a Jew, a Dutch Jew, himself. I knowed him well in the old army. He's got a regular Jew face. He plays off Catholic, but that is to hide his Jewishness. He can't do it. That hook nose'd give him away if nothing else did, unt he has got enough else. He likes to have Jews about him, because he understands them better than he does white people, unt259 particularly he is fond of Jew spies. He can trust them where nobody else can. They'll be true to him because he is a Jew. Put that man in the bull-pen, unt shoot him with the rest to-morrow morning.' "'Heavens,' gasped the Adjutant-General; 'he is260 by far the best man I ever had. I can't get along without him.'
"'You must get along without him,' said old Bragg. 'I'm astonished at you having such a man around. Where in the world did you pick him up? But it's just like you. How in God's name Jeff Davis expects me to command an army with such makeshifts of staff officers as he sends me, I don't know. He keeps the best for old Lee unt sends me what nobody else'll have, unt then expects me to win battles against a better army than the Army of the Potomac. I never got a staff officer that had brains once.'
"A Sergeant of the Provost Guard, who was a natural beast, unt was kept by old Bragg because he was glad to carry out orders to murder men, caught hold of me by my shoulder unt run me down to the bull-pen, leaving the Adjutant-General with forty expressions on his angry face.
"My goodness, my heart sunk worse than ever before when I heard the door shut behind me. There were 30 or 40 others in the bull-pen. They were all lying around—dull, stupid, sullen, silent, unt hopeless. They hardly paid any attention to me. I sat down on a log, unt my heart seemed to sink clear out of me. For the first time in my life I couldn't see the slightest ray of hope. Through the cracks in the bull-pen I could see the fresh graves of the men who had already been shot, unt while I looked I saw a squad of niggers come out unt begin digging the graves of those who were to be shot to-morrow. I could see rebel soldiers unt officers passing by, stop unt look a moment at the graves, shrug their261 shoulders, unt go on. It froze my blood to think that tomorrow they would be looking at my grave that way. After a while a man came in unt gave each one of us a piece of cornbread unt meat. The others ate theirs greedily, but I could not touch it. Night came on, unt still I sat there. Suddenly the door opened, unt the Adjutant-General came in with a man about my size and dressed something like me. As he passed he caught hold of my arm in a sort of way that made me understand to get up unt follow behind him, I did so at once without saying a word. I walked behind him around the bull-pen until we came back to the door, when the guard presented arms, unt he walked out, with me still behind him, leaving the other man inside. After we had gone a little way he stopped unt whispered to me:
"'The General had to go off in a hurry toward War Trace this afternoon. He took the Provost-Sergeant unt part of his staff with him, but I had to be left behind to finish up this work. I can't get anybody else to do it but you. I'm going to take you over to a cabin, where you'll be out of sight. I want you to rush that work through as fast as the Lord'll let you. After you get it done you can go where you damned please, so long as you don't let the General set eyes on you. I've saved your life, unt I'm going to trust to your honor to play fair with me. Help me out, do your work right, unt then never let me see you again.'
"Of course, I played fair. I asked no questions, you bet, about the poor devil he had put in my place. I worked all that night unt all the next day getting his papers in the best possible shape, unt in making262 copies of them for General Rosecrans, which I stuck behind the chimney in the cabin. Along in the morning I heard the drums beating as the men were marched out to witness the execution. It made my heart thump a little, but I kept on scratching away with my pen for hfe unt death. Then the drums stopped beating for a while, unt then they begun again. Then I heard a volley that made me shiver all over. Then the drums beat as the men were marched back to their camps. If I had had time to think I should have fainted. Towards evening I had got everything in first-class shape. The Adjutant-General came in. He looked over the papers in a very satisfied way, folded them up, checked off from a list a memorandum of the papers he had given me to copy unt compile, unt saw that I had given them all back to him. Then he looked me straight in the eye unt said:
"'Now, Jew, there's no use of my saying anything to you. You heard that volley this morning, unt understood it. Never let me or the General lay eyes on you again. You have done your part all right, unt I mine. Good-by.'
"He took his papers unt walked out of the cabin. As soon as he was gone I snatched the copies that I had hidden behind the chimney, stuck them here unt there in my clothes, unt started for the outer lines.
"I made my way to a house where I knew I'd find some men who had scouted with me before. I knew they might be suspicious of me, but I could get them to go along by pretending to have orders from Headquarters for a scout. I got to the house by morning, found some of them there, gathered up some more263 unt have been riding around all day, looking at the Yankee lines, unt trying to find some way to get inside. I'm nearly dead for sleep, but I must have these papers in General Rosecrans's hands before I close my eyes."
"Your horse is all right, isn't he?" asked Shorty.
"Yes, I think so," answered Rosenbaum.
"Well, we have a good horse here. I'll mount him and go with you to camp, leaving Si and the rest of the boys here. I can get back to them by daylight."
So it was agreed upon.
Day was just breaking when Shorty came galloping back.
"Turn out, boys!" he shouted. "Pack up, and start back for camp as quick as you kin. The whole army's on the move."
"What's happened, Shorty?" inquired Si, as they all roused themselves and gathered around.
"Well," answered Shorty, rather swelling with the importance of that which he had to communicate, "all I know is that we got into camp a little after midnight, and went direct to Gen. Rosecrans's Headquarters. Of course, the old man was up; I don't believe that old hook-nosed duffer ever sleeps. He was awful glad to see Rosenbaum, and gave us both great big horns o' whisky, which Rosenbaum certainly needed, if I didn't, for he was dead tired, and almost flopped down after he handed his papers to the General. But the General wanted him to stay awake, and kept plying him with whisky whenever he would begin to sink, and, my goodness, the questions he did put at that poor Jew.264
"I thought we knowed something o' the country out here around us, but, Jerusalem, all that we know wouldn't make a primer to Rosecrans's Fifth Reader. How were the bridges on this road? Where did that road lead to? How deep was the water in this creek? How many rebels were out there? Where was Bragg's cavalry? Where's his reserve artillery? And so on, until I thought he'd run a seine through every water-hole in that Jew's mind and dragged out the last minner in it. I never heard the sharpest lawyer put a man through such a cross-examination.
"Rosenbaum was equal to everything asked him, but it seemed to me that Gen. Rosecrans knowed a great deal more about what was inside the rebel lines than Rosenbaum did. All this time they was goin' over the papers that Rosenbaum brung, and Old Rosey seemed tickled to death to git 'em. He told Rosenbaum he'd done the greatest day's work o' his life and made his fortune.
"In the meantime the whole staff had waked up and gathered in the tents, and while the General was pumpin' Rosenbaum he was sending orders to this General and that General, and stirrin' things up from Dan to Beersheba. Lord, you ought t've seen that army wake up. I wouldn't 've missed it for a farm. Everything is on the move—right on the jump. We're goin' for old Bragg for every cent we're worth, and we want to git back to the regiment as quick as our leg'll carry us. Hustle around, now."
"But what'er we goin' to do with our prisoners?" asked Si.
"Blast the prisoners!" answered Shorty with profane emphasis. "Let 'em go to blue blazes, for all265 that we care. We're after bigger game than a handful o' measly pennyroyal sang-diggers. We hain't no time to fool with polecats when we're huntin' bears. Go off and leave 'em here."
"That's all right," said Si, to whom an idea occurred. "Hustle around, boys, but don't make no noise. We'll march off so quietly that they won't know that we're gone, and it'll be lots o' fun thinking what they'll do when they wake up and begin clapper-clawin' one another and wonderin' what their fate'll be."
END BOOK THREE
CONTENTS
PREFACE
SI KLEGG
CHAPTER I. THE TULLAHOMA CAMPAIGN ON TO DUCK RIVER
CHAPTER II. THE BALKY MULES
CHAPTER III. THIRD DAY OF THE DELUGE
CHAPTER IV. THE FOURTH DAY OF THE TULLAHOMA CAMPAIGN
CHAPTER V. AFLOAT ON A LOG
CHAPTER VI. DISTRESSING ENEMIES
CHAPTER VII. THE EXCITING ADVANCE TULLAHOMA
CHAPTER VIII. THE GLORIOUS FOURTH INDEPENDENCE DAY FUN
CHAPTER IX. A LITTLE EPISODE OVER LOVE LETTERS
CHAPTER X. AFTER BRAGG AGAIN
CHAPTER XI. THE MOUNTAIN FOLK
CHAPTER XII. SI AND SHORTY IN LUCK
CHAPTER XIII. MANY HAPPY EVENTS
CHAPTER XIV. THE FRISKY YOUNGSTERS
CHAPTER XV. KEYED UP FOR ACTION
CHAPTER XVI. THE TERRIFIC STRUGGLE
CHAPTER XVII. IN THE HOSPITAL
CHAPTER XVIII. A DISTURBING MESSAGE
CHAPTER XIX. TEDIOUS CONVALESCENCE
CHAPTER XX. STEWED CHICKEN
List of Illustrations
During the Halt for Dinner. 20
'Don't Call Me Your Gran'pap.' 35
Here Goes, Mebbe to Libbey Prison. 55
Si and Shorty Were the First to Mount The Parapet. 91
She Ran Like a Deer, But si Cut Her off 123
You Must'nt Kill a Wounded Man 143
"Father, There's a Couple of Soldiers out There." 159
The First Wad Came out Easily and All Right. 165
'Annabel, How Purty You Look.' 173
The Recruits Lined up on the Platform. 186
They Posted the Men Behind The Trees. 197
They Had a Delirious Remembrance of the Mad Whirl. 211
The Dead Being Collected After the Battle. 220
"Pap, is That You?" Said a Weak Voice. 238
"He Took Another Look at his Heavy Revolver." 254
"If You Don't Skip out O' Here This Minute I'll Bust Your Head As I Would a Punkin." 264
"Si Klegg, of the 200th Ind., and Shorty, his Partner," were born years ago in the brain of John McElroy, Editor of THE NATIONAL TRIBUNE.
These sketches are the original ones published in THE NATIONAL TRIBUNE, revised and enlarged some what by the author. How true they are to nature every veteran can abundantly testify from his own service. Really, only the name of the regiment was invented. There is no doubt that there were several men of the name of Josiah Klegg in the Union Army, and who did valiant service for the Govern ment. They had experiences akin to, if not identical with, those narrated here, and substantially every man who faithfully and bravely carried a musket in defense of the best Government on earth had some times, if not often, experiences of which those of Si Klegg are a strong reminder.
THE PUBLISHERS.
THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO THE RANK AND FILE OF
THE GRANDEST ARMY EVER MUSTERED FOR WAR.
JUNE 23, 1863, ended the Army of the Cumberland's six months of wearisome inaction around Murfreesboro its half-year of tiresome fort-building, drilling, picketing and scouting.
Then its 60,000 eager, impatient men swept forward in combinations of masterful strategy, and in a brief, wonderfully brilliant campaign of nine days of drenching rain drove Bragg out of his strong fortifications in the rugged hills of Duck River, and compelled him to seek refuge in the fastnesses of the Cumberland Mountains, beyond the Tennessee River.
"Now," said Shorty, as they stood in line, waiting the order to move, "as Old Rosy has clearly waked up to business, I hope to gracious that Mr. Bragg will be found at home ready for callers. We've wasted six months waiting for him to get good and ready, and he certainly ought to be in trim to transact any little business we may have with him."
"I think you needn't trouble yourself about that, Shorty," said Capt. McGillicuddy. "All the news is that Bragg is down there in Shelbyville in force, and with blood in his eye. Somebody is going to be terribly whipped before the end of the week, and I'm pretty sure it won't be the Army of the Cumberland."
"Well, let's have it over and done with," said Si. "It's got to be fought out some time, and the sooner the better. I wish the whole thing could be fought to a finish to-morrow. Then I'd know at once whether I'm to live through this war."
"I don't think you'll be kept long in suspense," replied Capt. McGillicuddy. "Shelbyville is only 25 miles away. We can't go forward many hours with out forcing a collision as to the right of way. If we can whip Bragg behind the works he has been building for the last six months, we'll settle the whole business for the Southern Confederacy in the West. Grant will take Vicksburg, and then we'll have peace."
"Only 25 miles," repeated Shorty. "We ought to be squarely up against them not later than to-morrow night and one or two days' lively pounding ought to make Mr. Bragg holler enough."
"Rosenbaum is as certain as he is of his life," said Si to the Captain and the rest, "that Bragg has the bulk of his army at Shelbyville, which, as you say, is but 25 miles from here, and that he will draw the rest in and fight us behind the awfully big forts that he has been building for the last six months from Shelbyville to War Trace. Rosenbaum says that he knows it for a fact that 3,000 negroes have been worked on the forts ever since Bragg retreated there last January."
"Well, 25 miles isn't far to go for a fight," returned Shorty. "All that I ask is that the 200th Ind. be given the advance. We'll make schedule time to ward Shelbyville, and bring on the fight before early candle-lightin' to-morrow evening."
"I guess you'll have your wish, Shorty," returned Capt. McGillicuddy. "We lead the brigade to-day, anyway, and we'll try to keep the lead clear through."
Then the rain poured down so violently that all the conversation was suspended, except more or less profane interjections upon the luck of the Army of the Cumberland in never failing to bring on a deluge when it started to march.
In the midst of this the bugles sounded "For ward!" and the 200th Ind. swung out on the Shelby ville Pike, and set its face sternly southward. After it trailed the rest of the brigade, then the ambulances and wagons, and then the rest of the division.
At times the rain was actually blinding, but the men plodded on doggedly and silently. They had ex austed their epithets at the start, and now settled down to stolid endurance.
"We've only got to go 25 miles, boys," Si would occasionally say, by way of encouragement. "This rain can't last forever at this rate. It'll probably clear up bright just as we reach Shelbyville to-morrow, and give us sunshine to do our work in."
But when the column halted briefly at noon, for dinner for the men and mules, it was raining harder and steadier than ever. It was difficult to start fires with the soaked rails and chunks, all were wet to the skin, and rivulets of water ran from them as they stood or walked. The horses of the officers seemed shrunken and drawn-up, and the mud was getting deeper every minute.
"Lucky we had the advance," said the optimistic Si. "We have churned the roads into a mortar-bed, and them that comes after us will have hard pullin'. I wonder how many miles we've made of them 25?"
"I feel that we've already gone full 25," said Shorty. "But Tennessee miles's made o' injy-rubber, and stretch awfully."
They were too ill-humored to talk much, but stood around and sipped their hot coffee and munched sodden crackers and fried pork in silence. Pork fried in the morning in a half-canteen, and carried for hours in a dripping haversack, which reduced the crackers to a tasteless mush, is not an appetizing viand; but the hunger of hard exercise in the open air makes it "go."
Again the bugles sounded "Forward," and they plodded on more stolidly than ever.
Increasing evidences of the enemy's presence be gan to stimulate them. Through the sheets of rain they saw a squad of rebel cavalry close to them. There was much snapping of damp gun-caps on both sides, a few unavailing shots were actually fired, and they caught glimpses between the rain-gusts of the rebel horsemen galloping up the muddy road to ward the rising hills.
They pushed forward with more spirit now. They came to insignificant brooks which were now raging torrents, through which they waded waist deep, first placing their treasured ammunition on their shoulders or heads.
As they were crossing one of these, Si unluckily stepped into a deep hole, which took him in over his head. His foot struck a stone, which rolled, and down he went. Shorty saw him disappear, made a frantic clutch for him, and went down himself. For a brief tumultuous instant they bobbed around against the legs of the other boys, who went down like tenpins. Nearly the whole of Co. Q was at once floundering in the muddy torrent, with the Captain, who had succeeded in crossing, looking back in dis may at the disaster. The Orderly-Sergeant and a few others at the head of the company rushed in and pulled out by the collars such of the boys as they could grab. Si and Shorty came to the bank a little ways down, blowing and sputtering, and both very angry.
"All your infernal clumsiness," shouted Shorty. "You never will look where you're goin'. No more sense than a blind hoss."
"Shut up," said Si, wrathfully. "Don't you talk about clumsiness. It was them splay feet o' your'n that tripped me, and then you downed the rest o' the boys. Every mite of our grub and ammunition's gone."
How far the quarrel would have gone cannot be told, for at that instant a regiment of rebels, which had been pushed out in advance, tried to open a fire upon the 200th Ind. from behind a rail fence at the bottom of the hill. Only enough of their wet guns could be gotten off to announce their presence. The Colonel of the 200th Ind. yelled:
"Companies left into line!"
The soggy men promptly swung around.
"Fix bayonets! Forward, double-quick!" shouted the Colonel.
It was a sorry "double-quick," through the pelting rain, the entangling weeds and briars, and over the rushing streams which flooded the field, but it was enough to discourage the rebels, who at once went back in a heavy-footed run to the works on the hill, and the rebel cannon boomed out to cover their retreat.
"Lie down!" shouted the Colonel, as they reached the fence, and a shell struck a little in advance, filling the air with mud and moist fragments of vegetation.
As they lay there and recovered their breath there was much splashing and splattering of mud, much running to and fro, much galloping of Aids in their rear. The 200th Ind. was ordered to hold its place, and be ready for a charge upon the hill when it received orders. The brigade's battery was rushed up to a hill in the rear, and opened a fire on the rebel guns. The other regiments were deployed to the right and left to outflank the rebel position.
Si and Shorty and the rest of Co. Q put in the time trying to get their guns dry and borrowing ammunition from the men of the other companies. Both were jobs of difficulty and doubtful success. There could be no proper drying of guns in that incessant drench, and nobody wanted to open up his stock of cartridges in such a rain.
In the intervals between the heavier showers glimpses could be had of the "Kankakee Suckers" and the "Maumee Muskrats" working their way as fast as they could around toward the rebel flanks. The rebel artillery, seeing most danger from them, began throwing shells in their direction as they could be caught sight of through the rain and the opening in the trees.
"Why don't they order us forward with the bayonets?" fretted Si. "We can scatter them. Their guns ain't in no better shape than ours. If they hold us here, the Illinoy and Ohio fellers 'll git all the credit."
"The Colonel's orders are explicit," said the Adjutant, who happened to be near, "not to move until the head of one of the other regiments can be seen on the hills to the right or left. Then we're all to go forward together."
"Yes," grumbled Shorty, "and we'll jest git there in time to see them Illinoy Suckers hog everything. You kin see 'em limberin' up and preparing to git. Just our dumbed luck."
It turned out just as Shorty had predicted. The rebel commander had kept a wary eye on the other regiments, and as he saw them gain the point of vantage in the open, where they could make a rush upon him, he ordered a quick retreat. The other regiments raised a yell and charged straight home. By the time the 200th Ind. could reach the gap the other regiments were in full possession, and the rebels out of musket-shot in the valley beyond.
"I told you so," snorted the irate Shorty. "Now we've lost the advance. To-morrow we'll have to take them other fellers' mud, and pry their teams out o' the holes."
"I wonder how many o' them 25 miles toward Shelbyville we've made to-day?" asked Si.
"I heard the Adjutant say," said one of his comrades, "that we'd come just six miles."
"Jewhillikins," said Shorty sorrowfully.
Thus ended the first day of the Tullahoma campaign.
NEVER was there so wild a storm but there was a wilder one; never such a downpour of rain but there could be a greater deluge.
"Seemed to me yesterday," said Si, on the morning of June 25, as he vainly tried to peer through the dashing drench and locate some of the other regiments of the division, "that they was givin' us one of Noah's Deluge days that they'd happened to have left over. Seemed that it couldn't be no worse, but this beats it. I don't think that standin' under Niagara Falls could be no worse. Howsomever, this can't last long. There ain't water enough in the United States to keep this up a great while."
"Don't be so sure o' that," said Shorty, handing Si the end of a blanket, that he might help wring it out. "I believe the Lord sometimes thinks that He didn't divide the land and water jest right in the first place, and that He'd better 've made a big lake o' Tennessee instead o' these old clay knobs for rebels and niggers to roost on, and He starts in to carry out that idee. I wish He'd finish the job at once, and turn the whole blasted region over to the navy. It looks as if He had that in mind now."
"Well," said the ever-hopeful Si, "the Bible says that the rain falls on the just and unjust alike. If it's tough on us, it's jest as tough on them. Their guns wouldn't go off any better'n ours yesterday. If that regiment in front of us could've shot like they can on a dry day they'd 've made a sick time for us."
About 60,000 Union soldiers and 45,000 rebels struggled through the deluges of rain, the torrential streams and fathomless mud those June days, when it seemed that every water-gate of the heavens was wide open as it had never been before.
The calamity that Si and Shorty had foreseen came about. The 200th Ind. lost the advance of the brigade and brought up the rear, which meant a long day of muscle-straining, temper-wrecking struggles with stalling wagons, discouraged mules and stupid teamsters. And as Co. Q was the left of the regiment, it caught the worst of all.
The 200th Ind. had scarcely pulled out of camp when its troubles became acute. At the foot of the hill which had been carried the day before ran a brook, ordinarily quite a modest stream, but now raging like a mill-race. The two other regiments of the brigade and all of the 200th Ind. but Co. Q had managed to get across by means of trees which had been felled over the stream at various places. Co. Q was left behind to see that the teams got over, while the rest of the 200th Ind. was halted on the farther bank, to watch the operation and give help if needed. Si, with a squad in which was Shorty, was ordered to take the first team, which it happened Groundhog drove, down into the stream and start it across.
"Now, be very careful with that wagon," called the Adjutant across the stream. "That has the Headquarters' things and papers. Don't let any water get into the bed. Cross at the shallowest place."
Si and Shorty found some poles, and prodded around as well as they were able in the crossing to find the shallowest place. If there was a part so shallow that the bed could be kept above water it was very narrow, and would require exceedingly skillful driving to keep on it. The whole regiment stood around, like a barnyard full of turkeys on a wet day, and looked on with an air of soppy melancholy.
"Groundhog," said Si, approaching that function ary, "was you watchin' carefully while me and Shorty was pickin' out the shallow places?"
"Naw," answered he, insolently; "wasn't watchin' nothin' but my mules. Got enough to do takin' keer o' them, without watchin' a couple o' fools projeckin' around with poles in a mud-hole. No sense in it, nohow. We never kin git acrost that 'ere tail-race. Only thing to do is to go back into camp till it quits rainin' and the water runs out."
"Groundhog," said Si resolutely, "you're not goin' back to camp; you're not goin' to wait till it stops rainin'. You're goin' right over now, as sure as my name's Si Klegg, or I'll break every bone in your karkiss."
"I can't go over," persisted Groundhog. "I ain't no fool. I know better what kin be done with an army wagon and six mules than any Injianny galoot that ever wore stripes or shoulder-straps. You simply can't git a wagon acrost that branch, and I ain't goin' to try."
"Groundhog," said Shorty, "you've bin itchin' to be killed for at least a year, that I know of probably as long as you've lived. You ought've had a stone tied to your neck and bin flung into the crick as soon's you was born. I've promised myself a good many times that I'd about murder you when ever I had time, but something's always made me neglect it. I'm in the killin' mood to-day, and I'd like to begin on you. I certainly will unless you drive that team straight acrost, and don't git a drop o' water in the bed o' the wagon."
"Come, hurry up, over there," shouted the Adjutant. "We can't wait all day. What's the matter with you? Get a move on you."
"All right, sir; we'll start at once, sir," said Si with ostentatious alacrity.
Shorty slapped his bayonet on, and brought the point very near Groundhog's abdomen. "I'll jab this thing clean through you in a holy minute, you pusillanimous basswood cullin'; you pestiferous pile o' pizen, rotten punk," he said savagely. "Git on your wheel-mule and gether up the lines."
Impelled by this, and the vigorous clutch of Si upon his collar, Groundhog climbed clumsily into the saddle and sullenly brandished his whip.
The mules made a start and went down the bank, but at the edge of the turbid torrent the leaders set their legs as stiffly as if they were the supports of a sawhorse. They did not make a sound, but somehow the other four understood, with electric suddenness, and their legs set like posts.
"Jest as I expected," said Groundhog, with a grunt of satisfaction; "they've balked for all day, an' you can't git 'em to move another foot if you killed 'em. They're as solid as if they'd growed there."
With an air of having encountered the irresistible, he started to get out of his saddle.
"Stay in there, confound you," said Shorty, prodding him with his bayonet. "Lick them mules. Make 'em start."
"'Bout as much use in lickin' a white-oak stump," said Groundhog, plying the whip viciously as a relief to his feelings. "You kin lick every inch of skin off 'em, and they won't move no more'n a gravestone."
"Start those mules along. Stop fooling,' said the Adjutant impatiently.
"We can't start 'em. They're balkin', sir," said Si desperately.
"Nonsense, nonsense," said the Adjutant. "Come ahead. Don't you see you're stopping the Second Brigade and all its teams?"
The men of the Second Brigade were already swarming across on the logs, while looking backward Si and Shorty could see the road filling up with teams. They ran down to the lead mules and caught them by the bridles and tried to pull them ahead. They might as well have pulled at the giant sycamore trees growing along the banks.
Everybody now began to take an interest in the affair. It is one of the delightful peculiarities of human nature that everybody knows better how to manage a balky horse or mule than the unfortunate man who is trying to.
"Stop whippin' them mules. You only make them wuss," shouted one man authoritatively. "Tie stones to their tails."
"Tie a string around their ears," shouted another. "That'll be sure to start 'em."
"Bite their ears, you fools. Don't you know nothin' about mules? Bite their ears, I tell you," shouted a man from Indianapolis.
"Throw some hot water on 'em."
"Tie their feet and tails together with a string."
"Build a fire under 'em."
"Turn the harness around the other way on 'em."
"Blindfold 'em."
Then the regimental humorists began to get in their work:
"Sing 'em the 'Battle Cry o' Freedom.'"
"They've struck for more grub. Promise 'em double rations till we get to Shelbyville."
"Stop swearin', there, you fellers. You've frozen 'em stiff with your bad language. Pray with 'em."
"Read them the Emancipation Proclamation."
"Call 'em pet names. You can do anything with kindness. Even a mule has, a heart."
"Bring up the band and serenade 'em."
Shorty was raging around the team, kicking and striking first at one mule and then at another, and swearing like a pirate, alternately at the team and then at the jeering crowds. Si was following suit to the best of his ability, but his pious education had left him out of sight of Shorty when it came to using language that the occasion seemed to justify. He had, however, yanked Groundhog out of the saddle and driven him up the bank, where he sat down and grinned at the confusion which had overtaken his enemies.
Setting a man at the head of each mule to coax and encourage him, and the rest of the company to pushing and prying on the wagon, Si had mounted the wheel-mule himself and put forth his mule-knowledge in one feverish effort, which was as futile as it was desperate, for the mules did not seem to change their positions for a rest, even, when the wagon was forced forward on them.
A very dapper young Aid, fresh from West Point, and with that high appreciation for himself that can only be acquired at the United States Military Academy, galloped up, sternly ordering everybody to make way for him, and,
"Present the compliments of the Major-General commanding the division, and what the h—'s the matter?"
"Capt. McGillicuddy, to whom the young gentle man had been referred as in charge, said quietly:
"You see: A mule-team has balked and stopped everything. We're doing our best to start them, but so far without success."
"So we all perceive," said the young man superciliously. "Why are you not down there directing them?"
"The men that I have down there thoroughly understand mules, and are doing their very utmost. They are having, as you can see, a superfluity of advice which is not helping them. I can best help by letting them alone to work it out their own way. They will do all that men can."
"I shall report the case to the General," said the Aid, with scarcely-concealed insolence. "Just like these confounded volunteers," he said as he turned away, taking no pains to keep the Captain from overhearing. "Never will be genuine soldiers in the world. Here, my men," continued he, riding over to the wagon, "stir yourselves lively, now, and start these wagons along. I want no more fooling, and won't have it. Start, now."
Shorty had the usual volunteer dislike to young West Pointers; like the rest of the men he cordially hated and ridiculed the young and airy staff officers, whether from West Point or not. It irritated him to see the youngster's treatment of his Captain. Saying snappy things at and about the Captain was a privilege jealously reserved to members of the company. To have anybody outside abuse the Captain was an insult to be resented. Above all, his American soul rose in wrath at the patronizing "my men." He would not have been at all offended at one of his own rough-and-ready officers jumping in and distributing curses on all hands, but "my men" was too much for him.
Without appearing to notice the presence of the Aid, Shorty walked up to the lead-mule, gave him a tremendous kick in the ribs, and sung out in a tone loud enough to be heard across the roaring branch:
"You pernickety pile o' poll-evil; you hee-hawin' graduate o' West Point; you pin-feathered, taller-faced, pop-eyed, lantern-jawed, loud-mouthed Second Lieutenant, you, won't you git up?"
The other boys began to catch on and grin. The Aid's face flushed, but Shorty continued his loud objurgations at the mule:
"You misbegotten pill o' perdition; you pompous, puddin'-headed staff officer; you miserable errand-boy for the General, puttin' on more airs than the General; you half-hatched officer, runnin' around yit with the shell on your head, and pretendin' to be cock-o'-the-walk, won't you git up?"
Even the Aid began to understand the drift of Shorty's remarks by this time, and Capt. McGillicuddy called out warningly:
"Shorty! Shorty!"'
Si looked in amazement at this new development of his partner's genius. The officers and men on the other side of the branch seemed to have forgotten for the moment the annoyance of the balked team in enjoyment of Shorty's outburst.
"Why under heaven they put such murrain cattle as you in the army I can't tell," he continued with another savage kick in the mule's side. "You only take up room from your betters. You don't fight, you only strut like a turkey-cock, and eat and he-haw. Now, will you git up?"
The Aid could not fail to understand now. He burst out in a torrent of rage: "You infernal scoundrel," he shouted, forcing his horse up to Shorty; "I'll have you shot for insubordination, for insulting and mutinous language to your superior officer."
"I wasn't sayin' nothin' to you," said Shorty, looking up with an air of surprise. "I hain't had nothin' to do with you. I was cussin' this other piebald pilgarlic from West Point; this other pig headed pickaninny o' the Regular Army; this Brevet-Second Lieutenant o' the Quartermaster's Department, and Aid on the staff o' Gen. Groundhog. You ain't my superior officer, nohow."
"Corporal," shouted the Aid to Si, "take this rascal up there on the bank and buck-and-gag him. Do it at once."
"I don't believe you have the right to give me orders, sir," said Si respectfully. "I am under Capt. McGillicuddy's orders."
"You are right, Corporal," said Capt. McGillicuddy, stepping forward. "Lieutenant, you cannot order one of my men to be punished. You have no right to command here. You are merely to convey the General's orders to those who are in command."
"I have the right to give orders. I represent the General, and speak in his name, and I order that man to be bucked-and-gagged," reiterated the Aid in a flame of anger. "I'll see that it is done. I shall not be so insulted before the whole army. It will destroy all discipline."
"Fortunately, the discipline of the army does not depend on the respect shown Second Lieutenants," Capt. McGillicuddy could not help saying. "If you have any complaint to make against one of my men, state it to me, their Captain, or to the Colonel of the regiment. We are the persons, not you, to deal with them."
The men around understood; nothing pleased them better than to see a bumptious young Aid sat down upon, and they were outspoken in their delight.
"I shall report you to the General, and have you court-martialed," said the Aid, shaking his fist at Capt. McGillicuddy. "I shall!"
"Mr. Farwell," said the Chief of Staff, riding up, "why haven't you reported to the General as to the trouble here? We've been waiting for you."
"Here," came the clear-cut tones of the Colonel across the branch; "no use of wasting any more time on those mules. They're there to stay. Unhitch them, fasten on a picket-rope, and we'll pull the wagon across from this side."
Everybody sprang to execute this order, but Si and Shorty's hands had not reached the traces when an idea seemed to shoot simultaneously through each of the six mules, and with one impulse they plunged ahead, directly into the swollen waters.
Si and Shorty sprang back toward their heads to guide them over the narrow crossing. But the mules seemed to take the right course by instinct, and landed the wagon safely on the other side, without a particle of water entering the bed. Everybody cheered, and Si and Shorty looked as if their minds had been relieved of a terrible load.
"Si," said Shorty, with a tinge of weariness in his tone, "they say it is about 18 miles from here to Shelbyville."
"Somethin' like that," answered Si.
"I think there are about three o' these cricks to every mile. Do you really suppose we'll be able to git there before our three years is up?"
"All depends on the mules," answered Si cheerily. "If this sudden spell o' goodness holds out we may get there before evening."
IT SEEMS impossible, but the third day's rain was even worse than that of the two preceding. The drops seemed much larger, to follow each other faster, and with less interval between the downpours.
"Does it always rain this way in June down here?" Si asked a patriarch, who was sitting on his porch by the roadside in a split-bottomed rocking-chair, resting his bony hands on a cane, the head of which was a ram's horn, smoking a corn-cob pipe and watching the passing column with lack-luster eyes.
"Sah," said the sage, poking down the ashes in his pipe with his little finger, "I've done lived in the Duck River Valley ever sence Capting Jimmy Madison wuz elected President the fust time, and I never seed sich a wet spell as this afore. I reckon hit's all along o' the wah. We allers have a powerful sight o' rain in wah times. Hit rained powerful when Jinerul Jackson wuz foutin' the Injuns down at Hoss Shoe Bend, and the Summers durin' the Mexican war wuz mouty wet, but they didn't hold a candle to what we're havin' this yeah. Hit's the shootin' and bangin', I reckon, that jostles the clouds so's they can't hold in."
"How far is it to Shelbyville, Gran'pap?" asked Shorty.
"Don't call me yer gran-pap," piped out the old man in angry falsetto, and shaking his cane. "I won't stand hit. I won't stand everything. I've had enough ter stand from you Yankees already. You've stole my chickens an' robbed my smoke-house, an' run off my stock, an' I've done stood hit, but I won't stan' bein' called gran'pap by ye. I've some mouty mean grandsons, some that orter be in the penitentiary, but I hain't none mean enough t' be in the Yankee army."
"We didn't mean no offense, sir," said Si placatingly. "We really don't want you for a gran'father. We've got gran'fathers o' our own, and they're very nice old men, that we wouldn't trade off for anything ever raised in Tennessee. Have you anything to eat that you'll sell us? We'll pay you for it."
"No, I haint got nothin' nary mite," quavered the old man. "Your men an' our men have stole everything I have stock, cattle, sheep, hogs, poultry, meat an' meal everything, except my bare land an' my hope o' heaven. Thank God, none on ye kin steal them from me."
"Don't be too blamed sure about that, old feller," said Shorty. "Better hide 'em. The Maumee Muskrats are jest behind us. They're the worst thieves in the whole army. Don't let 'em know anything about your land or your hope o' salvation, or they'll have it in their haversacks before you kin wink."
"You haint told us yit how far it is to Shelbyville," said Si.
"Young man," said the sage oracularly, "that altogether depends. Sometimes Shelbyville is mouty fur off, an' sometimes she is right here. On bright, cl'ar days, when the roads is good, hit's only a few steps over thar jest two sees an' a holler."
"What's that?" said Si. "Two sees an' a holler? How far is that?"
"He means," explained Shorty, "that you go as far as you kin see from the highest hilltop to the next highest hill-top twice, and then it's only about as much farther as your voice will reach."
"Jest so," asserted the patriarch. "I kin saddle my ole nag arter dinner, rack over an' do some tradin', an' rack back agin in time for supper. But 'when we have sich sorry weather as this, Shelbyville seems on t' other side o' nowhar. You've got t' pull through the mud an' swim every branch and crick, an' you're mouty lucky if you git thar in a week."
"Why don't you build bridges over the creeks?" asked Si.
"Can't do hit when hit's rainin' an they're runnin' over thar banks."
"But why don't you do it when the weather's good?"
"What's the use? You kin git over all right then."
"Sir," said the Brigadier-General, riding up and addressing the old man, "where does the Shakerag road come into the Bellbuckle road?"
Instantly the old man felt that he was being asked to give "aid and information to the enemy," and his old eyes grew hard and his wrinkled face set. "I don't know, sah."
"Yes, you do," said the Brigadier-General impatiently, "and I want you to tell me."
"I don't know, sah," repeated the old man.
"Are there any works thrown up and any men out there on the Shakerag road?" asked the Brigadier.
"I don't know, sah."
"Did a large body of rebels go past your house yesterday, and which road did they take at the forks?" inquired the Brigadier.
"I don't know, sah."
The Brigadier-General was not in the best of humor, and he chafed visibly at the old man's answers.
"Does not Goober Creek run down there about a mile in that direction?" he again inquired, pointing with his field-glasses.
"I don't know, sah."
"How long have you lived here?" asked the Brigadier savagely.
"Nigh on to 55 year, sah."
"And you don't know where Goober Creek is, and which way it runs?" asked the Brigadier, losing all patience.
"No, sah," responded the imperturbable old man.
"Well," said the Brigadier-General grimly, "it is high time that you discovered that interesting stream. You might die without seeing it. Men (to Si and Shorty) take him down that road about a mile, where you will find a considerable body of water which I'm given to understand is called Goober Creek. You'll show it to him in all its magnificence and beauty. Geography is a very interesting study, old man, and it is not too late for you to begin getting acquainted with your own country."
The bitter humor of taking a man through the mud and pouring rain to see a creek that he had seen nearly every day of his life for a half-century was such that all the men were in a mood to appreciate. Si and Shorty entered into the affair with zest. They put a blanket on the old man's shoulders, to shelter him from the rain. Such a thing as an umbrella had never been in his house. Even the women would have looked upon it as a piece of luxurious effeminacy.
The old fellow grumbled, expostulated, and protested, but if Si and Shorty had had no other motive, orders direct from the Brigadier-General would have been executed at any cost. It was the first time that they had ever received orders from anybody higher than the Colonel, and the effect upon them was extraordinary.
"What in the everlastin' kingdom," grumbled he, "kin your niggah-lovin' Yankees expect t' gain by draggin' me out when hit's a-rainin' cats and dogs?"
"Don't know nothin' about it," answered Si, catching him by the shoulder to hurry him up. "'Tain't our business to know. We ain't paid for knowin' anything more than orders, and hardly enough for that. A man can't know much for $13 a month."
"'Twon't help yer niggeh-stealin' army a mite t' pi'nt out Goober Crick t' me. I ain't gwine t' tote ye over nor show ye the fords."
"Don't care nothin' about that neither," replied Shorty, as they pushed the old man along through the blinding 'rain. "Our orders is merely to show you Goober Crick. 'Tain't none o' our business what the General wants you to see it for. Mebbe he thinks it 'll improve your mind to gaze on the beauties o' nature. Mebbe he thinks you need exercise. Mebbe he thinks a shower-bath'd do you good."
The column had been checked by some difficulty in front, and as the boys conveyed their charge through the ranks of waiting men it seemed that everybody understood what they were doing, and volleys of sarcasm were flung at their prisoner. There were inquiries as to how he liked the study of geography as far as he had gotten; whether he would continue it in more favorable weather, and whether this primary lesson would be followed by others on the road to the mill, the path to the stable, and the way to the spring. If the old man had not already been as angry as he could be, his temper would have risen.
After a lot of toilsome plodding through the rain and mud which the passing wagons had made fathomless, they came to the top of a high hill, from which they could look down on a turbid sweep of yellow water, about half a mile away, which filled nearly the whole valley.
The reason of delay was at once apparent. The insignificant stream had suddenly become an almost impassable obstacle. Men were riding carefully across the submerged bottom land, prodding with poles, to pick out crossings. Others were digging down approaches to what seemed promising crossings, and making rude bridges across gullies and smaller streams that intervened.
It seemed that the fresh young Aid with whom the boys had the encounter the day before had in some mysterious way gained charge of the advance. He had graduated into the Engineer Corps from West Point, and here was an opportunity to display his immense knowledge to the glory of himself and the Engineers and the astonishment of those inferior persons who were merely officers of cavalry, infantry and artillery. Now he would show off the shrewd expedients and devices which have embellished the history of military engineering since the days of Hannibal and Julius Cesar.
That everybody might know who was doing all this, the Aid was riding back and forward, loudly commanding parties engaged in various efforts over more than a quarter of a mile of front. He had brought up the pontoon-train, and the pontoniers were having a hard time trying to advance the boats into the rushing waters. It was all that the men could do to hold them against the swift current. If a pole slipped or went down in a deep hole the men holding it would slip and probably fall overboard, the boat would whirl around and drift far out of its place, requiring great labor to bring it back again, and bringing down a torrent of curses from the young Lieutenant on the clumsiness of "the Stoughton bottles" who were pretending to be soldiers and pontoniers. He was feeling that every word of this kind showed off his superior knowledge to those around. Some of the men were standing waist-deep in the water, trying to fasten lines to trees, to hold in place the boats already stationed and being held there by arms straining at the poles. Everywhere those engaged in the work were tumbling down in the water or being carried off their feet by the current and rescued again with difficulty, to be hauled out on the bank, exhausted, soaked to the skin and covered with slimy mud.
For awhile this had seemed funny to the troops waiting to cross, and they had yelled and laughed themselves hoarse at the mishaps of their comrades. Now the fun had all evaporated and everybody was morose, with a strong tendency to outbreaks of profanity.
The old man surveyed the scene with evident satisfaction. "Yo' Yankees will git over thar about the middle o' July," he chuckled. "Now, I reckon that's Goober Crick, an' as I have done seed hit you'll let me go back home, I s'pose, won't ye?"
"That's probably Goober Crick, or at least Goober Crick is somewhere under that muddy freshet," acquiesced Shorty. "But I'm not at all sure that it's the crick. Looks more like a misplaced chunk out o' the Mizzoori River. I'm not sure, either, that your eyes kin see that distance. We'll have to walk you till we find a section of the crick somewhere that kin be recognized by the naked eyes. Come along, and step lively."
The old man groaned, but there was no hope for him from these relentless executants of orders. For a half hour more they plodded on. The mud grew deeper at every step, but the boys mercilessly forced the old man through the worst of it, that they might reach some point where they could actually see Goober Crick. He could not palm off on them any common old mud freshet for a creek that had a regular place on the map.
Finally they came near the pontoons, and saw one almost capsize, throwing everybody in it into the water, while another whirled madly away toward the center of the current, with but one man in, who was frantically trying to stop it and save himself.
"Yes, he'll stop it, much," said Shorty, looking after him. "If he gits ashore before he reaches the Mississippi I'll be surprised. Say, Si, it'll be easier lookin' for Goober Crick in a boat than wading through the mud. Let's git in one o' them boats."
This terrified the old man till he was ready to yield.
"I begin t' know the place," he admitted. "If we take this path through the woods t' the left hit'll bring us out whar yo' kin see Goober Crick for sartin, an' no mistake. Hit's allers above high-water thar."
The boys followed. A very short walk through a curtain of deep woods brought them on to much higher ground, where Goober Creek roared through a narrow channel it had cut in the rocks. As they stood on the banks, Si and Shorty's eyes met in a quick comprehension of the advantages of the place. They looked backward through the woods to see a depression in the hills, which promised a short and comparatively easy cut-off to the road in the rear, where the 200th Ind. lay.
"Yes, this is Goober Crick," said the old man, with an air of recalling an old acquaintance. "I'm sure of hit. Now, you'll let me go home, won't yer? I hain't got a dry thread left on me, an' I know I'll jest fairly die o' rheumatiz."
"Yes, you can go," said Shorty, who was filling his eyes with the lay of the ground, and the chances it offered of getting the 200th Ind. across ahead of the others and gaining the coveted head of the column. "I've no doubt you're awful wet, but mebbe you know more'n you did a couple of hours ago. Skip!"
The old man moved off with alacrity scarcely to be expected of him, and the boys saw that it was wisest to follow him, for he was taking a bee-line through the woods and brush for his home, and that they knew was near where they had left their regiment.
Soon Co. Q, crouching under the cedars and ponchos spread over fence corners, hovering around struggling fires, and sullenly making the best of a very poor prospect, was electrified by Si and Shorty appearing on as near a run as they could put up with their weight-soaked garments.
"Capt. McGillicuddy," gasped Si, "we've found a bully place to cross. Tell the Colonel quick. Let the boys git all the axes and shovels they kin, and come with us. We'll have a crossin' ready by the time the Colonel comes up with the regiment, and we kin git the advance agin."
Si had gained that enviable position in the regiment where he could always have plenty of followers to anything that he proposed. The sullen despondency passed into active alertness as soon as he began speaking, and before he was done some of them were rummaging around the wagons for axes and shovels. Two or three of these implements were found in the old man's yard.
"Go ahead," said the Captain. "I'll speak to the Colonel, and we'll follow you with the regiment. You can get the teams across, too?"
"Certain," said Si, as he handed his gun, cartridge-box, haversack, blanket-roll and overcoat to another boy to carry for him, shouldered his ax and started off at a run, the others following.
They came back to the spot whither the old man had led them. Si's experienced eye quickly selected two tall hickories, which could be felled directly across the stream and form the stringers for his bridge. The next instant the damp air was ringing with the strokes of eight as skillful axmen as there were in the army, Si leading on one tree and Shorty on the other. They could not keep up the feverish pace they had set for many minutes, but the instant their blows relaxed eight other men snatched the axes, and in a few minutes the trees toppled and fell just in the right position. Co. Q was now coming up, followed by the rest of the regiment, and they gave a cheer to echo the crash of the falling trees. Instantly hundreds of men and officers were at work clearing a road and completing the bridge. Some cut down other trees to furnish filling for the approaches, or to split into flooring for the bridge. Some dug down the bank and carried the clay to cover the brush and chunks. In an incredibly short time a bridge was completed, over which the regiment was marched, and the wagons pulled by the men, after the mules had been detached and walked over.
Every fresh success was announced by tremendous cheering, which carried information to the rest of the brigade that the 200th Ind. was doing something unusual. News as to what this was at last reached the ears of the Lieutenant of Engineers, who was continuing his struggle with the pontoons with a persistence worthy of better luck.
He rode up just in time to see Capt. McGillicuddy looking with elation at the passage of the last wagon.
"Why was I not informed as to what you were doing here, sir?" he asked angrily.
"Probably because we were too busy doing it to be talking about it. If you had known of it you would probably have tried to apply the 47th problem of Euclid to the case, and we wouldn't 've got ten over for a week. Eventually, sir, I expect you will find out that there are several things in the world that are not learned at West Point. Having accomplished all that we want with the bridge, I now have the pleasure of turning it over to the Engineer Department, and I wish that you may find it very useful," continued the Captain, as with a mocking smile and salute he followed the last of the regiment across the creek.
"Adjutant," said Si, saluting that official with great respect, "we've now got the advance agin, hain't we?"
"You're right we have, you bully boy with a glass eye," said the Adjutant, slapping him on the shoulder with a familiarity that would have given the young Engineer Lieutenant a spasm and caused a strong report on the discipline of the 200th Ind. "And you can just bet we'll keep it, too. You ought to see the Colonel's eye. We'll lead the procession into Shelbyville, which is only 15 miles away."
AND it rained the fourth day rained as if there had been months of drouth, during which it had been saving up water and gathering its energies for an astonishing, overwhelming, make-up-for-lost-time effort.
"Great goodness," said Si, as he and Shorty were again wringing their blankets out to lighten the load they would start with; "seems to me they're tryin' to move Lake Superior down here, and dumping the water by train-loads."
"Old Rosey ought to set us to buildin' arks," grumbled Shorty. "We'll need 'em as bad as Noah did."
There was an alleviation to the weather and mud in the good news that came from all parts of the long front of 75 miles, on which the 60,000 men of the Army of the Cumberland were pressing forward against their enemies in spite of the apparent league of the same with the powers of the air against them. Away off on the extreme right Gen. Mitchel's cavalry had driven the enemy from Triune, Eagleville, Rover, and Unionville; Gordon Granger's and Crittenden's infantry were sweeping forward through Salem, Christiana, and Bradyville; grand old Pap Thomas, in his usual place in the center, had swept forward with his accustomed exhibition of well-ordered, calmly-moving, resistless power, and pushed the enemy out of his frowning strongholds at Hoover's Gap; McCook, whose advance had that splendid leader, John F. Miller, had struck success fully at Liberty Gap, and far to our left the dash ing Wilder had led his "Lightning Brigade" against the enemy's right and turned it. The higher officers were highly elated at the success of Gen. Rosecrans's brilliant strategy in forcing the very formidable outer line of the enemy without a repulse any where. Their keen satisfaction was communicated to the rank and file, and aroused an enthusiasm that was superior to the frightful weather. Every body was eager to push forward and bring Bragg to decisive battle, no matter how strong his laboriously-constructed works were.
"Old Rosey may be a little slow to start," Shorty held forth oracularly to the group crouching over the fire, "but when he does start, great Scott, but he's a goer. I'll put every cent I may have for the next 10 years on him, even though he's handicapped by a Noah's deluge for 40 days and 40 nights. And when it comes to playin' big checkers, with a whole State for a board, and brigades and divisions for men, he kin skunk old Bragg every time, without half tryin'. He's busted his front row all to pieces, and is now goin' for his king-row. We'll have Bragg before Grant gits Pemberton, and then switch around, take Lee in the rear, capture Richmond, end the war, and march up Pennsylvania Avenue before Old Abe, with the scalps o' the whole Southern Confederacy hangin' at our belts."
"Wish to Heaven," sighed Si, "Old Rosey'd thought to bring along a lot of Ohio River coal scows and Wabash canal-boats to make our campaign in. What fun it'd be jest to float down to Shelbyville and fight those fellers with 100 rough-and-ready gunboats. Then, I'd like awfully to know once more what it feels like to have dry feet. Seems to me my feet are swelling out like the bottom of a swamp-oak."
"Hope not, Si," said Shorty. "If they git any bigger there won't be room enough for anybody else on the same road, and you'll have to march in the rear o' the regiment. Tires me nearly to death now to walk around 'em."
"There goes the bugle. Fall in, Co. Q," shouted the Orderly-Sergeant.
As the 200th Ind. had the advance, and could leave the bothersome problems of getting the wagons across the creeks to the unlucky regiment in the rear, the men stepped off blithely through the swishing showers, eager to find the enemy and emulate the achievements on previous days by their comrades on other parts of the line.
Being as wet as they could be, they did not waste any time about crossing streams. The field officers spread out and rode squarely at the most promising crossings in sight. The men watched their progress, and took the best they found. If the water did not get above the middle of the sides of the Colonel's medium-sized horse, they took off their haversacks and unbuckled their cartridge-boxes, and plunged in after him, the shorter men pairing off with the taller men, and clinging to them.
So eager was their advance that by the time they halted at noon for a rest and a cup of coffee, they were miles ahead of the rest of the brigade, and beginning to look forward to catching glimpses of Shelbyville.
They had encountered no opposition except long-taw shots from rebel cavalry watching them from the opposite sides of the yellow floods, and who would scurry away as soon as they began to cross.
The young Aid again appeared upon the scene.
"Colonel," he said, saluting, "the General presents his compliments, and directs that you advance to that next creek, and halt there for the night and observe it."
"What did that young man remark?" said Shorty in an undertone; "that we wuz to advance to that crick and observe it? What in the thunder have we bin doin' for the past four days but observe cricks, an' cross the nasty, wet things?"
"He means, Shorty," said Capt. McGillicuddy, "that we are to go as near as we can to the bank, and watch, that the rebels do not come across, and wait there until the rest of the division get in supporting distance."
"I guessed that was what his West Point lingo meant, if he has brains enough to mean anything. Why didn't he say in plain United States: 'Git down to the edge o' that there crick, watch for a chance to jump the rebels, and keep your eye peeled that the rebels don't jump you?' That'd be plain Methodist-Episcopal, that everybody could under stand.".
"I'll see that you are appointed Professor of Military Language and Orders at West Point when you are discharged," said the Captain, laughing.
The regiment advanced to the edge of the swollen flood and made themselves as comfortable as possible under shelters improvised from rails, cedar boughs, pieces of driftwood, etc. A considerable force of rebels appeared on the opposite bank, whose business seemed to be to "observe" the Yankees.
The restless Si and Shorty started out on a private reconnoissance. They discovered that the shore opposite the left of the regiment was really an island, separated by some hundreds of yards of rushing water from them, but the main current ran on the other side of the island.
"We can't observe the crick through that mass o' willers and cottonwoods," said Shorty. "That's certain. No tellin' what devilment the rebels are up to on the bank over there. They may be gittin' up a flank movement over there, with pontoons and flatboats, to bust the whole army wide open."
"That's so," assented Si. "The orders are to observe this crick, and we can't do it if we can't see the other bank. We ought to git over to that island."
They went back and reported to Capt. McGillicuddy, and told him what they thought. He at once agreed with them, and sanctioned their proposal to go over to the island, if they could find means of crossing.
After a diligent search they came across an old canoe hollowed out of a tulip-tree log. It was a cranky affair, and likely to turn over if their hair was not parted exactly in the middle; but both of the boys were used to canoe management, and they decided to risk the thing.
It was ticklish business crossing the current, but they succeeded in reaching the island, which extended a foot or more above the level of the flood, and was covered with a thicket of willows and cottonwoods about the size of hoe-handles. They pushed their way through these and came in sight of the opposite banks. There was apparently some thing important going on over there. Quite a number of rebels could be seen moving about through the rain and mud, there was great deal of chopping going on, several flatboats, canoes and rafts were lying at the bank, wagons were passing, and the boys thought they could make out a cannon or two.
"I can't make out what in the world they're up to," said Si. "But I'm certain the Colonel ought to know it. Suppose you take the canoe, Shorty, and paddle over and report, and I'll stay here and watch."
"All right," answered Shorty, starting back for the canoe.
He reported to Capt. McGillicuddy, who took him up to the Colonel.
"It don't seem possible that they can be doing anything to threaten us," said the Colonel; "though they may know of some practicable crossing higher up the stream, which will let them in on our flank. Still, they ought to be watched. I'll inform the General at once. You had better station a picket on the island, Captain, if you can do so safely."
"Me and my pardner 'll look out for them, Colonel, if you think necessary," said Shorty, proud to be of service under the Colonel's direction.
"Very good," said the Colonel briefly. "I'll entrust the lookout to you boys. Let me know at once if anything important develops."
The young Aid had been standing nigh during this conversation.
"Your men, Colonel," he said patronizingly, "are excellent soldiers, in their way, but they lack the intelligence necessary to comprehend the movements of the enemy on the opposite bank. I think I shall go over there myself, take a personal observation, and determine precisely what the meaning of the movements may be."
"As you like," said the Colonel stiffly. "As for myself, I don't think it is necessary for me to go. I'd trust those boys' eyes as quick as I would my own. They are as good soldiers as ever breathed; they are as keen as a brier, with not a particle of nonsense about them. They are as truthful as the day. When they tell me anything that they have seen with their own eyes I can trust it as absolutely as if I had seen it myself; and their judgment can not be beat."
"No enlisted man can possibly see anything so well as an officer who has been educated," said the Aid.
"That is a matter of opinion," said the Colonel dryly.
"Anyway, I'm going over to see for myself," said the Aid. And he called after Shorty:
"Here, my man, I'm going along with you."
Shorty muttered some very warm words under his breath, but discipline asserted itself, and he answered respectfully:
"Very good, sir."
He halted until the Aid came alongside, and then started to walk beside him as he would have done with one of his own officers when out alone with him.
"Fall two paces behind," commanded the Aid sternly
Shorty said to himself some very hotly-disparaging things about pretentious young snips of Regular officers. They reached the canoe, and the Lieutenant calmly seated himself in the stern. This was another aggravation. If Shorty had gone out with one of his own officers, even the Colonel, he would have shown a deep interest in everything and wanted to do his share toward getting the canoe safely over. This young fellow calmly seated himself, and threw all the responsibility and work on Shorty.
"Now, you set right in the center, there," said Shorty, as he picked up the paddle and loosened the rope, "and keep mighty still."
"My man," said the Lieutenant, frowning, "when I want your advice I'll ask it. It is for me to give you directions, not you me. You paddle out, now, and head straight for that island. Paddle briskly, and get me over there as quick as possible."
Shorty was tempted to tip the canoe over then and there, but he restrained himself, and bent his strong arms to the hard task of propelling the canoe across the strong current, avoiding the driftwood, maintaining his balance, and keeping the bow pointed toward the place where he wanted to land.
The Lieutenant had sense enough to sit very still, and as he naturally had been drilled into bolt-up-rightness, Shorty had little trouble with him until they were nearing the shore. Then the canoe ran into a swirl which threw its bow around. Forgetting his dignified pose, the Lieutenant made a grab for some overhanging willows.
"Let them alone, blast you; I'll bring her around all right," Shorty started to yell, but too late. Before the words were out of his mouth the cranky canoe went over. Shorty with the quickness of a cat jumped clear, caught some branches with one hand, and made a grab for the canoe with the other. But he saw the Lieutenant go down head foremost, with fancy boots disappearing last. He let the canoe go, to make a grab for the boots. He missed them, but presently the Lieutenant's head appeared, and he gasped and sputtered:
"Save me, my good man. I can't swim a stroke."
Shorty plunged out, succeeded in catching the Lieutenant by the collar, and after a vicious struggle with the current, grabbed with his right hand a pole that Si thrust out to him, while with his left he dragged the Lieutenant ashore, "wetter'n a blamed drowned West Point muskrat," as he after ward expressed it.
"My good man, you saved my life, and I thank you for it," said the Lieutenant when he recovered his breath. "I shall mention you in my report."
"If you don't stop calling me your 'good man' I'll chuck you into the drink again, you wasp-waisted, stiff-backed, half-baked West Point brevet Second Lieutenant," said Shorty wrathfully. "If you'd had the sense of a six-months'-old goslin' you'd 'a' set still, as I told you, and let me manage that canoe. But you never kin learn a West Pointer nothin'. He'd try to give God Almighty points if he got a chance. Now we've lost our canoe, and we're in a devil of a fix. I feel like throwin' you back in the crick."
"Take care, my good" and then the Lieutenant caught the glare of Shorty's eye. "Take care, sir. You're on the verge of mutiny. I may have you court-martialed and shot, if you're not careful."
"Court-martial and be blamed," said Si, who was as angry as Shorty. "You've lost our canoe, and we may be drowned before we can git off this island. It's got so dark they can't see us from the shore, the water's steadily rising, these trees are too small to climb, and the Lord knows how we're goin' to git off."
"Corporal, I'll see that you're reduced to the ranks for disrespect to me. I had intended to recommend this man for promotion on account of his great service to the army in saving my life. Now I shall see that you are both punished for insubordination."
"Insubordination be damned, and you with it," said Shorty. "You'd better be thinking how we're to git off this island. The water's bin raisin' about a foot a minute. I've bin watchin' while we wuz talkin'."
The Lieutenant stood, dazed, while the boys were canvassing plans for saving themselves.
"I'll tell you, Shorty," said Si suddenly. "Le's ketch one o' them big saw-logs that's comin' down, straddle it, and let it carry us somewhere. It may take us into our own lines. Anything's better than drowndin'. Here comes one in the eddy now."
Shorty caught the log with a long pole, and dexterously steered it up close to the shore in comparatively still water. Si threw a grapevine over it and held it.
"Now, all git on," said Shorty. "Be careful not to push it away."
"Let me get on ahead," said the Lieutenant, still mindful of his rank, "and you two get on behind, the Corporal next to me."
"Not much, Mary Ann," jeered Shorty. "We want a man of sense ahead, to steer. I'll git on first, then you, and then Si, to bring up the rear and manage the hind end of the log."
The Lieutenant had to comply. They all got safely on, and Shorty pushed off, saying:
"Here, sit straight, both of you. Here goes mebbe for New Orleans, mebbe for Libby Prison, mebbe for the camp of the 200th Ind.
"We're out on the ocean sailin'."
THE log swept out into the yellow swirl, bobbing up and down in the turbulent current.
"Bobs like a buckin' broncho," said Shorty. "Make you seasick, Si?"
"Not yet," answered his partner. "I ain't so much afraid o' that as I am that some big alligator-gar 'll come along and take his dinner off my leg."
"Bah," said Shorty, contemptuously; "no alligator-gar is goin' to come up into this mud-freshet. He'd ruther hunt dogs and nigger-babies further down the river. Likes 'em better. He ain't goin' to gnaw at them old Wabash sycamore legs o' yourn when he kin git a bite at them fat shoats we saw sailin' down stream awhile ago."
"The belief in alligator-gar is a vulgar and absurd superstition," said the Lieutenant, breaking silence for the first time. "There, isn't anywhere in fresh water a fish capable of eating anything bigger than a bull-frog."
"Hullo; did West Point learn you that?" said Shorty. "You know just about as much about it as you do about gittin' over cricks an' paddlin' a canoe. Have you ever bin interduced to a Mississippi catfish? Have you ever seen an alligator-gar at home in the Lower Mississippi? Naw! You don't know no more about them than a baby does about a catamount. I have heard tell of an alligator-gar that was longer'n a fence-rail, and sort of king of a little bayou down in the Teche country. He got mad because they run a little stern-wheel steamboat up into his alley to git their cotton off, an' he made up his mind to stop it. He'd circle 'round the boat to git a good headway and pick out his man. Then he'd take a run-and-jump, leap clean across the boat, knock off the man he'd picked out, an' tow him off under a log an' eat him. He intended to take the Captain fust, but his appetite got the better of him. He saw a big, fat, juicy buck nigger of a deck-hand, an' couldn't stand the temptation. He fetched him easy. Next he took a nice, tender little cabin-boy. Then he fetched the big old Mate, but found him so full o' terbacker, whisky and bad language that he couldn't eat him nohow, an' turned him over to the mudturtles, what'll eat anything. The Captain then got scared an' quit. He didn't care a hat for the Mate, for he was glad to git rid of him; but he liked the cabin-boy an' he had to pay the owner o' the nigger $1,200 for him, an' that made runnin' up the Teche onprofitable."
"Oh, Shorty," Si gasped. He thought he was acquainted with his partner's brilliant talents for romance, but this was a meteoric flight that he had not expected.
"But that wasn't nothin'," Shorty continued, "to a he catfish that a man told me about down near Helena, Ark. He used to swim around in a little chute near a house-cabin in which lived a man with a mighty good-lookin' young wife. The man was awful jealous of his woman, an' used to beat her. The ole he catfish had a fine eye for purty women, and used to cavort around near the cabin whenever his business would permit. The woman noticed him, and it tickled him greatly. She'd throw him hunks o' bread, chunks o' cold meat, and so on. The man'd come out and slap her, and fling clubs and knots at him. One day the man put his wife in a basswood canoe, and started to take her across the river. He hadn't got a rod from the shore when the old he catfish ups and bites the canoe in two, then nips the man's hand so's he didn't git over it for months, and then puts his nose under the woman's arm, and helps her ashore as polite as you please."
"Shorty," gasped Si, "if you tell any more such stories as that this log'll certainly sink. See it how it wobbles now."
"I consider such stuff very discourteous to your officer," said the Lieutenant stiffly. "I shall make a note of it for consideration at some future time."
"Halt! Who goes thar?" rang out sharply from the bank.
"Hush; don't breathe," said Shorty. They were in an eddy, which was sweeping them close to the rebel bank.
"Who air yo' haltin'?" said a second voice.
"I see some men in a canoe out thar. I heared their voices fust," said the first voice.
"Whar' yo see any men in a canoe?" asked the second incredulously.
"Right over thar. You kin see 'em. They're comin' right this-a-way. I'm a gwine t' halt 'em agin an' then shoot."
"Stuff," said the other. "You're allers seein' shadders an' ghostses. That 'er's only an ole tree with three limbs stickin' up. Don't yo' shoot an' skeer the whole camp. They'll have the grand laugh on yo', an' mebbe buck-an'-gag yo'."
"'Tain't stuff," persisted the other. "Thar never wuz a tree that ever growed that had three as big limbs as that all on one side. You're moon blind."
"A man mout well be rain blind in sich a storm as this, but I tell yo' that's nothin' but an ole sycamore drift log. If yo' shoot the boys'll never git tired o' damnin' yo', an' jest as likely as not the ossifers'll make yo' tote a rail through the mud termorrer."
The boys were so near that every word could be distinctly heard, and they were floating nearer every moment.
The suspense was thrilling. If the man fired at that distance he could not help hitting one of them and discovering the others. They scarcely breathed, and certainly did not move a muscle, as the log floated steadily in-shore in the comparatively stiller waters of the eddy. The rain was coming down persistently yet, but with a sullen quietness, so that the silence was not broken by the splashing of the drops.
A water-moccasin deadliest of snakes crawled up onto the log and coiled himself in front of Si, with that indifference to companionship which seems to possess all animals in flood-times. Si shuddered as he saw it, but did not dare make a motion against it.
The dialog on the bank continued.
"Thar, you kin see thar air men in a canoe," said the first voice.
"I can't see nothin' o' the kind," replied the other.
"If hit ain't a log with three dead limbs, hit's a piece o' barn-timber with the j'ists a-stickin' up."
"I don't believe hit nary mite. Hit's men, an' I'm a-gwine t' shoot."
"No, yo' hain't gwine t' make a durned fool o' yourself. Wait a minute. Hit's a-comin' nigher, an' soon you kin hit it with a rock. I'll jest do hit t' show yo how skeery yo' air. Le'me look around an' find a good rock t' throw. If I kin find jest the right kind I kin hit a yallerhammer at that distance."
This prospect was hardly more reassuring than that of being fired at, but there was nothing to do but to take whatever might come. To make it more aggravating, the current had slowed down, until the motion of their log was very languid. They were about 100 feet from the shore when they heard the second voice say:
"Heah, I've got jest the right kind o' a dornick. Now jest keep yer eye peeled an' fixed on that center limb, an' yo'll hear it chunk when I plunk hit an' show hit's nothin' but a stick o' wood."
Si thought he saw the Lieutenant crouch a little, but was not sure.
The stone came whistling through the air, struck the top of the Lieutenant's cap and knocked it off into the water.
"Thar," said the second voice triumphantly; "yo' see hit ain't no men. Jest as I done tole yo'. I knocked the bark offen the end o' one o' the sticks."
The log moved slowly on, and presently catching in a stronger current, swept out into the stream again. It seemed so like deliverance, that Si made a quick blow and knocked the snake off into the water, and Shorty could not help shouting triumphantly:
"Good-by, Johnnies! Sorry we can't stay with you longer. Got other engagements down the crick. Ta-ta! See you later."
The chagrined sentry fired an angry shot, but they were already behind a clump of willows.
"Lootenant," said Shorty, "you put on a whole lot of unnecessary frills, but you've got good stuff in you after all. You went through that little affair like a man. I'll back you after this."
"When I desire your opinion, sir, as to my conduct," replied the Lieutenant, "I shall ask you for it. Until then keep it to yourself. It is for me to speak of your conduct, not you of mine."
But again they "had hollered before they were out o' the woods," as Shorty afterward expressed it. The gunfire and the sound of their voices so near shore had stirred up the rebels. A canoe with three men in it had pushed out, and, struggling with the current, had made its way toward them, guided by their own voices. The top of a floating tree had hidden it from their sight until it suddenly came around the mass of leafage, and a man standing up in the bow leveling a revolver at them ordered instant surrender. The other two men were sitting in the middle and stern with paddles, and having all they could do to maintain the course of the canoe.
Si and Shorty were so startled that for an instant they made no response to the demand. The Lieutenant was the first to speak:
"Are you a commissioned officer?" he inquired.
"No," was the answer.
"Then I refuse to surrender. I'll surrender to no one inferior to me in rank."
"Sorry we'uns can't obleege yo', nohow," said the man with the revolver, in a sneer; "but we'uns'll have t' be good enough commissioned ossifers for yo' jist now, an' yo'll have t' done hold up yo'uns hands. We'uns hain't no time t' send ashore for a Lootenant."
The other two chuckled as they struggled with the current, and forced the canoe up close to the log. Shorty made a motion as if throwing up his hands, and called out in a submissive way:
"Here, le'me git hold o' the bow, and I kin help you. It's awful hard paddlin' in this current."
Without thinking the men threw the bow in so close that Shorty could clutch it with his long hand. The grab shook the ticklish craft, so that the man with the revolver could scarcely keep his feet.
"Heah," he yelled at the other two. "Keep the dugout stiddy. What air yo'uns doin'? Hold her off, I tell yo'uns."
Then to the Lieutenant:
"Heah, yo'uns surrender to wonst, or I'll blow yo' heads offen yo'uns."
The Lieutenant started a further remonstrance, but Shorty had in the meantime got the other hand on the canoe, and he gave it such a wrench that the man with the pistol lost his footing and fell across the log, where he was grabbed by Shorty and his pistol-hand secured. The stern of the canoe had swung around until Si had been able to catch it with one hand, while with the other he grabbed the man in the stern, who, seeing the sudden assumption of hostilities, had raised his paddle to strike.
Si and Shorty had somewhat the advantage in position. By holding on to the log with their legs they had a comparatively firm, base, while the canoe was a very ticklish foundation for a fight.
The middle man also raised his paddle to strike, but the Lieutenant caught it and tried to wrest it away. This held the canoe and the log close together while Si and Shorty were struggling. Si saw this, and letting go, devoted both hands to this man, whom he pulled over into the water about the same time that Shorty possessed himself of the other man's pistol and dragged him out of the canoe.
"Hold fast in the center there, Lieutenant," he called out, as he dropped the pistol into his bosom and took in the situation with a quick glance. "You two Johnnies hold on to the log like grim death to a dead nigger, and you won't drown."
He carefully worked himself from the log into the canoe, and then Si did the same. They had come to a part where the water spread out in a broad and tolerably calm lake over the valley, but there was a gorge at the further end through which it was rushing with a roar. Log and canoe were drifting in that direction, and while the changes were being made the canoe drifted away from the log.
"Hold on, men," shouted the Lieutenant; "you are certainly not going to abandon your officer?"
"Certainly not," said Shorty. "How could you imagine such a thing? But just how to trade you off for this rebel passenger presents difficulties. If we try to throw him overboard we shall certainly tip the canoe over. And I'm afraid he's not the man to give up peaceably a dry seat in the canoe for your berth on the log."
"I order you to come back here at once and take me in that boat," said the Lieutenant imperatively.
"We are comin' back all right," said Shorty; "but we're not goin' to let you tip this canoe over for 40 Second Lieutenants. We'll git you out o' the scrape somehow. Don't fret."
"Hello, thar! Help! Help!" came across the waters in agonized tones, which at the same time had some thing familiar in them.
"Hello, yourself!" responded Shorty, making out, a little distance away, a "jo-boat," that is, a rude, clumsy square-bottomed, square-ended sort of a skiff in which was one man. "What's wanted?"
"I'm out here adrift without no oars," came in the now-distinctly recognizable voice of Jeff Hackberry. "Won't yo' please tow me ashore?"
"Le's go out there and git him," said Shorty to Si. "We kin put all these fellers in that jo-boat and save 'em."
A few strokes of their paddles brought them alongside.
"How in the world did you come here, Hackberry," asked Shorty.
"O, that ole woman that I wanted so bad that I couldn't rest till I got her wuz red-hot t' git rid o' me," whined Hackberry. "She tried half-a-dozen ways puttin' wild parsnip in my likker, giving me pokeberry bitters, and so on, but nothin' fetched me. Finally she deviled me to carry her acrost the crick to the Confederit lines. I found this ole jo-boat at last, an' we got in. Suddenly, quick as lightning she picked up the oars, an' give the boat a kick which sent hit away out into the current. I floated away, yellin' at her, an' she standin' on the bank grinnin' at me and cussin'. I've been havin' the awfulest day floatin' down the freshet, expectin' every minute t' be drowned, an' both sides pluggin' away at me whenever they ketched sight o' me. I wuz willin' t' surrender t' either one that'd save me from being drownded, but none of 'em seemed t' care a durn about my drowndin'; they only wanted t' plug me."
"Please save me, Mister," begged Jeff, "an' I'll do anything under the shinin' sun for yo'; I'll jine the Yankee army; I'll lead you' to whar thar's nests o' the pizenest bushwhackers. I'll do anything yo' kin ax me. Only save me from being drownded. Right down thar's the big falls, an' if I go over them, nothin' kin same me from drowndin'." And he began a doleful blubbering.
"On general principles, I think that'd be the best thing that could happen," remarked Shorty. "But I haven't time to discuss that now. Will you do just what we want, if we save your life?"
"Yes; yes," responded he eagerly.
"Well, if you don't, at the very minute I tell you, I'll plug you for certain with this," said Shorty, showing the revolver. "Mind, I'll not speak twice. I'll give you no warnin'. You do what I tell you on the jump, or I'll be worse to you than Mrs. Bolster. First place, take this man in with you. And you (to the rebel in the canoe) mind how you git into that boat. Don't you dare, on your life, kick the canoe over as you crawl out. If I find it rocks the least bit as you leave I'll bust your cocoanut as the last act of my military career. Now crawl out."
The rebel crawled over the gunwale into the boat as cautiously as if there were torpedoes under him.
"Now," said Shorty, with a sigh of relief, as the man was at last out of the canoe, "we'll paddle around here and pick up some pieces of boards for you to use as oars. Then you bring the boat over to that log."
This was done, and the Lieutenant and the two rebels clinging to the log were transferred to the jo-boat. The moment the Lieutenant felt himself in the comparative security of the jo-boat his desire for command asserted itself.
"Now, men," said he, authoritatively, "pull away for the other side, pointing up stream. That glow over there is our campfires. Make for it."
"All right, Lootenant," said Shorty. "You command that boat. You've got your revolver with you, and kin make 'em mind. We'll pick up some more boards, so as to have oars for all o' 'em. They'd better use 'em lively, for it ain't a great ways t' the suck. If you git into that you'll go to Davy Jones's as sure as the Lord made little apples. Paddle, now, if you value your lives. Me and Si are goin' back to look for that galoot that shot at us. We want to make a present of him to our Colonel, who's after information from the other side. We want his gun and another one to make up for the two that we had to leave on the island. We'll join you before you git acrost."
The Lieutenant lifted up his voice in remonstrance against the desperate undertaking, but Si and Shorty paddled swiftly away, leaving him and his squad to struggle over the muddy lake in their clumsy bateau.
Though the boys were sadly worn by the day's exciting adventures, yet they were animated by the hope of doing something that would signally retrieve their earlier misfortunes. Both were adepts at canoe navigation, the canoe was light and easily managed with but two in it, and they had gotten the lay of the shore so well in mind that they felt sure that they could slip around and come in on the man who had fired upon them. The drizzle of the rain helped curtain them; they pushed the canoe through the top of a paw-paw thicket that rose but a little way above the flood, Shorty sprang out, and in a few steps came up behind the two pickets, who were crouching over a little fire they had built behind the cover of some dense weeds.
"Was this the post that fired on men in a canoe a little while ago?" he asked, as if a rebel officer out on a tour of investigation.
"Yes," the men stammered, as soon as they could recover from the startle of his sudden appearance.
"Which man fired?" asked Shorty.
"Me," answered one.
"Well, I want you and both your guns," said Shorty, thrusting his revolver against the man's face. "Pick up them guns and go right ahead there."
The man meekly did as bid, and in a few minutes was landed into the canoe, into which Shorty jumped and pushed off. When nearly across they came upon the jo-boat, with the Lieutenant standing erect with drawn revolver, while the men were laboring hard to propel it to shore. The boys fastened its painter to the stern of the canoe and helped by towing.
They headed for a large fire burning brightly on the bank, indicating that it was the headquarters of the pickets. In response to the sharp challenge, the Lieutenant responded:
"Friends, without the countersign."
Quite a number of officers and men thronged to the water's edge to see what could be coming from that unexpected quarter. The Lieutenant ordered the boys to fall to the rear with their canoe, that he might be the first to land, and as his bateau labored close to the shore he recognized the Colonel in command of the picket line, and said in a loud voice:
"Sir, I have the honor to report that I have been across the creek reconnoitering the enemy's lines. I have with me five prisoners four soldiers and one guerrilla."
SI WOKE up early the next morning with a savage exclamation.
"I declare, I'm all on fire," he said. "Some thing's just eating me up. I believe I've got a million graybacks on me."
"Same here, Si," said Shorty. "Never knowed 'em to be so bad. Seem to 've just got in from a march, and are chawin' three days' rations out o' me every minute. I'd 'a' thought they'd all 've bin drowned from the duckin' they've bin havin' for the past five days, but it only seems to 've sharpened their teeth and whetted their appetites. They've all come to dinner, and invited their friends."
"Where in the world could they have all come from?" meditated Si. "We wuz certainly clean of 'em when we started out six days ago."
"O, the rebels skipped out in sich a hurry," ex plained Shorty, "that they even dropped their house hold pets, which we inherited as we follered 'em up. I wish this infernal rain'd let up long enough for us to do some skirmishin' and bile our clothes. Or if the sun'd only come out an hour or two, we could find an ant-hill, an' lay our clothes on it. I don't know any little thing that I enjoy more on a pleasant day when we've bin a long march and got mighty 'crumby, than to pull off my shirt and lay it on a lively ant-hill, and light my pipe and set there and watch the busy ants collar its inhabitants and carry 'em off to fill up their smoke-houses with Winter meat."
He put his hand meditatively into his bosom as he spoke. As he withdrew it he looked down and exclaimed:
"Jehosephat, it's fleas, too. Just look there. I'm alive with fleas."
"Same here," ejaculated Si, who had made a similar discovery. "Just look at 'em, hoppin' out every where. The rebels have not only set their grayback infantry on to us, but are jumping us with their flea cavalry."
"If you call the graybacks infantry and the fleas cavalry, what in the world do you call these, Si?" said Shorty, who had made still another discovery, and was pointing to his wrists and ankles, where rows of gorged ticks, looking like drops of fresh blood, encircled his limbs.
"Them's heavy artillery," answered Si; "and, Great Scott, I've got more of 'em on me than you have. And there's some just back of your ears, Shorty. Be careful, Shorty. Don't touch 'em. Le' me work 'em off. Be awful careful. If you break their heads off they'll stay in and make a sore that'll almost never get well."
They looked down the lines of men who, like themselves, had been rudely awakened from their slumber on wet beds by "the pestilence that walketh by night." There were howls, yells, oaths and imprecations from everybody. Officers forgot their carefully-maintained dignity, and were as vociferous and profane as the men.
Many were stripped, and trying to singe their wet clothes over the smoldering fires. Many were even trying to subdue the pests by thrashing their garments in the cold water of the creek.
"'Bout as much use as a General Order from Army Headquarters would be agin the varmints," said Shorty, as he watched their futile labors. "Say, you fellers," he called out to them; "why don't you repeat the Ten Commandments to 'em? Or sing the doxology? It'll do just as much good as sloshing your duds around in the water. The water only makes 'em savager'n ever. You ought to know that from experience."
By the happy thought of gently touching the gorged wood-ticks with the point of a pin Si and Shorty had gotten rid of those plagues, heads and all, so as to leave no apprehension as to future sores. They communicated this method to their afflicted comrades, and then turned their attention to the other parasites.
"I guess I'll just go down to the Surgeon's tent and git a pound of angwintum," said Shorty, "and rub myself from head to foot with it. That's the only thing I know of that'll do the least good."
"Mustn't do that," objected Si. "Put angwintum on you and get wet, and you'll be salivated. You ought to know that."
"I don't care," said Shorty desperately. "I'd rather be salivated till my teeth drop out and my hair falls off than be carried off in large chunks by fleas and graybacks. Come along."
"Mebbe the Surgeon has something else that'll pizen these little cusses," said Si, falling in with his comrade.
They found a clamorous group around the Surgeon's tent, asking for "angwintum (mercurial ointment) or anything else that would alleviate their torments. The worried Surgeon was scratching himself as he explained to the Colonel:
"It seems to me, 'Colonel, that the rising water has concentrated all these parasites on the higher ground over which we have come. This is the only way in which I can account for their severe visitation upon us. The parasites seem to have the same instinct to gather on elevated spots when the water is rising that other animals have, and we have consequently gathered up four or five times as many, to say the least, as we should otherwise have gotten. But you don't know the worst of it yet. You see those men? They have sore feet. But it isn't ordinary sore feet. They've got chiggers in their feet."
"Chiggers. What are they?" asked the Colonel.
"Chiggers, jiggers, chigoes pulex penetrans," answered the Surgeon. "They are a great pest in the tropics, where the people go barefooted and do not take any care of their feet. This is the first time that I have ever heard of them being so far north. But there is no doubt about their being chiggers. They burrow in under the skin, and cause a great deal of suffering. Some of the men's hands and fingers are also affected by them. They are terrible things to deal with when they once get the start. If this thing goes on, not a man in the regiment will be able to walk a step."
"What can be done?" gasped the Colonel, gripping for a flea in his bosom.
"Nothing," answered the Surgeon, smashing an insect on the back of his hand, "except to issue a stringent order that the men must take special care of their feet and hands."
"Humph," said the Colonel, scornfully, as he caught a bug on his wrist; "much sense in an order of that kind, when the men have to wade through mud and water 18 hours out of 24, and then sleep in it the other six. Is that the best you can suggest? Is that all your conscience has to offer? Remember that you are responsible for the efficiency of the men on this great campaign, upon which the safety of the country depends. It will be a severe reflection upon you if you allow them to be broken down by a few insects."
"Great Pharaoh and Moses," responded the Surgeon irritably, as he grabbed for "a bite" on his throat. "Here we are, confronted with a condition of things like the curses which God Almighty sent against the Egyptians, and you expect me to manage it with quinine and epsom salts. It can't be done, Colonel."
"Isn't there anything that you can suggest or recommend that will mitigate this trouble?" said the Colonel in a more conciliatory manner, for he had just succeeded in crushing a tormentor. "Certainly, there must be something in your pharmacopeia which will at least retard these infernal vermin from eating my men alive. Can't you at least check them a little until we can get through the campaign? Then the men can be trusted to take care of themselves." And the Colonel made a swoop for a particularly vicious flea which was banqueting on the lobe of his ear.
"I never set up as a sharp on parasites," said the Surgeon, running down a "small deer" inside his collar; "but I remember to have read that an application of tobacco-juice is about as effective a preventive of insect bites as can be found."
"That'll do; that'll do," said Shorty triumphantly, as he and Si started back to their places to act at once on the Surgeon's suggestion. "Just the thing. Tobacker'll kill 'em deader than small-beer. Why didn't I think about it before?"
Shorty had some strong black plug tobacco. He cut this up into small pieces, while Si found an old tin can, into which they were put, and then the can filled up with boiling water.
"Let's make her good and strong, Si," said Shorty, putting in some more tobacco; "for the fellers are sock-dolagers, and it will take a horse dose to kill 'em. They'll just enjoy a little taste o' terbacker. Make it strong enough to bear up an aig. Now, let's git our clothes off while it's coolin' down. You drench me, and I'll drench you, and we'll salivate these gallinippers in a way that'll surprise 'em."
The surprise seemed to be mostly on the other side. Shorty's skin was raw from head to foot from the depredations of the various tribes of "epizoa," as the physicians generalize them. He gave a yell that could be heard through the whole regiment as the acrid, biting tobacco-juice struck a thousand little punctures in his skin inside of a second. Everybody rushed up to see what was the matter, and stood around, laughing and commenting, while scratching and slapping at their own colonies of tormentors. Then Shorty began the most vehement stream of profanity, and showered maledictions on everything in the State of Tennessee, which was only a breeding place for fleas, woodticks, jiggers, graybacks, niggers, rebels, traitors, bushwhackers, guerrillas, thieves, robbers and murderers, and other spawn of Jeff Davisism. Presently he grew violently sick at the stomach, turned deathly white, and fainted. Frightened, Si rushed for the Surgeon.
"Only tobacco poisoning," said the latter, after he had looked Shorty over carefully. "You made that solution too strong, and the lot of little punctures took it directly into his circulation. You might have killed him if you had made it stronger, or got more of it on him. I never saw such rapscallions as you boys are. You are always trying to kill yourselves or one another, in spite of all that I can do or tell you. A man that's Surgeon of this regiment has to earn his money, I tell you. He will come out all right pretty soon, only he will be very weak. I'll send you down some whisky to give him."
"Real old rye, Doctor?" said Shorty, very faintly, and opening his eyes feebly. "None of your Commissary stuff. This is a powerful bad case, and I need the best."
"You shall have it," laughed the Surgeon. "I know you. You are all right when you are all right. But you won't be able to march with the column to-day. I'll give you an excuse from duty. And you (to Si) had better stay with him. I'll speak to your Captain."
The bugles were sounding the "assembly" every where, and the men, slapping and scratching as if they would tear their flesh and their clothes off, were hastily swallowing their last mouthfuls of hot coffee and bread and pork, snatching up their guns and blankets and falling in.
"Shelbyville is only six miles away," said the Orderly-Sergeant as he lined up Co. Q, and clawed around his clothes at his persecutors. "There'll be a circus to-day, and no postponement on account o' the weather. It'll either be the gol-darnedest fight that the 200th Injianny Volunteers ever got into or the cussedest foot-race that ever wuz run. Here, Biles, consarn you, leave that fire and your munching, and fall in. You're like a cow's tail always behind."
Shorty made a violent effort to rise up and join the company, but he was manifestly too weak. Si was in sore distress. He didn't want to leave him, but he was anxious to be with his company.
"Corporal Klegg," said the Captain, coming down the line, and giving a frequent furtive scratch at himself, "Shorty can't possibly go with us to-day. I'm awfully sorry, but there is no use talking about it. You must stay behind and take care of him, and take care of these sore-footed men who will be unable to keep up. The Colonel orders you to command the whole outfit. You keep them together, keep up as well as you can, and if you see any place that you can be useful, go in. I know and the Colonel knows that you can be trusted to do that."
This made Si more reconciled to being left behind, and he mentally resolved that, though he might not be with his beloved regiment, he would manage to do his full share in the impending battle for Shelbyville.
The "Second Lieutenant and Aid-de-Camp" came up. It was noticed in the distance that he was suffering from the same causes as the others, but as soon as he came into the immediate presence of the men his official dignity asserted itself, he refrained from nervous pursuit of his verminiferous assailants, and walking stiffly up to the Colonel, saluted, and said:
"Colonel, I came to report the conduct of a couple of your men who came under my command night before last, and who, while doing very well in some respects, were so grossly disrespectful to me that they should be given a sharp lesson. Unless this is done, it will tend to impair discipline and diminish the respect which men should show officers."
The Colonel looked straight at the young officer, and noticed an unusually large insect emerge from his collar and walk deliberately up his neck onto his cheek. It must have been intensely annoying, but dignity triumphed, and the Lieutenant stood stiffly as a ramrod.
"I'm very sorry to hear that any of my men should seem wanting in respect to their officers," said the Colonel quietly, as he "attended to" a wicked flea which was breakfasting off his wrist. "I can hardly believe it. I have the most obedient and respectful men in the whole army. I'm afraid you did something that provoked, if it did not justify, disrespectful conduct."
The Lieutenant would have been different from the rest of the army if he had not been very short of temper that morning. The pangs that he was compelled to endure without the relief of scratch ing made him still more irritable, and he forgot him self sufficiently to answer:
"I beg your pardon, sir, but you are in error when you represent your men to be respectful and subordinate. On the contrary, they are the most lacking in that of any men in the army. I am constantly yelled at by them as I pass, and they say very insulting things to me. I'm determined to put a stop to it, and I want you to begin with those two men. If you don't I shall make a strong report on the subject to the General, which may lead to your being placed under arrest."
"Young man," said the Colonel severely, as he calmly exterminated another one of his tormentors, "you are so infested with vermin that I can see them crawling out from your clothes. It is an insult to me to have you appear before me in such a condition. Get out of here at once, and never approach me again in such a condition, or I shall be compelled to deal with you as you deserve."
The Lieutenant marched away, holding himself more stiffly than ever, and the Colonel walked to ward the other flank of the regiment, looking so cross that no one dared give the laugh he was bursting with until he had mounted his horse and shout ed the command, "Forward!"
The rain actually ceased, and the sun came out for the first time in 10 long days; from miles to the right and left came sounds of infantry and artillery firing, gradually swelling in volume. Under these exciting influences, aided, perhaps, by a really fine article of whisky, which the Surgeon had left, Shorty rapidly recovered, picked up his gun, threw his blanket-roll over his shoulders, and announced his eagerness to move forward. The sore-footed men began to feel that their feet were not really as sore as they had thought, and they also hobbled forward. The road by which they had camped led straight to Shelbyville, and they felt that by following it they would have the best chance of getting into the fight. The road was filled with cavalry, and Si and his squad worked their way through the woods to the right to get up nearer the front and find an infantry line.
"What in the world are they doin' with all these cavalry here?" said Shorty fretfully. "They can't do nothin' agin the mud forts and big guns and miles o' breastworks and abatis and felled timber that the rebels 've bin puttin' out in front of Shelbyville for the last six months. Horses are only in the way for sich work. They must 'v'e put the cavalry back here to be safe, while the infantry does the work. We'll git in ahead o' the 'critter-companies' somewhere and find the dough-boys."
At last they came out on a hill which commanded a view of the country, and halted, with an exclamation of delight at the magnificant sight spread out before hem. The sun was now half-way up in the sky, and shining with a brightness which seemed divine after the long period of drenching showers. Its light was reflected in brilliance from thousands of sabers and accouterments and the waving of flags of the cavalry divisions which filled the country as far as the eye could reach. Ascending the slope at the farther side of the valley was a skirmish-line, two miles long, of dismounted cavalry men, from which rose wreathes of smoke as it pressed steadily forward up the hill against the rebels ensconced there. In the green fields on either side of the road, and in the road itself, were regiments and brigades of horsemen, massed up solidly, impatiently waiting for the progress of the skirmishers to bring about the moment when they could be hurled against the enemy in a mighty avalanche of war. Bugles were sounding, flags flying, and all was intense, high-wrought, exciting animation.
The boys gave a cheer of exultation at the sight. Suddenly two little regiments separated themselves from the rest, drew sabers, and, with bugles sounding the charge and the men yelling, rode straight at the infantry and the batteries defending the crest of the hill. The rebels broke before the cavalry could reach them, and began a wild flight, with infantry, cavalry and artillery mixed in wild confusion, and our horsemen swooping down on them, capturing horses, men and cannon.
On everybody swept until the crest was gained which commanded a view of Shelbyville and its famous intrenchments. From these cannon thundered out, and long lines of infantry could be seen hurrying into the works to repel the audacious horsemen. Si and Shorty held their breaths, for it seemed that nothing but destruction awaited the cavalry in those awfully-planned defenses. But the cavalry thundered on with a headlong speed. Artillery galloped up on our side, to answer that in the works, and the boys lost speech in amazement at seeing the horsemen tear through the wide abatis and jump the high breastworks, while the defenders streamed back in rout into Shelbyville, pursued every step with yell and blow by the furious cavalry. Then came the noise of terrible fighting in the streets of Shelbyville. Jo Wheeler was massing every cannon that could be brought up to him in a desperate effort to hold the town, at least, until Forrest could come to his help, or he could make an orderly retreat across Duck River. But, bitterly as he fought, the Union troopers fought still more savagely. They simply would not allow the thought of successful resistance, and wave after wave of fierce charges followed so rapidly that Wheeler's men broke and fled for safety into and across the river.
The boys yelled themselves hoarse as they saw the stream of rebel fugitives pour across the river and seek safety in the country beyond.
"Well, Shelbyville is ours at last, after all this waiting and marching and manuvering," said Si, in a tone of intense exultation. "And the cavalry took it. Wish it had been the 200th Injianny Volunteers. I've always looked down on the cavalry, but I won't do so any more. I wish the 200th Injianny was mounted. My gracious, wasn't it grand the way those fellers just galloped over everything in sight breastworks, forts, batteries, felled timber, and lines of infantry."
"Yes," assented Shorty. "I wouldn't 've missed the sight for the best farm in the Wabash bottoms. It was worth marching 10 days in the mud and rain to see."
"Here, Corporal," said a Cavalry Lieutenant, riding up, "I want you to take charge of these prisoners with your squad, so we can go back and get some more. The woods are full of them. I'll make out a receipt for you to sign. I think there's just 100 of them. Count them over for yourself."
"Sure," said Si, springing forward.
"DON'T yo'uns crow too much over gittin' Shelbyville," the prisoners said to Si. "Yo'uns couldn't never 've got hit in the world if Jinerul Bragg hadn't a'wanted yo'uns to."
"O, come off," said Shorty. "You tried your best to keep us from gittin' in. You put up a very pretty little fight, but our cavalry jest rode over you."
"Thar wuz nobody thar but Jo Wheeler and his critter company," persisted the prisoners, "and they'd fout for anything. They'd fout yo'uns for a chaw of terbacker, and then gin the chaw back. Ole Bragg wuz jist a-foolin' with yo'uns. He wuz drawin' yo'uns on. He made up his mind that Shelbyville wuzn't the best place for a fout, and he'd lay for yo'uns at Tullyhomy. He's got his whole army together down thar, and he'll wollop yo'uns till your hides won't hold shucks. Ole Bragg's smarter'n ary Yankee that ever lived, and he's fixed up a dead-fall for yo'uns at Tullyhomy that'll mash yo'uns flatter'n a pancack."
"Let him go ahead with his mashin' flat," answered Shorty; "we're some on the mash ourselves, as you fellers found out at Stone River."
"We'uns 'd 'a' welted the life outen yo'uns at Stone River, if we'uns 'd had jest a few more men; ez hit wuz we'uns run yo'uns all over them 'ere old cotton-fields fur two days, tuk all yo'uns's cannon, an' more'n a million prisoners. Fust night I done thought we'uns 'd tuk the whole Yankee army. We'uns done got tired pickin' up prisoners in them ceders an' sink-holes, an' concluded t' leave the rest thar fur seed. We'uns jest f'arly wore ourselves out lickin' yo'uns, an' then yo'uns got a whole passel 'o fresh men, an' we'uns jest pulled back t' Shelbyville t' rest, spit on we'uns' hands an' take a fresh holt."
"How about the last day," inquired Si, "over the river on the left, when we tore you all to flinders with artillery, and run you back over the hill and took your guns?"
"O, that wuz Breckinridge's Division," said the prisoners, negligently, as if dismissing a matter of little consequence. "They'uns desarved all they'uns got. They'uns wus sent for t' come over and help we'uns lick yo'uns the fust two days, but they'uns wouldn't come. I'm jest glad they'uns kotched hit good an' hard ez they'uns done got hit. But we'uns 's now got heaps more men than we'uns had at Stone River, an' they're all together over thar by Tullyhomy. Lordy, you jest orter seed 'em az I did. I wuz on the top of a mounting on gyard, whar I could see for a hundred miles in every direction, an' I seed men marchin' toward Tullyhomy till my eyes ached a-lookin' at 'em. Yo'uns 'll stir up a mouty sight wuss hornets' nest at Tullyhomy than yo'uns did at Murfreesboro.
"Well, we'll knock seven kinds o' brimstone out o' your hornets' nest, big as it may be," answered Shorty. "The more o' you there is the better, for we kin finish up the job then, and be done with it, instid o' havin' to run you down an' knock you on the head one at a time. We've more men, too, than we had at Stone River. There was enough of us before, but Old Abe just gethered up the men in three or four new States, and sent 'em down to us to help make a clean, quick job of it. All we want of you fellers is jest to stand up and give us a square fight. We're no grayhounds, to run you fellers down. We came down here to fight, not to trot races with you.
"Well, yo'uns'll git yer bellyful o' foutin' over by Tullyhomy," shouted back the prisoners as they were marched away under guard.
"It certainly does look like we're to have a bigger scrimmage than we had at Stone River," said Si, as he and Shorty were once more alone. "Our army is much larger, and it's all been gathered right around here. There's bin great rivers of men pouring through all these gaps for days, and we've talked with fellers from every division and brigade in the army. There's entirely too many men around here for the country to hold. Something's got to bust soon, and when it does bust there'll be an explosion like that you read about."
"Well, let her bust," answered Shorty. "The sooner the better. I want to see it right off. It's got to come before the war kin end, and for my part I don't want to march a step further to find it. They can't nohow git up a worse time than we had at Stone River, and we managed to live through that; so that I guess we kin pull through another. If we don't, this 's just as good a place to go to Heaven from as we kin find, and we'll save a whole lot o' worry by finishin' up now."
"Well," said Si, "let's git back to the regiment as soon's possible. THe battle may begin at any minute, and we musn't be away. We'd never forgive ourselves as long's we'd live if we wasn't with the boys when they line up under the colors for the great tussle."
"Getting to the regiment" was tedious and hard. Shorty was still very weak from his tobacco experiment, and Si had worked almost to exhaustion in helping his sore-footed squad along. These were as eager to get back to the regiment in time for the fight, and Si had not the heart to leave any one of them behind. The roads were filled with teams being pushed forward with ammunition and rations, and every road and path crowded with men hurrying to the "front." They were on the distant flank of their corps when they started out in the morning, and did not succeed in reaching the rear of their own division until nightfall. Though worn out by the day's painful tramping and winding around through the baffling paths between regiments, brigades and divisions, sometimes halting and some times moving off suddenly and unexpectedly, they nerved themselves for one more effort to reach the 200th Ind. before they lay down for the night. But the night was far harder than the day. The whole country was full of campfires, around which were men' cooking their supper, standing in groups, pipe in mouth, anxiously discussing the coming momentous battle, and the part their regiments would likely play in it, or sitting writing what they felt might be their last letters home. All were unutterably tired, and all earnestly thoughtful over the impending conflict. None felt ordinarily jovial, communicative and sympathetic with foot-sore stragglers trying to find their regiments. Even when they were, the movements and changes during the day had been so bewildering that their best-intentioned directions were more likely to be wrong than right.
"The 200th Ind.," they would say; "yes, we saw the 200th Ind. about the middle of the afternoon, right over there on that hillside, where you see that old tree blazing up. They were acting as if they were going into camp, and I expect that's their campfires you see there."
Si, Shorty and the rest would make their weary way to the point indicated, about a half-mile distant, only to find that their regiment had been sighted at another point a mile away in a different direction.
The morning of July 1, 1863, was almost ready to break when they at last came up with their regiment, and flung themselves down on the ground in absolute exhaustion. Worn out as they were, their soldierly ears could not be deaf to the stirring reveille which quickly followed the early daybreak of that Summer morning, and summoned the regiment for the final, decisive move upon the rebel stronghold of Tullahoma.
Though every bone and muscle seemed to cry out against it, Si, Shorty and their companions rose up promptly and joined the regiment.
Everybody seemed sobered by the nearness of the terrible battle. Nobody laughed, nobody swore, nobody joked, nobody played the usual light-hearted reveille tricks. The Orderly-Sergeant did not call the roll with his usual glibness and rasp. He seemed to linger a little over each name, as if thinking whether it would be answered to again, or he be there to call it. The officers gave the commands quietly, even gently. The men executed promptly, carefully, and silently, as one sees things done at a funeral or in church. A hasty breakfast was eaten in silence; the men fell into ranks again, and there was a low buzz as the cartridge-boxes were carefully inspected and each man supplied with his full quota of ammunition.
The Colonel mounted his horse, and gave the order, "Forward march," so quietly that only the leading company heard it. It moved promptly, and the others followed.
The same strange soberness ruled the other regiments they passed on their way to take the advance. There was for once no quip or jest from the men standing by the roadside, leaning thoughtfully on their muskets, and awaiting their turn to march. They merely watched them file by, with steady, grave eyes and an occasional calm nod or quiet greeting to an acquaintance.
The hurrah, the swagger, the noisy effervescence of a few months ago had disappeared from men who had learned to know what battle was.
The dripping clouds cleared away as the 200th Ind. drew out into the muddy road, and let the sun suddenly beam forth in full Midsummer power. In an instant everybody was reeking with perspiration, panting for breath, and scorching inwardly and outwardly.
It was too much for some who had bravely maintained their places thus far, and they had to sink by the roadside.
Every minute of the first hour it seemed to Si and Shorty that they could not go a rod farther, but at the end of every rod they made an effort to go an other, and succeeded. The sun momentarily grew more burning, but also it seemed that every step brought them nearer the enemy, and the thought nerved them up to further exertion. Occasional rippling shots from watching parties of the rebel cavalry helped stimulate them.
Noon passed. They were so near the works of Tullahoma that the collision might come at any minute could not be postponed many minutes. The regiments left the road and went into line-of-battle, stretching a long wave of blue through the deep green of the thick forests. How far it reached no one could tell. Occasional glimpses obtained through the openings in the woods showed miles of length.
Everything was deeply quiet, except occasional startling crashes from rebel outposts and the distant booming of cannon on the left.
The 200th Ind. was advancing through a heavy growth of jack-oaks.
Lines of rebel skirmishers had occasionally appeared in front of the regiment, fired a few shots, and then disappeared. The ease with which they were driven gave the impression that they were trying to lead the regiment into ambush, and it moved slowly and very watchfully.
At last, as the hot sun was beginning to sink in the far west, the regiment came to the edge of the young jack-oaks, and saw before it a sight which thrilled every heart.
There, a little distance away, lay the formidable works guarding Tullahoma. To the right and left, as far as the eye could reach, stretched a bristling line of abatis hundreds of yards wide and seemingly hopelessly impassable. It was made of the young jack-oaks felled outwards and their limbs sharp ened till they were like thorns.
Frowning behind this fearsome barrier were high-rising forts mounted with cannon, and connected with long, sinuous breastworks. A deep ditch filled with muddy water ran along the foot of the works.
Squads of rebels could be seen running back to the shelter of the fortifications. Every man in the regiment gave a quick, involuntary gasp as he saw his work before him.
The whole of the long line was halted and carefully dressed by the officers, still speaking as softly and kindly as if arranging a funeral procession, and the men stepping into places promptly, and with a tender solemnity of manner. There was none of the customary rude jostling and impatient sharpness. It was:
"You'll have to give away to the left a little, John; I haven't room."
"Come out there, boys, on the right. You're too far back."
"Jim, you'd better fall in behind. I don't believe you're strong enough to keep up."
Even the brash young "Second Lieutenant and Aid-de-Camp" seemed impressed with the intense gravity of the moment. He came up to the Colonel, and seeing he was on foot, respectfully dismounted, saluted, and said, without a vestige of his usual pertness:
"Colonel, the General presents his compliments, and says that the battery is badly stuck in the mud a little ways back. As we shall need it very much, he directs that you send a company to bring it up at once."
"Very good, sir," said the Colonel, gravely returning his salute, and speaking as gently as at a tea-table. "It shall be done. Capt. McGillicuddy, take your company back and bring up the battery."
"Attention, Co. Q," suggested rather than commanded Capt. McGillicuddy. "Stack arms. Corporal Klegg, you and your squad remain where you are. You are too tired to do any good. Right face; file left; forward march."
The Colonel mounted his horse, rode down to the center of the regiment, and said, in a tone hardly raised above the conversational, but which made itself distinctly heard by every man:
"Fix bayonets."
There was an ominous crash of steel as the bright bayonets swept to their places.
"Men," continued the Colonel as quietly as if talk ing to a Sunday school, "we're going to take those works with the bayonet. Keep perfectly quiet; reserve your breath for quick, hard work, and pay close attention to orders. We'll move in quick time to the edge of that slashing of timber; every man make his way through it as best he can, keeping as near his Captain as possible. As soon as through it he will run with all his might for the works, fire his gun into the rebels as he jumps the works, and then rely on his bayonet. No man must fire a shot until we are crossing the works, and then I want every shot to fetch a rebel."
He waited a moment before giving the command to advance, for Co. Q, which had snaked the battery out of the mudhole in a hurry, was coming on a dead run in order to be on time for the charge. It snatched its guns from the stacks, and lined up like a long flash of blue light.
The artillerymen had lashed their jaded horses into a feverish run, swept out into an open space, flung their guns "into battery," and opened with a vicious bang on the rebel works.
So far not a head appeared above the breastworks; not a shot from the embrasures in the forts.
"They're just laying low," whispered Si to Shorty, as they instinctively brought their shoulders together and summoned their energies for the swift advance. "They'll blaze out like the fires o' hell just as we git tangled up in that infernal timber-slashin'."
"Well," muttered Shorty, "we'll know mighty soon now. In five minutes we'll either be in Heaven or bayoneting the rebels in that fort."
"Battalion, forward march!" commanded the Colonel.
The regiments to the right and left got the command at the same instant, and the long wave of blue rolled forward without a break or fault in its perfect alignment.
A hundred yards were quickly passed, and still the rebel works were as silent as a country churchyard. The suspense was fearful. Men bent their heads as if in momentary expectation of being struck by a fearful blast.
Another hundred yards. Still no bullet from the rifle-pits, no canister from the forts.
Another hundred yards, and they had struck the entangling abatis, and were feverishly working their clothes loose from the sharp-pointed limbs.
"Capt. McGillicuddy," excitedly shouted Si, "there's no men in them works. Didn't you see that flock o' blackbirds just settle down on that fort?"
"That's true," said the Captain, after a quick glance. "Colonel, they've evacuated."
A little to the left of the company Si saw a path through the abatis made by the rebels taking short cuts in and out of the camp. He and Shorty quickly broke their way to it, and ran in feverish haste to the works. They found a puncheon laid to cross the ditch, ran over it, and mounted the rifle-pit. There was not a man inside of the works. The last of the garrison could be seen on the other side of Elk River, setting fire to the bridge by which they had just crossed.
Utterly exhausted by fatigue and the severe mental strain, Si and Shorty could do nothing more than give a delighted yell, fire their guns at the distant rebels, when they sank down in complete collapse.
Almost at the same time the same discovery had been made at other points in the long line moving to the assault; the inside of the works were quickly filled with a mob of rushing men, who seemed to lift the clouds with their triumphant yells.
The campaign for Tullahoma was at an end. Bragg had declined battle, and put the whole of his army out of reach of pursuit behind the swollen waters of Elk River.
That night by its cheerful campfires the exultant Army of the Cumberland sang from one end of its long line to the other, with thousands of voices joining at once in the chorus, its song of praise to Gen. Rosecrans, which went to the air of "A Little More Cider."
Cheer up, cheer up, the night is past,
The skies with light are glowing.
Our ships move proudly on, my boys,
And favoring gales are blowing.
Her flag is at the peak, my boys,
To meet the traitorous faction.
We'll hasten to our several posts,
And immediately prepare for action.
Chorus.
Old Rosey is our man.
Old Rosey is our man.
We'll show our deeds where'er he leads,
Old Rosey is our man.
"THIS is the glorious Fourth of July," remarked Si, as Co. Q broke ranks from reveille roll-call on the banks of Elk River, and he and Shorty turned anxious attention to the problem of getting a satisfactory breakfast out of the scanty materials at their command. "Up home they're gittin' ready for a great time. Yesterday mother and the girls cooked enough goodies to feed the whole company. Mother had Abe Lincoln split up a lot o' fine, dry hickory. Then she het up the big brick oven out by the Summer-kitchen, and she baked there a lot o' loaves o' her splendiferous salt-raisin' bread, the best in the whole country, if I do say it myself."
"Resemble this, Si?" asked Shorty, who was pawing around in his shrunken haversack, as he produced two dingy crackers and a handful of pieces, discolored by contact with the coffee and meat during the days of marching in the rain.
"And, then," continued Si, unmindful of the interruption, "after she took the bread out, smelling like a bouquet, she put in some biscuits, and then some dressed chicken, a young pig."
"Just like this," echoed Shorty, pulling out a rusty remnant of very fat commissary pork.
"Shet up, Shorty," said Si, angered at this reminder of their meager store, which was all that was left them for the day, since they had far out marched their wagons. "I won't have you makin' fun o' my mother's cookin'."
"Well, you shut up torturing me about home goodies," answered Shorty, "when we hain't got enough grub here to fill one undivided quarter-section o' one o' our gizzards, and there hain't no more this side o' the wagons, which are stalled somewhere in the Duck River hills, and won't be up till the katydids sing. I ain't making fun o' your mother's cookin'. But I won't have you tormenting me with gas about the goodies back home."
"I know it ain't right, Shorty," said Si. "It only makes us feel worse. But I can't help thinkin'—"
"Jest go on thinkin'," sneered Shorty, "if you kin fill yourself up that way. I can't. You'd better set to studyin' how to make less'n quarter rations for one fill up two men for all day. There ain't no use goin' a-foragin'. They call this country the Cumberland Barrens. There never was grub enough in it to half support the clay-eaters that live around here, and what there was the rebels have carried off. The only thing I kin think of is to cut up some basswood chips and fry with this pork. Mebbe we could make 'em soft enough to fill up on." And Shorty gloomily shook out the last crumb from the haversacks into a tin of water to soak, while he fried the grease out of the fragment of pork in his half-canteen.
"And Pap," continued Si, as if determined to banish famine thoughts by more agreeable ones, "has had the trottin' team nicely curried, and their manes and tails brushed out, and hitched 'em to that new Studebaker-spring wagon he wrote about. They'll put all the good things in, and then mother and the girls'll climb in. They'll go down the road in great style, and pick up Annabel, and drive over to the Grove, where they'll meet all the neighbors, and talk about their boys in the army, and the Posey Brass Band'll play patriotic tunes, and old Beach Jamieson'll fire off the anvil, and then Parson Ricketts'll put on his glasses and read the Declaration o' Independence, and then some politician young lawyer from Mt. Vernon or Poseyville 'll make a sky-soaring, spread-eagle speech, and—"
"O, do come off, Si," said Shorty irritably. "You're only making yourself hungrier exercising your tongue so. Come here and git your share o' the breakfast and mind you eat fair."
Shorty had fried out the pork in the dingy, black half-canteen, poured the soaked crackers into the sputtering hot grease, and given the mess a little further warming and stirring. Then he pulled the half-canteen from the split stick which served for a handle, set it on the ground, and drew a line through it with his spoon to divide the food fairly into equal portions..
Meanwhile Si had strolled over a little ways to where an old worm fence had stood when the regiment went into camp. Now only the chunks at the corners remained. He looked a minute, and then gave a yell of delight.
"Here, Shorty," he called out; "here's something that beats your fried breakfasts all holler. Here's ripe blackberries till you can't rest, and the biggest, finest ones you ever saw. Come over here, and you can pick all you can eat in five minutes."
He began picking and eating with the greatest industry. Shorty walked over and followed his example.
"They are certainly the finest blackberries I ever saw," he agreed. "Strange that we didn't notice them before. This country ain't no good for nothin' else, but it surely kin beat the world on blackberries. Hi, there! Git out, you infernal brute!"
This latt'er remark was addressed to a long-legged, mangy hound that had suddenly appeared from no where, and was nosing around their breakfast with appreciative sniffs. Shorty made a dive for him, but he cleaned out the half-canteen at one comprehensive gulp, and had put a good-sized farm between him and the fire before Shorty reached it. That gentleman fairly danced with rage, and swore worse than a teamster, but the breakfast was gone beyond recovery. The other boys yelled at and gibed him, but they were careful to do it at a safe distance.
"'Twasn't much of a breakfast, after all, Shorty," said Si, consolingly. "The crackers was moldly and the pork full o' maggots, and the Surgeon has warned us time and again against eatin' them greasy fried messes. All the doctors say that blackberries is very healthy, and they certainly taste nice."
Shorty's paroxysm of rage expended itself, and he decided it wisest to accept Si's advice.
"The berries is certainly fine, Si," he said with returning good humor. "If I could've only laid a foundation of crackers and meat I could've built a very good breakfast out of 'em. I misdoubt, though, whether they've got enough substance and stick-to-the-ribs to make a meal out of all by themselves. However, I'll fill up on 'em, and hope they'll last till a grub-cart gets through. There ought to be one here before noon."
"One consolation," said Si; "we won't have to march on this peck. The Adjutant's just passed the word that we're to rest here a day or two."
The rest of the regiment were similarly engaged in browsing off the blackberries that grew in wonderful profusion all around, and were really of extraordinary size. After filling themselves as full as possible of the fruit, Si and Shorty secured a couple of camp kettles and gave their garments a boiling that partially revenged themselves upon the insect life of Tennessee for the torments they endured in the Tullahoma campaign.
"The better the day the better the deed," remarked Shorty, as he and Si stood around the fire, clothed in nothing but their soldierly character, and satisfiedly poked their clothes down in the scalding water. "Thousands must die that one may be free from graybacks, fleas, and ticks. How could be better celebrated the Fourth of July than by the wholesale slaughter of the tyrants who drain the life-blood of freemen and patriots? Now, that's a sentiment that would be fine for your orator who is making a speech about this time to your folks in Injianny."
By this time they were hungry again. The black berries had no staying power in proportion to their filling qualities, and anxiously as they watched the western horizon, no feet of the mules bringing rations had been seen beautiful on the mountains.
They went out and filled up again on blackberries, but these seemed to have lost something of their delicious taste of those eaten earlier in the morning.
They went back, wrung out their clothes, and put them on again.
"They'll fit better if they dry on us," remarked Shorty. "And I'm afraid we'll warp, splinter and check if we are exposed to this sun any longer after all the soakin' we've bin havin' for the past 10 days."
Comfortably full abdominally, with a delicious sense of relief from the fiendish insects, the sun shining once more brightly in the sky, and elated over the brilliant success of the campaign, they felt as happy as it often comes to men.
The scenery was inspiring. Beyond Elk River the romantic Cumberland Mountains raised their picturesque peaks and frowning cliffs into a wondrous cloud-world, where the radiant sunshine and the pearly showers seemed in endless struggle for dominion, with the bright rainbows for war-banners. When the sunshine prevailed, filmy white clouds flags of truce floated lazily from peak to peak, and draped themselves about the rugged rocks. It was an ever-changing panorama of beauty and mystery, gazing on which the eye never wearied.
"Bragg's somewhere behind them mountains, Shorty," said Si, as the two lay on the ground, smoked, and looked with charmed eyes on the sky line. "The next job's to go in there and find him and lick him."
"I don't care a durn, if it's only dry weather," answered Shorty. "I kin stand anything but rain. I'd like to soldier awhile in the Sahara Desert for a change. Hello, what's that? A fight?"
A gun had boomed out loudly. The boys pricked up their ears, took their pipes from their mouths and half raised in anticipation of the bugle-call. An other shot followed after an interval, and then a third and fourth.
"They're firing a National salute at Division Headquarters in honor of the Fourth of July," explained the Orderly-Sergeant.
Everybody jumped to his feet and cheered
Cheered for the Fourth of July;
Cheered for the United States of America;
Cheered for President Abraham Lincoln;
Cheered for Maj.-Gen. Wm. S. Rosecrans.
Cheered for the Army of the Cumberland;
Cheered for the Corps Commander;
Cheered for the Division Commander;
Cheered for the Brigadier-General;
Cheered for the Colonel of the 200th Ind.;
Cheered for their Royal Selves.
"Whew, how hungry that makes me," said Shorty as the cheering and the firing ended, and he studied the western horizon anxiously. "And not a sign yit of any mule-team comin' up from the rear. They must have religious scruples agin travelin' on the Fourth o' July. Well, I s'pose there's nothin' to do but hunt up some more blackberries. But blackberries is like mush. They don't seem to stay with you much longer'n you're eatin' 'em."
But they had to go much farther now to find blackberries. The whole hungry regiment had been hunt ing blackberries all day, and for more than a mile around camp the briers were bare. Si and Shorty succeeded at last in finding another plentiful patch, upon which they filled up, and returned to camp for another smoke and an impatient look for the Commissary teams.
"I like blackberries as well as any other man," mused Shorty, "but it don't seem to me that last lot was nearly so good as the first we had this morning. Mebbe the birds kin eat 'em four times a day and seven days in the week without gittin' tired, but I ain't much of a bird, myself. I'd like to change off just now to about six big crackers, a pound o' fat pork and a quart o' coffee. Wonder if the rebel cavalry could've got around in our rear and jumped our trains? No; 'Joe Wheeler's critter company,' as that rebel called 'em, hain't quit runnin' yit from the lickin' Minty give 'em at Shelbyville. Mebbe the mules have struck. I'd 'a' struck years ago if I'd bin a mule."
The sun began to sink toward the western hills, and still no welcome sign of coming wagons.
Si remarked despairingly:
"Well, after all the berry-eatin' I've done to-day I feel as holler as a bee-gum. I don't believe any wagons'll git up to-night, and if we're goin' to have any supper at all we'd better go out and pick it before it gits too dark to see."
They had to go a long distance out this time to find a good berry patch. It was getting dark be fore they fairly began picking their supper. Presently they heard voices approaching from the other side. They crouched down a little behind the brier-clumps and listened.
"Be keerful. The Yankee pickets must be nigh. Thar's their campfires."
"Pshaw. Them fires is two miles away. Thar's no pickets fur a mile yit. Go ahead."
"No sich thing. Them fires ain't a mile off.
"Their pickets are likely right along that 'ere ridge thar."
"Bushwhackers," whispered Si, rising a little to reconnoiter. "One, two, three, four, five, six on 'em. Sneakin' up to pick off our pickets. What'd we better do?"
"Only thing I kin think of," whispered Shorty back, feeling around for a stick that would represent a gun, "is the old trick of ordering 'em to surrender. It's an awful bluff, but we may work it this time. If they've got any grit we needn't worry no more about rations. They'll git us."
Si snatched up a piece of rail, and they sprang up together, shouting:
"Halt! Surrender! Don't move a hand or we'll blow your heads off."
"All right, Yank. We surrender. Don't shoot. We'uns 've bin a-huntin' yo'uns to gin ourselves up. We'uns is tired o' the wah."
"The thunder you do," said Si in amazement.
"Yes," said the leader, walking forward; "we'uns is plumb sick o' the wah, and want t' take the oath and go home. 'Deed we'uns do."
"Well, you liked to 've scared two fine young soldiers to death," murmured Si under his breath.
"Halt, there," called out the suspicious Shorty.
"Don't come any nearer, or I'll fire. Stand still, and hold your guns over your heads, till I send a man out to git 'em."
The rebels obediently held their guns in the air.
"Sergeant," commanded Shorty, "go forward and relieve the men of their arms, while the rest of us keep 'em kivvered to prevent treachery and gittin' the drop on us."
Si went out and took the guns, one by one, from the hands of the men, and made as good an examination as he could, hastily, to see that they carried nothing else.
"Lordy, Yank, if you only knowed how powerful glad we'uns is to git to yo'uns, you wouldn't 'spicion us. We'uns 's nigh on to starved t' death. Hain't had nothin' to eat but blackberries for days. And hit's bin march, march, all the time, right away from we'uns's homes. Goramighty only knows whar ole Bragg's a-gwine tuh. Mebbe t' Cuby. We'uns wuz willin' t' fout fur ole Tennessee, but for nary other State. When he started out o' Tennessee we'uns jest concluded t' strike out and leave him. Lordy, Mister, hain't you got something t' eat? We'uns is jest starvin' t' death. 'Deed we'uns is."
"Awful sorry," replied Shorty, as he and Si gathered up the guns and placed themselves behind the group. "But we hain't nothin' to eat ourselves but blackberries, and won't have till our wagons git up, which 'll be the Lord and Gen. Rosecrans only knows when. You shall have it when we kin git it. Hello, the boys are cheerin'. That means a wagon's got in. Skip out, now, at a quarter-hoss gait. They may gobble it all up before we git there."
Inspired by this, they all started for camp in quick-time. Shorty was right in interpreting the cheering to mean the arrival of a ration-wagon.
When they reached Co. Q they found the Orderly-Sergeant standing over a half-box of crackers.
Around him was gathered the company in a petulant state of mind.
"Cuss and swear, boys, all you've a mind to," he was saying, "if you think that'll swell your grub. You know it won't. Only one wagon's come up, and it had only a half-load. Our share in it is what you see here. I figure that there's just about one cracker apiece for you, and as I call your names you'll step up and get it. Don't swear at me. I've done the best I could. Cuss the Tennessee mud and freshets in the cricks all you want to, if you think that'll fill your crops, but let me alone, or I'll bust somebody."
"I've my opinion o' the glorious Fourth o' July," said Shorty, as he nibbled moodily at his solitary cracker. "I'll change my politics and vote for Thanksgiving Day and Christmas after this."
"Well, I think that we've had a pretty fine Fourth," said the more cheerful Si. "For once in my life I've had all the blackberries I could eat, and otherwise it's a pleasant day. Them deserters gave me a cold chill at first, but I'm glad we got 'em. There'll certainly be more wagons up to-night, and to-morrow we'll have all we kin eat."
And that night, for the first in 10 days, they slept under dry blankets.
HOW exuberantly bright, restful, and happy were those long July days on the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains, after the fatigues and hardships, the endless rains, the fathom less mud, the angry, swollen streams, the exhaust ing marches, and the feverish anxieties of the Tullahoma campaign.
The insolent, threatening enemy had retreated far across the mountain barrier. For the while he was out of reach of striking or being struck. The long-delayed commissary-wagons had come up, and there was an abundance to eat. The weather was delightful, the forests green, shady and inviting, the scenery picturesque and inspiring, and every day brought news of glorious Union victories, over which the cannon boomed in joyful salutes and the men cheered themselves hoarse. Grant had taken Vicksburg, with 25,000 prisoners, and chased Joe Johnston out of sight and knowledge. Prentiss had bloodily repulsed Sterling Price at Helena. Banks had captured Port Hudson, with 6,000 prisoners. The Mississippi River at last "flowed unvexed to the sea." Meade had won a great victory at Gettysburg, and Lee's beaten army was in rapid retreat to Virginia. "The blasted old Southern Confederacy is certainly havin' its underpinnin' knocked out, its j'ints cracked, and its roof caved in," remarked Si, as the two boys lay under the kindly shade of a low-growing jackoak, lazily smoked their pipes, and gazed contentedly out over the far-spreading camps, in which no man was doing anything more laborious than gathering a little wood to boil his evening coffee with. "'Tain't fit to store brick-bats in now. By-and-by we'll go out and hunt up old Bragg and give him a good punch, and the whole crazy shebang 'll come down with a crash."
"I only wish old Bragg wasn't of sich a retirin' nature," lazily commented Shorty. "The shade o' this tree is good enough for me. I don't want to ever leave it. Why couldn't he've waited for me, and we could've had it out here, coolly and pleasantly, and settled which was the best man! The thing' d bin over, and each feller could've gone about his business."
Both relapsed into silence as each fell into day dreams the one about a buxom, rosy-cheeked little maiden in the Valley of the Wabash; the other of one in far-off Wisconsin, whom he had never seen, but whom he mentally endowed with all the virtues and charms that his warmest imagination could invest a woman. Neither could see a woman without thinking how inferior she was in looks, words or acts to those whose images they carried in their hearts, and she was sure to suffer greatly by the comparison.
Such is the divinely transforming quality of love.
Each of the boys had taken the first opportunity, after getting enough to eat, a shelter prepared, and his clothes in shape and a tolerable rest, to write a long letter to the object of his affections. Shorty's letter was not long on paper, but in the time it took him to write it. He felt that he was making some progress with the fair maid of Bad Ax, and this made him the more deeply anxious that no misstep should thwart the progress of love's young dream.
Letter-writing presented unusual difficulties to Shorty. His training in the noble art of penmanship had stopped short long before his sinewy fingers had acquired much knack at forming the letters. Spelling and he had a permanent disagreement early in life, and he was scarcely on speaking terms with grammar. He had never any trouble conveying his thoughts by means of speech. People had very little difficulty in understanding what he meant when he talked, but this was quite different from getting his thoughts down in plain black and white for the reading of a strange young woman whom he was desperately anxious to please, and desperately afraid of offending. He labored over many sheets of paper before he got a letter that seemed only fairly satisfactory. One he had rejected because of a big blot on it; second, because he thought he had expressed himself too strongly; a third, because of an erasure and unseemly correction; a fourth, because of some newborn suspicions about the grammar and spelling, and so on. He thought, after he had carefully gathered up all his failures and burned them, together with a number of envelopes he had wrecked in his labor to direct one to Miss Lucinda Briggs, Bad Ax, Wis., sufficiently neatly to satisfy his fastidious taste.
He carefully folded his letter, creasing it with a very stalwart thumb-nail, sealed it, gave it a long inspection, as he thought how much it was carrying, and how far, and took it up to the Chaplain's tent to be mailed.
Later in the afternoon a hilarious group was gathered under a large cottonwood. It was made up of teamsters, Quartermaster's men, and other bobtail of the camp, with the officers' servants forming the dark fringe of an outer circle. Groundhog was the presiding spirit. By means best known to himself he had become possessed of a jug of Commissary whisky, and was dispensing it to his auditors in guarded drams to highten their appreciation of his wit and humor. He had come across one of the nearly-completed letters which Shorty had thrown aside and failed to find when he burned the rest. Groundhog was now reading this aloud, accompanied by running comments, to the great amusement of his auditors, who felt that, drinking his whisky, and expecting more, they were bound to laugh uproariously at anything he said was funny.
"Shorty, that lanky, two-fisted chump of Co. Q, who thinks hisself a bigger man than Gineral Rosecrans," Groundhog explained, "has writ a letter to a gal away off somewhere up North. How in the kingdom he ever come to git acquainted with her or any respectable woman 's more'n I kin tell. But he's got cheek enough for anything. It's sartin, though, that she's never saw him, and don't know nothin' about him, or she'd never let him write to her. Of course, he's as ignorant as a mule. He skeercely got beyant pot-hooks when he wuz tryin' to larn writin', an' he spells like a man with a wooden leg. Look here:
"'Mi Dere Frend.' Now, everybody knows that the way to spell dear is d-e-e-r. Then he goes on:
"'I taik mi pen in hand to inform u that Ime well, tho I've lost about 15 pounds, and hoap that u air injoyin' the same blessin."
"Think o' the vulgarity o' a man writin' to a young lady 'bout his losin' flesh. If a man should write sich a thing to my sister I'd hunt him up and wollop the life outen him. Then he goes on:
"'I aint built to spare much meat, and the loss of 15 pounds leaves fallow lots in mi cloze. But it will grow it all back on me agin mitey quick, as soon as we kin hav another protracted meetin' with the Commissary Department.'
"Did you ever hear sich vulgarity?" Groundhog groaned. "Now hear him brag and use langwidge unfit for any lady to see:
"'We've jest went throo the gosh-almightiest campane that enny army ever done. It wuz rane and mud 48 ours outen the 24, with thunder and litenin' on the side. We got wettern Faro's hosts done chasin' the Jews throo 50 foot of Red See. But we diddent stop for that till we'd hussled old Bragg outen his works, and started him on the keen jump for Chattynoogy, to put the Cumberland Mountings betwixt us and him.'
"Think o' the conceit o' the feller. Wants to make that gal believe that he druv off Bragg a'most single-handed, and intends to foller him up and kick him some more. Sich gall. Sich fellers hurts us in the opinion o' the people at home. They make 'em think we're all a set o' blowhards. But this aint nothin' to what comes next. He tries to honeyfugle the gal, and he's as clumsy 'bout it as a brown b'ar robbin' a bee-hive. Listen:
"'mi dere frend, I can't tell you how happy yore letters maik me. I've got so I look for the male a good dele more angshioussly than for the grub wagon.'
"Think o' a man sayin' grub to a lady," said Groundhog, in a tone of deep disgust. "Awful coarse. A gentleman allers says 'peck,' or 'hash,' or Vittels,' when he's speakin' to a lady, or before ladies. I licked a man onct for sayin' 'gizzard-linen' before my mother, and gizzard-linin' aint half as coarse as grub. But he gits softer'n mush as he goes on. Listen:
"'I rede every wun of 'em over till they're cleane wore out, and then I save the pieces, bekaze they cum from u. I rede them whenever Ime alone, and it seems to me that its yeres before another one comes. If I cood make anybody feel as good by ritin' to 'em as u kin me Ide rite 'em every day.'
"Thar's some more of his ignorant spellin'," said Groundhog. "Everybody but a blamed fool knows the way to spell write is w-r-i-g-h-t. I learnt that much before I wuz knee-high to a grasshopper. But let me continner:
"'I think Bad Ax, Wisconsin, must be the nicest plais in the world, bekaze u live there. I woodent want to live anywhair else, and Ime cummin up thar just as soon as the war is over to settle. I think of u every our in the day, and—'
"He thinks of her every hour. The idee," said Groundhog, with deep scorn, "that sich a galoot as Shorty thinks of anything more'n a minute, except triple-X, all-wool, indigo-dyed cussedness that he kin work off on some other feller and hurt him, that he don't think's as smart as he is. Think o' him gushin' out all this soft-solder to fool some poor girl."
"You infernal liar, you, give me that letter," shouted Si, bolting into the circle and making a clutch at the sheet. "I'll pound your onery head off en you."
Si had come up unnoticed, and listened for a few minutes to Groundhog's tirade before he discovered that his partner was its object. Then he sprang at the teamster, struck him with one hand, and snatched at the letter with the other. The bystanders instinctively sided with the teamster, and Si became the center of a maelstrom of kicks and blows, when Shorty, seeing his partner's predicament, bolted down the hill and began knocking down every body in reach until he cleared a way to Si's side. By this time the attention of the Sergeant of the Guard was attracted, and he brought an energetic gun-barrel to the task of restoring the reign of law and order.
"How in thunder'd you come to git into a fracas with that herd o' mavericks, Si?" asked Shorty, in a tone of rebuke, as the Sergeant was rounding up the crowd and trying to get at who was to blame. "Couldn't you find somebody on your own level to fight, without startin' a fuss with a passel o' low-down, rust-eaten roustabouts? What's got into you? Bin livin' so high lately that you had to have a fight to work off your fractiousness? I'm surprised at you."
"Groundhog' d got hold of a letter o' your'n to your girl up in Wisconsin," gasped Si, "and was readin' it to the crowd. Here's a piece of it."
Shorty glanced at the fragment of torn paper in Si's hand, and a deep blush suffused his sun-browned cheek. Then he gave a howl and made a rush for Groundhog.
"Here, let that man alone, or I'll make you," shouted the Sergeant of the Guard.
"Sergeant," said Si, "that rat-faced teamster had got hold of a letter to his girl, and was reading it to this gang o' camp offal."
"O," said the Sergeant, in a changed tone; "hope he'll baste the life out of him." And he jumped in before a crowd that was showing some disposition to go to Groundhog's assistance, sharply ordered them to about-face, and drove them off before him.
"Here, Sergeant," shouted the Officer of the Guard, who came running up; "what are you fooling around with these fellows for? They're not doing any thing. Don't you see that man's killing that team ster?"
"Teamster had got hold of a letter to his girl," explained the Sergeant, "and was reading it to these whelps."
"O," said the Officer of the Guard in a different tone. "Run these rascals down there in front of the Quartermaster's and set them to work digging those stumps out. Keep them at it till midnight, without anything to eat. I'll teach them to raise disturbances in camp."
THOUGH every man in the Army of the Cumberland felt completely worn out at the end of the Tullahoma campaign, it needed but a few days' rest in pleasant camps on the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains, with plenty of rations and supplies of clothing, to beget a restlessness for another advance.
They felt envious of their comrades of the Army of the Tennessee, who had cornered their enemy in Vicksburg and forced him to complete surrender.
On the other hand, their enemy had evaded battle when they offered it to him on the place he had himself chosen, had eluded their vigorous pursuit, and now had his army in full possession of the great objective upon which the eyes of the Army of the Cumberland had been fixed for two years Chattanooga.
It was to Chattanooga that Gen. Scott ultimately looked when he began the organization of forces north of the Ohio River. It was to Chattanooga that Gens. Anderson, Sherman and Buell looked when they were building up the Army of the Ohio. It was nearly to Chattanooga that Gen. Mitchel made his memorable dash after the fall of Nashville, when he took Huntsville, Bridgeport, Stevenson and other outlying places. It was for Chattanooga that the "Engine Thieves" made their thrilling venture, that cost eight of their lives. It was to Chattanooga that Buell was ordered with the Army of the Ohio, after the "siege of Corinth," and from which he was run back by Bragg's flank movement into Kentucky. It was again toward Chattanooga that Rosecrans had started the Army of the Cumberland from Nashville, in December, 1862, and the battle of Stone River and the Tullahoma campaign were but stages in the journey.
President Lincoln wanted Chattanooga to relieve the sorely persecuted Unionists of East Tennessee. Military men wanted Chattanooga for its immense strategic importance, second only to that of Vicksburg.
The men of the Army of the Cumberland wanted Chattanooga, as those of the Army of the Potomac wanted Richmond, and those of the Army of the Tennessee had wanted Vicksburg, as the victor's guerdon which would crown all their marches, skirmishes and battles.
But between them and Chattanooga still lay three great ranges of mountains and a broad, navigable river. Where amid all these fortifications of appalling strength would Bragg offer them battle for the Confederacy's vitals?
"I don't care what Bragg's got over there," said Si, looking up at the lofty mountain peaks, as he and Shorty discussed the probabilities. "He can't git nothing worse than the works at War Trace and Shelbyville, that he took six months to build, and was just goin' to slaughter us with. And if we go ahead now he won't have the rain on his side. It looks as if it has set in for a long dry spell; the country 'll be so we kin git around in it without trouble. If the walkin' only stays good we'll find a way to make Mr. Bragg hump out of Chattanooga, or stay in there and git captured."
"Yes," assented Shorty, knocking the ashes out of his brierwood pipe, and beginning to shave down a plug of bright navy to refill it, "and I'll put old Rosey's brains and git-there agin all the mountains and rivers and forts, and breastworks and thingama-jigs that Bragg kin git up. Old Rosecrans is smarter any day in the week than Bragg is on Sunday. He kin give the rebels cards and spades and run 'em out before the fourth round is played. Only I hope he won't study about it as long as he did after Stone River. I want to finish up the job in warm, dry weather, and git home."
And his eyes took on a far-away look, which Si had no difficulty interpreting that "home" meant a place with a queer name in distant Wisconsin.
"Well," said Si reflectively, "old Rosecrans didn't study long after he took command of us at Nashville, before plunking us squarely at the Johnnies on Stone River. I think he's out for a fight now, and bound to git it in short meter."
But the impatient boys had to wait a long Summer month, until the railroads to the rear could be repaired to bring up supplies, and for the corn to ripen so as to furnish forage for the cavalry.
But when, on the 16th of August, 1863, Rosecrans began his campaign of magnificant strategy for the possession of Chattanooga, the 200th Ind. had the supreme satisfaction of leading the advance up into the mountains of living green to find the enemy and bring him to bay.
A few days' march brought them up onto the Cumberland Plateau. They had now left the country of big plantations with cottonfields, and come upon one of small farms and poor people. Si, with a squad, had been marching far ahead all day as an advance-guard. They had seen no rebels, but all the same kept a constant and vigilant outlook for the enemy. They were approaching a log house of rather better class than any they had seen since ascending the mountain. As they raised the crest of a hill they heard a horn at the house give a signal, which set them keenly alert, and they pushed forward rapidly, with their guns ready. Then they saw a tall, slender young woman, scarcely more than a girl, dart out of the house and attempt to cross the road and open ground to the dense woods. Si sprang forward in pursuit. She ran like a young deer, but Si was swift of foot, and had taken the correct angle to cut her off. He caught her flying skirts and then grasped her wrist.
"Where are you goin', and what for?" he asked sternly, as he held her fast and looked into her frightened eyes, while her breast heaved with exertion and fear.
"I ain't goin' nowhar, an' for nothin'," she an swered sullenly.
"Yes you was, you young rebel," said Si. "You were goin' to tell some sneakin' rebels about us. Where are they?"
"Wa'n't gwine to do nothin' o' the kind," she answered between gasps for breath. "I don't know whar thar's no rebels. Thought they'uns had all done gone away down the mounting till I seed yo'uns."
"Come, girl, talk sense," said Si roughly. "Tell me where those rebels are that you was goin' to, and do it quick. Boys, look sharp."
A tall, very venerable man, with long, snowy-white hair and whiskers came hobbling up, assisting his steps with a long staff with a handle of a curled and twisted ram's horn.
"Gentlemen," he said, with a quavering voice, "I beg yo'uns won't harm my granddaughter. She hain't done nothin' wrong, I'll sw'ar it, t' yo'uns. We'uns 's for the Union, but that hain't no reason why we'uns should be molested. We'uns 's peaceable, law-abidin' folks, an' ain't never done nothin' agin the Southern Confederacy. All our neighbors knows that. Ax any o' they'uns. If yo'uns must punish someone, take me. I'm the one that's responsible for their Unionism. I've learned 'em nothin' else sense they'uns wuz born. I'm a very old man, an' hain't long t' live, nohow. Yo'uns kin do with me what yo'uns please, but for my sake spare my innocent granddaughter, who hain't done nothin'."
Si looked at him in amazement. It was no uncommon thing for people to protest Unionism, but sincerity was written in every line of the old man's face.
"You say you're Union," he said. "If that's so, you've nothin' to fear from us. We're Union soldiers. But what was that signal with the horn, and where was this girl goin'?"
"She blowed the horn at my orders, to inform my neighbors, and she wuz gwine on an arrant for me. Whatever she done I ordered her to do. Yo'uns kin visit hit all on my head. But hit wa'n't nothin' agin yo'uns or the Southern Confederacy."
"I tell you we're Union soldiers," repeated Si. "Can't you tell that by our clothes?"
The old man's face brightened a little, but then a reminder of sorrowful experience clouded it again.
"I've never seed no Union soldiers," said he. "The rebels come around here dressed all sorts o' ways, and sometimes they pretend to be Union, jest to lay a snare for we'uns. They'uns all know I'm Union, but I'm too old t' do 'em harm. Hit's my neighbors they'uns is arter. But, thank God, they'uns 's never kotched any o' them through me."
"I tell you we're genuine, true-blue Union soldiers from Injianny, belong to Rosecrans's army, and are down here to drive the rebels out o' the country. There, you kin see our flag comin' up the mountain."
The old man shaded his eyes with his hand, and looked earnestly at the long line of men winding up the mountain-side.
"I kin see nothin' but a blue flag," said he, "much the same as some o' Bragg's rijimints tote."
Si looked again, and noticed that only the blue regimental flag was displayed.
"Wait a minnit, I'll convince him," said Shorty, and running down the mountain he took the marker from the right guide of the regiment, and presently came back waving it proudly in the sunshine.
The old man's face brightened like a May day, and then his faded eyes filled with joyful tears as he exclaimed:
"Yes, thank Almighty God, that's hit. That's the real flag o' my country. That's the flag I fit under with ole Jackson at New Orleans. I bless God that I've lived to see the day that hit's come back."
He took the flag in his hands, fondly surveyed its bright folds, and then fervently kissed it. Then he said to his granddaughter:
"Nance, call the boys in, that they'uns's may see thar friends 've come at last."
Nance seemed to need no second bidding. She sped back to the porch, seized the long tin horn and sent mellow, joyful notes floating far over the billowy hills, until they were caught up by the cliffs and echoed back in subdued melody.
"Don't be surprised, gentlemen, at what yo'uns 'll see," said the old man.
Even while the bugle-like notes were still ringing on the warm air, men began appearing from the most unexpected places. They were all of the same type, differing only in age from mere boys to middle-aged men. They were tall, raw-boned and stoop-shouldered, with long, black hair, and tired, sad eyes, which lighted up as they saw the flag and the men around it. They were attired in rude, home spun clothes, mostly ragged and soiled, and each man carried a gun of some description.
They came in such numbers that Si was startled. He drew his men together, and looked anxiously back to see how near the regiment had come.
"I done tole yo'uns not t' be surprised," said the old man reassuringly; "they'uns 's all right every one of 'em a true Union man, ready and willin' t' die for his country. The half o' they'uns hain't got in yit, but they'll all come in."
"Yes, indeed," said one of the first of them to come in, a pleasant-faced, shapely youth, with the soft down of his first beard scantily fringing his face, and to whom Nancy had sidled up in an unmistakable way. "We'uns 've bin a-layin' out in the woods for weeks, dodgin' ole Bragg's conscripters and a-waitin' for yo'uns. We'uns 've bin watchin' yo'uns all day yisterday, an' all this mornin', tryin' t' make out who yo'uns rayly wuz. Sometimes we'uns thought yo'uns wuz Yankees, an' then agin that yo'uns wuz the tail-end o' Bragg's army. All we'uns 's a-gwine t' jine all yo'uns, an' fout for the Union."
"Bully boys right sentiments," said Shorty enthusiastically. "There's room for a lot o' you in this very regiment, and it's the best regiment in the army. Co. Q's the best company in the regiment, and it needs 15 or 20 fine young fellers like you to fill up the holes made by Stone River and Tennessee rain and mud."
"I'll go 'long with you, Mister Ossifer, if you'll take me," said the youth, very shyly and softly to Si, whose appearance seemed to attract him.
"Certainly we'll take you," said Si, "if the Surgeon 'll accept you, and I'll see that you're sworn in on the spot."
"Nancy," said the youth diffidently to the girl, who had stood by his side holding his hand during the whole conversation, "yo' done promised yo'd marry me as soon's the Yankee soldiers done come for sure, and they'uns 've done come, millions of 'em. Looky thar millions of 'em."
He pointed to the distant hills, every road over which was swarming with legions of blue.
"Yes, Nate," said the girl, reddening, chewing her bonnet-strings to hide her confusion, and stir ring up the ground with the toe of her shoe, "I reckon I did promise yo' I'd marry yo' when the Yankee soldiers done come for sure, and thar does seem t' be a right smart passel of 'em done come already, with a heapin' more on the way. But yo' ain't gwine t' insist on me keepin' my promise right off, air yo'?"
And she took a bigger bite at her bonnet-strings and dug a deeper hole with the toe of her shoe.
"Yes, indeedy right off jest the minnit I kin find a preacher," replied Nate, growing bolder and more insistent as he felt his happiness approaching. "I'm a-gwine off t' the war with this gentleman's company (indicating Si with a wave of his disengaged hand), and we must be spliced before I start. Say, Mister Ossifer (to Si), kin yo' tell me whar I kin find a preacher?"
Si and Shorty and the rest were taking a deep interest in the affair. It was so fresh, so genuine, so unconventional that it went straight to all their hearts, and, besides, made a novel incident in their campaign. They were all on the side of the would-be bridegroom at once, and anxious for his success. The Adjutant had come up with the order that they should stop where they were, for the regiment would go into camp just below for the day. So they had full leisure to attend to the matter. The Tennesseeans took only a modified interest, for the presence of the Union army was a much more engrossing subject, and they preferred to stand and gaze open-eyed and open-mouthed at the astonishing swarms of blue-clad men rather than to pay attention to a commonplace mountain wooing.
"We have a preacher he's the Chaplain of the regiment," suggested Si.
"Any sort of a preacher'll do for me," said Nate sanguinely, "so long 's he's a preacher Hard Shell, Free Will, Campbellite, Winebrennarian, Methodist, Cumberland Presbyterian and kind, so long 's he's a regularly-ordained preacher, 'll do for me. Won't hit for you, honey?"
"Granddad's a Presbyterian," she said, blushing, "and I'd rather he'd be a Presbyterian. Better ax granddad."
Nate hurried over to the grandfather, who was so deeply engrossed in talking politics, the war, and the persecutions the East Tennesseeans had endured at the hands of the rebels with the officers and soldiers gathered around that he did not want to be bothered with such a comparatively unimportant matter as the marriage of a granddaughter.
"Yes, marry her any way you like, so long as you marry her honest and straight," said he impatiently to Nate. Then, as Nate turned away, he explained to those about him: "That's the 45th grandchild that I've had married, and I'm kind o' gittin used t' hit, so t' speak. Nate and her 've bin keepin' company and courtin' ever sense they wuz weaned, an' bin pesterin' the life out o' me for years t' let 'em git jined. Sooner hit's done the better. As I wuz sayin', we'uns give 80,000 majority in Tennessee agin Secession, but ole Isham Harris" etc.
"I'll speak to the Adjutant about it," said Si, when Nate came back glowing with gladness.
The young Adjutant warmly approved the enlistment proposition, and was electrified by the idea of the marriage.
"I'll go and talk to the Colonel and the Chaplain about it. Why, it'll be no end of fun. We'll fix up a wedding-supper for them, have the band serenade them, and send an account of it home to the papers. You go and get them ready, and I'll attend to the rest. Say, I think we'd better have him enlisted, and then married afterward. That'll make it a regimental affair. You take him down to Capt. McGillicuddy, that he may take him before the Surgeon and have him examined. Then we'll regularly enlist him, and he'll be one of us, and in the bonds of the United States before he is in the bonds of matrimony. It'll be the first marriage in the regiment, but not the first one that is ardently desired, by a long shot."
The Adjutant gave a little sigh, which Si could not help echoing, and Shorty joined in.
"Well, our turns will come, too, boys," said the Adjutant with a laugh, "when this cruel war is over." And he whistled "The Girl I Left Behind Me" as he rode back to camp.
The Surgeon found Nathan Hartburn physically sound, the oath was duly administered to the young recruit, and he made his mark on the enlistment papers, and was pronounced a soldier of the United States, belonging to Co. Q, 200th Ind. He had been followed through all these steps by a crowd of his friends, curious to see just what was the method of "jinin' the Union army," and when Co. Q received its new member with cheers and friendly congratulations the others expressed their eagerness to follow his example.
Co. Q was in a ferment over the wedding, with everybody eager to do something to help make it a grand success, and to fill the hearts of the other companies with envy. The first and greatest problem was to provide the bridegroom with a uniform in which to be married. The Quartermaster's wagons were no one knew exactly where, but certainly a day or more back on the road, and no one had started out on the campaign with any extra clothing. Shorty, who considered himself directly responsible for the success of the affair, was for awhile in despair. He was only deterred from stealing a pair of the Colonel's trousers by the timely thought that it would, after all, be highly improper for a private to be wearing a pair of pantaloons with a gold cord. Then he resolved to make a sacrifice of himself. He was the nearest Nate's proportions of any man in the company, and he had drawn a new pair of trousers just before starting on the march. They had as yet gotten very slightly soiled. He went to the spring and laboriously washed them until they were as bright as new, and, after they were dried, insisted on Nate trading pantaloons with him. A new blouse was more readily found, and as readily contributed by its owner. Si freely gave up his sole extra shirt, and another donated a pair of reserve shoes. The Adjutant came in with a McClellan cap. When the company barber cut Nate's long hair, and shaved him, he was arrayed in his wedding uniform, and as Si had given him a little drill in holding him self erect, he was as presentable a soldier as could be found in the regiment, and quite as proud of himself as the boys of Co. Q were of him. Then an other despairing thought struck Shorty:
"'Tain't right," he communed with Si and the rest, "that the bridegroom should have all the good clothes. The bride should have the boss togs o' the two. If we was only back near Nashville she should have a layout that'd out-rag the Queen o' Sheby, if it took every cent there was in the company. But I don't suppose you could buy a yard o' kaliker or a stitch o' finery within 50 miles o' this clayknob."
"What we might do," said Si reflectively, "would be to give her her trowso futuriously, so to speak. We've just bin paid off, and hain't had no chance to spend our money, so that all the boys has some. Every one o' 'em 'll be glad to give a dollar, which you kin hand her in a little speech, tellin' her that we intended to present her with her trowso, but circumstances over which we had no control, mainly the distance to a milliner shop, prevented, but we would hereby present her with the means to git it whenever convenient, and she could satisfy herself much better by picking it out her ownself. You want to recollect that word trowso. It's the elegant thing for a woman's wedding finery, and if you use it you'll save yourself from mentioning things that you don't know nothin' about, and probably oughtn't to mention. My sisters learned it to me. A girl who'd bin at boarding-school learned them."
"Good idee," said Shorty, slapping his leg. "I'll go right out and collect a dollar from each of the boys. Say that word over agin, till I git it sure."
Shorty came back in a little while with his hands full of greenbacks "Every boy ponied right up the moment I spoke to him," he said. "And the Captain and Adjutant each gave $5. She's got money enough to buy out the best milliner shop in this part o' Tennessee."
Next came thoughts of a wedding-supper for the bride's friends. The Colonel took the view that the large number of recruits which he expected to gain justified him in ordering the Commissary to issue a liberal quantity of rations. Two large iron wash-kettles were scoured out one used to make coffee in and the other to boil meat, while there was sugar and hardtack in abundance. The mountains were covered with royal blooms of rhododendron, and at the Adjutant's suggestion enough of these were cut to fill every nook and corner of the main room of the house, hiding the rough logs and dark corners with masses of splendid color, much to the astonish ment of the bride, who had never before thought of rhododendrons as a feature of house adornment.
Then, just before 6 o'clock roll-call, Co. Q, with every man in it cleaned up as for dress-parade, with Nathan Hartburn at the head, supported on either side by Si and Shorty, and flanked by the Adjutant and Chaplain, marched up the hill to the house, led by the fifers and drummers, playing the reveille, "When the Cruel War is Over," "Yankee Doodle," and everything else in their limited repertory which they could think as at all appropriate to the occasion. The rest of the regiment, with most of the officers, followed after.
The Chaplain took his place in front of the rhododendron-filled fireplace. The bride and groom stood before him, with Si and Shorty in support. All of Co. Q crowded into the room, and the rest looked through the windows and doors. The Chaplain spoke the words which made the young couple man and wife, and handed them a certificate to that effect. Shorty then advanced, with his hand full of greenbacks, and said:
"Missis Hartburn: Co. Q of the 200th Ind., of which you are now a brevet member, has appointed me to present their congratulations. We extend to you the right hand of fellership of as fine a crowd o' soldiers as ever busted caps on any field of battle. We're very glad to have your young husband with us. We'll take care of him, treat him right, and bring him back to you crowned with the laurels of victory. You just bet your life we will. That's our way o' doin' things. Madam, Co. Q very much wished to present you with a trou— trou— tro— what is that blamed word, Si?"
"Trowso," whispered Si—
"with a trowso," continued Shorty, "but circumstances and about 150 mile o' mud road over which we have no control prevented. To show, though, that we really meant business, and ain't givin' you no wind, we have collected the skads for a regular 24-carat trow— trous— trows— trou— tro— (blamed the dinged word, what is it, Si?)"
"Trowso," prompted Si
"for a regler 24-carat trowso which I have the pleasure o' putting in your lily-white hands, at the same time wishin' for the company, for you and your husband, all happiness and joy in your married 'life. No more, from yours truly."
Shorty's brow was beaded with perspiration as he concluded this intellectual effort and handed the bride the money, which she accepted, as she had done everything else on that eventful day, as some thing that she was expected to do. The company applauded as if it had been a speech by Daniel Webster, and then the supper-table was attacked.
Then came pipes, and presently the brigade band came over and serenaded. A fiddle was produced from somewhere, and a dance started. Suddenly came the notes of a drum in camp.
"Early for tattoo, ain't it?" said they, looking inquiringly at one another.
"That's no 'tattoo," said Shorty; "that's the long roll. Break for camp, everybody."
THE long roll turned out to be occasioned by the burning of a Union Tennesseean's house by a squad of revengeful guerrillas, but the regiment had to stay under arms until a party of cavalry went out and made an investigation. The men stacked their arms, and lay around on the ground to get what sleep was possible, and which was a good deal, for the night was pleasant, and there are worse beds than the mossy hillside on a July night.
"Too bad that your weddin' night had to be broken up so," said Si sympathetically, as he and Shorty and the bridegroom sat together on a knoll and watched the distant flames. "But you needn't 've come with us this time; nobody expected you to."
"Why, I s'posed this wuz part o' the regler thing," answered Nate in amazement. "I s'posed that wuz the way yo'uns allers married folkses in the army. Allers something happens at weddin's down hyah. Mos' ginerully hit's a free fout betwixt the young fellers o' the bride's an' bridegroom's famblies, from 'sputin' which fambly's made the best match. When Brother Wils married Becky Barnstable we Hartburn boys said that Wils mout-ve looked higher. The Barnstable boys done tuk hit up, an' said the Barnstables wuz ez good ez the Hartburns ary day in the week, an' at the weddin' Nels Barnstable had his eye gouged out, Ike Barnstable wuz knocked down with a flail, an' had what the doctor called discussion o' the brain, and ole Sandy Barnstable cut off Pete Hartburn's ear with a bowie. They-uns reopened the argyment at the infair, an' laid out two o' the Hartburns with ox-gads. I don't think they orter used ox-gads. Tain't gentlemanly. D'ye think so? Knives, an' pistols, an' guns, an' even flails an' axes, is all right, when you can't git nothin' better, but I think ox-gads is low an' onery."
Si and Shorty looked at the gentle, drawling, mild-eyed young Tennesseean with amazement. A young girl could not have seemed softer or more pliant, yet he quietly talked of savage fighting as one of the most casual things in life.
"Well," said Shorty, "if that's the way you celebrat weddin's and in-fairs down here in Tennessee, I don't wonder that you welcome a battle for a change. I think I'd prefer a debate with guns to one with axes and flails and anything that'd come handy. It's more reg'ler to have umpires and referees, and the thing conducted accordin' to the rules of the P. R. Then when you git through you know for sure who's licked."
"Jist 'cordin' t' how one's raised," remarked Nate philosophically. "I've allers done seed a big furse o' some kind at a weddin'. Don't all yo'uns have none at yo'uns's weddin's?"
"Nothin' worse'n gittin' the girl's dad to consent," answered Shorty, "and scratchin' 'round to git the money to git married on to buy a new suit o' clothes, fee the preacher, pay for the license, and start housekeepin'. That's enough for one lifetime."
"Well, mam an' the gals made Wils's weddin' cloze," said Nate reflectively. "He had his own sheep, which he sheared in the Spring. They'uns carded, spun, dyed, an' wove the wool themselves, an' made him the purtiest suit o' cloze ever seed on the mountings."
"Your mother and sisters goin' to make your weddin' suit, Si?" asked Shorty. "What'd he have to pay for the license?"
"License? What's that?" asked Nate.
"License? Why, a license," explained Si, "is something you git from the County Clerk. It's leave to git married, and published in the County paper."
"Don't have t' have no leave from nobody down here t' git married. Hit's nobody's business but the man's an' the gal's, an' they'uns's famblies. Some times other folkses tries t' stick their noses in, but they'uns git sot down upon."
"What'd he pay the preacher?" asked Shorty.
"Why, mam gin his wife a hank o' fine stockin' yarn, an' dad gin him a couple sides o' bacon."
"At present prices o' pork in Injianny," remarked Si, after a little mental figuring, "that wasn't such a bad fee."
"If you speak to the Captain," suggested Si, "he'll let you go back home to your wife. I don't believe there's goin' to be anything special to-night. The cavalry don't seem to be stirrin' up nothin out there."
"I don't keer t'," said Nate, in his sweet, girlish drawl. "Ruther stay with yo'all. Mout somethin' happen. Biff Perkins an' his gang o' gorillers is out thar somewhar, not fur off, huntin' a chance fur deviltry. I'd like mouty t' git a whack at they'uns. Nance'll keep. She's mine now, fast an' good, for ever, an'll wait fur me. Afore we wuz spliced I wuz afeered Zach Barnstable mout work some contrivance t' git her, but now she belongs t' me."
The boys took him to their hearts more than ever.
At the coming of the early dawn the regiment was aroused and marched back to camp, there to meet orders to move forward at once, as soon as breakfast was prepared and eaten. Away it marched for the Tennessee River, behind which Bragg was supposed to be gathering his forces for the defense of Chattanooga.
As Co. Q went by the cabin, Grandfather Onslow was seated in a rocking-chair on the porch, smoking a cob pipe, while Mrs. Nancy Onslow Hartburn, with her finger bashfully in her mouth, peeped around the corner. Co. Q gave her a cheer, at which she turned and fled out of sight, as if it was some raillery on her newly-married state, and Nate hung down his head, as if he, too, felt the boys were poking fun at him.
"Good-by, boys. Lick the life outen Ole Bragg," quavered Grandfather Onslow, waving his hand after them.
"That's what we're goin' to do," shouted the boys in reply.
"Well," said Si, "I bet if ever I'm married I'll kiss my wife before I go away."
"Me, too," echoed Shorty, very soulfully.
Shorty and Si considered Nate Hartburn their special protege, and were deeply anxious to transform him into a complete soldier in the shortest possible time. He was so young, alert, and seemingly pliable, that it appeared there would be no difficulty in quickly making him a model soldier. But they found that while he at once responded to any suggestion of a raid or a fight, drill, discipline and camp routine were bores that he could be induced to take only a languid interest in. Neither Si nor Shorty were any too punctilious in these matters, but they were careful to keep all the time within easy conversational distance of the regulations and tactics. Naturally, also, they wanted their pupil to do better than they did. But no lecturing would prevent young Hartburn from slouching around camp with his hands in his pockets and his head bent. He would not or could not keep step in the ranks, nor mark time. While Si was teaching him he would make a listless attempt to go through the manual of arms, but he would make no attempt to handle his gun the prescribed way after the lesson was ended. Si was duly mindful of the sore time he himself had in learning the drill, and tried to be very considerate with him, but his patience was sorely tried at times.
"For goodness' sake, Nate," Si would say irritably, "try to keep step. You're throwin' everybody out."
"'Tain't my fault, Si," Nate would reply with a soft drawl. "Hit's theirs. I'm walkin' all right, but they'uns hain't. Jaw them. What's the sense o' walkin' so' close together, anyway? Yo' don't git thar no sooner."
Then again:
"Great jumpin' Jehosephat, Nate, will you never learn the right way to hold your gun when you present arms? You must turn the trigger outside, not the hammer."
"O, Jeminy, what difference does hit make? I never kin recollect hit, an' what's the use o' tryin'? Can't see no sense in holdin' a gun straight up an' down that-a-way, anyway, an' if yo' do, hain't one side jest as good as t'other?"
He was so obdurate that the boys would some times be provoked to sharp words to him, but his gentle speech would quickly disarm them again, and make them feel penitent.
At last the 200th Ind. came out upon the crest of Waldron's Ridge, overlooking the Tennessee River, which wound and turned amid the towering mountains like a band of bright silver traversing the giant billows of green. Everyone caught his breath at the sight, for beyond the stream were rebel camps, and moving trains and long, lines of marching men. Was all of Bragg's army gathered over there to dispute the passage or was a part still this side of the river, ready to pounce on our heads of columns as they meandered down the mountain?
The brigade was closed up, information sent to the Division Commander, and the 200th Ind. pushed to the front to develop whatever might be there. Si with Shorty and some others were sent ahead to feel for the enemy.
"Take him along?" asked Si of Shorty in a low tone, with a nod toward Nate, as they were making up the squad.
"Don't know," answered Shorty. "If ever in the world, we want men with us to-day who don't git rattled, and make a holy show o' theirselves before the regiment, but'll keep cool, watch their chances, and obey orders. Guess we'd better leave him behind."
"Seems to me," said Si, trying vaguely to recall his Scriptual readings, "that the Bible says some thing agin takin' a newly-married man right into battle just after he's married."
He looked around again, saw Nate taking his place along with the other men selected, and called out:
"Here, Nate, fall back to the company. You can't go along."
"Please, Mister Si, le' me go along," begged Nate, in the soft tones of a girl asking for a flower. "I'll be good. I'll hold my gun straight, an' try t' keep step."
"No, you can't go., This 's partickler business, and we want only experienced men with us. Better fall back to the company."
"Go ahead, there, Corporal," commanded the Adjutant. "Time's passing. We must move."
Si deployed his men and entered the dense woods which curtained the view and shrouded the enemy. It was one of those deeply anxious moments in war, when the enemy is in ambush, and the next instant, the next step may develop him in deadly activity.
Si was on the right of his line and Shorty on the left, and they were pushing forward slowly, cautiously, and with every sense strained to the extremity of alertness.
So dense was the foliage overhead that it was almost a twilight in the forest depths they were penetrating, and Si's eyes were strained to keep track of the men moving on his left, and at the same time watch the developments in front. He had noticed that he was approaching a little opening some distance ahead, and that beyond it was a dense thicket of tall laurels. Then he thought he heard a low whistle from Shorty, and looked far to the left, while continuing to walk forward.
Suddenly he was startled by a shot a little to his rear and left. Then a shot answered from the laurel thicket, he saw the bushes over there stir violently, and he heard Nate's voice say:
"He wuz layin' for yo', Si, an' come nigh a-gittin' yo', but I think I must've at least creased him, from the wild way he shot back. Le's go forrard an' see."
"I thought I told you to stay back," said Si, more intent on military discipline than his escape.
"I know yo' did done hit, but I couldn't mind, an' tagged 'long arter yo'."
"How'd you know he wuz there?"
"I done seed the bushes move over his head. I knowed jest how he wuz a-layin' for yo'. Le's go forrard an' git him."
Si and Nate ran across the open space to the laurels, and found a little ways in a bushwhacker staggering from pain and loss of blood from a wound in his hip, and making labored efforts to escape.
"I done hit him; I done fetched him; I done knowed jist whar he wuz," exclaimed Nate with boyish exultation.
At the sound of his voice the bushwhacker turned around upon him an ugly, brutal face, full of savage hatred.
"Why, hit's bad ole Wash Barnstable, what burnt daddy's stable with two horses, an' shot brother Wils through the arm. I'll jist job him in the heart with my bayonet," screamed the boy as he recognized the face. His own features became transfigured with rage, and he began fixing his bayonet. Si pushed forward and caught the bushwhacker by the shoulder and tore the gun from his hand. Nate came springing up, with his bayonet pointed directly at the man's heart. Si saw it in time to thrust it aside, saying in wrathful astonishment:
"Nate, you little scoundrel, what do you mean? Would you kill a wounded man?"
"Suttenly I'll done kill him," screamed the boy in a a frenzy of rage. "Why not? He desarves hit, the hell-hound. All of us Hartburns 've said we'd done kill him the minnit we laid eyes on him. Now that I've got him I'm gwine t' finish him."
He made another vicious lunge at the man with his bayonet.
"Indeed you're not," said Si, releasing his hold on the prisoner and catching Nate's gun. "You mustn't kill a wounded man, you young wildcat."
"Why not?" shouted the boy, beside himself with rage. "He's done killed lots o' men. He'll kill more if yo' let him go. He wuz layin' t' kill yo'. Air yo' gwine t' gin him another chance to down yo'?"
Si wrested the gun from him. Two or three other boys who had been attracted by the shot came up at this moment. Si gave the prisoner into the charge of one of them, with instructions to take him to the rear. Nate released his hold on his gun and made a jump for the one which the other boy had stood against a tree when he started to take hold of the prisoner. Again Si was too quick for him. He was by this time so angry that he was in the mood to give Nate a severe lesson, but the Adjutant, had ridden forward, called out:
"Go ahead, there, Corporal. We're just behind you."
"Pick up your gun, there, Nate, and come along with me, if you kin behave yourself. There's work much more important than killin' wounded bushwhackers. Come along, this minute."
Nate hesitated a moment, then picked up his gun with a vengeful look at the prisoner.
"I'll kill him yit. Mebbe I'll git a chance this evenin' yit," said he, and followed Si.
THE shot fired by Nate Hartburn was the only one that interrupted the progress of the 200th Ind. to the banks of the Tennessee River. Its cautious advance at last brought it out on the crest of a hill, at the foot of which, 200 feet below, flowed the clear current of the mountain-fed stream. The rebels were all on the other side. Their pickets could be plainly seen, and they held the further pier of the burned railroad bridge. To our right rose three strong forts, built the year previous.
As soon as it was determined that all the enemy were beyond the river, the 200th Ind. went into camp for the afternoon and night upon a cleared spot which had been used for that purpose before our troops had been flanked out of that country by Bragg's raid into Kentucky just a year before.
A dress parade was ordered at 6 o'clock, and when the Adjutant came to "publish the orders," the regiment was astonished and Si electrified to hear:
"In pursuance of orders from Division Headquarters to detail squads from each of the different regiments to proceed to their respective States to bring back recruits and drafted men for the regiments, First Lieut. Bowersox, of Co. A, and Corp'l Josiah Klegg, of Co. Q, with six enlisted men of that company, to be selected by Capt. McGillicuddy, are here by detailed for that duty, and will prepare to leave to-morrow morning."
Si clutched his partner in his excitement and said, "Shorty, did you hear that? I'm to be sent back to Injianny. Ain't that what he said?"
"If my ears didn't mistake their eyesight, them was about his words," returned Shorty. "You're in luck."
"And you're goin' with me, Shorty."
"The Adjutant didn't include that in his observations. I ain't so crazy, anyway, to git back to Injianny. Now, if it wuz Wisconsin it'd be different. If you've got any recruits to bring on from Wisconsin, I'm your man. I'd go up there at my own expense, though I don't s'pose that Rosecrans could spare me just now. What'd become o' the army if he'd git sick, and me away?"
"But, Shorty, you are goin'. You must go. I won't go if you don't."
"Don't say won't too loud. You're detailed, and men that's detailed don't have much choice in the matter.
"You'll probably act sensibly and do whatever you're ordered to do. Of course, I'd like to go, if we kin git back in time for this sociable with Mister Bragg. Don't want to miss that. That'll be the he-fight o' the war, and probably the last battle."
"Nor do I," answered Si; "but the thing won't come off till we git back. They wouldn't be sending back for the drafted men and recruits except that they want 'em to help out."
"They'll be a durned sight more in the way than help," answered Shorty. "We don't need 'em. We've handled Bragg so far very neatly, all by ourselves, and we don't need anybody to mix into our little job. The fewer we have the more credit there'll be in lickin' old Bragg and capturin' Chattanoogy."
The Orderly-Sergeant interrupted the discussion by announcing:
"Here, Shorty, you're one to go with Si. The detail is made by the Colonel's orders as a compliment to the good work you boys have been doing, and which the Colonel knows about."
"I always said that the Colonel had the finest judgment as to soldiers of any man in the army," said Shorty, after taking a minute's pause to recover from the compliment.
The boys were immediately surrounded by their comrades, congratulating them, and requesting that they would take back letters and money for them. The Paymaster had recently visited the regiment, and everybody had money which he wished to send home. There were also commissions to purchase in numerable things, ranging from meerschaum pipes to fine flannel shirts.
"Look here, boys," said Shorty, good-humoredly, "we want to be obligin', but we're neither a Adams Express Company nor in the gent's furnishin' line. We've neither an iron safe to carry money nor a pedler's wagon to deliver goods. John Morgan's guerrillas may jump us on the way home, and comin' back we'll have to have packs to carry the truck in, and half of it 'll be stole before we git to the regiment."
But the comrades would not be dissuaded, and be fore Si and Shorty went to sleep they had between $5,000 and $6,000 of their comrades' money stowed in various safe places about their personages.
"Great Jehosephat, Si," murmured Shorty, when they sat together in their tent, after the last comrade had departed, leaving his "wad of greenbacks," with directions as to its disposition, "I never felt so queer and skeery in all my life. I wouldn't for the world lose a dollar of the money these boys have been earnin' as they have this. But how under heaven are we goin' to make sure of it?"
"I've thought of a way o' makin' sure of to-night," said Si. "I spoke to the Officer of the Guard, and he'll put a sentinel over us to-night, so's we kin git a little sleep. I wouldn't shet my eyes, if it wasn't for that. We'll have to let to-morrow take care of itself."
Shorty lay down and tried to go to sleep, but the responsibility weighed too heavily on his mind. Presently, Si, who, for the same reason, only slept lightly, was awakened by his partner getting up.
"What are you up to?" Si asked.
"I've bin thinkin about pickpockets," answered Shorty. "They're an awful slick lot, and I've thought of a hiding place that'll fool 'em."
He picked up his faithful Springfield, and drawing an envelope with money out of his shirt-pocket, rolled it up to fit the muzzle of his gun, and then rammed it down.
"That's Jim Meddler's $10," he said. "I'll know it, because his mother's name's on the envelope. Here goes Pete Irvin's $20. I know it because it has his wife's name on it."
He continued until he had the barrel of the gun filled, and then stopped to admire his cunning.
"Now, nobody but me'd ever thought o' hidin' money in a gun. That's safe, as least. All I've got to do is to stick to my gun until we git acrost the Ohio River. But I hain't got the tenth part in; where kin I put the rest? O, there's my cartridge-box and cap-box. Nobody'll think o' lookin' there for money."
He filled both those receptacles, but still had fully half his money left on his person.
"That'll just have to take its chances with the pickpockets," said he, and returned to his bed, with his gun by his side, and his cap- and cartridge-boxes under his head.
The morning came, with their money all right, as they assured themselves by careful examination immediately after reveille.
As they fell in under Lieut. Bowersox to start, their comrades crowded around to say good-by, give additional messages for the home-folks, and directions as to their money, and what they wanted bought.
But Shorty showed that he was overpowered with a nervous dread of pickpockets. He saw a possible light-fingered thief in everyone that approached. He would let nobody touch him, stood off a little distance from the rest of the squad, and when any body wanted to shake hands would hold him stiffly at arm's length.
"Gittin' mighty stuck-up just because the Colonel patted you on the back a little, and give you a soft detail," sneered one of Co. Q.
"Well, you'd be stuck-up, too," answered Shorty, "if your clothes was padded and stuffed with other folks' greenbacks, and you was in the midst o' sich a talented lot o' snatchers as the 200th Injianny. Mind, I ain't makin' no allusions nor references, and I think the 200th Injianny is the honestest lot o' boys in the Army o' the Cumberland; but if I wanted to steal the devil's pitchfork right out o' his hand, I'd make a detail from the 200th Injianny to do the job, and I'd be sure o' gittin' the pitchfork. I'll trust you all when you're 10 feet away from me."
The others grinned and gave him a cheer.
When they went to get on board the train Shorty had to change his tactics. He got Si on his right, the Lieutenant immediately in front of them, and two trusted boys of the squad directly behind, with strict injunctions to press up close, allow nobody between, and keep a hawk's eye on everybody. But both Si and Shorty were breathless with apprehension till they got through the crowd and were seated in the car, and a hasty feeling of various lumps about their persons assured them that their charges were safe. They were in a passenger car, for luck. The Lieutenant sat in front, Si and Shorty next, and the two trusty boys immediately behind. They breathed a sigh of relief. As they stood their guns over against the side of the car, Si suddenly asked:
"Shorty, did you draw your charge before you rammed that money in?"
Shorty jumped to his feet in a shudder of alarm, and exclaimed:
"Great Jehosephat, no. I forgot all about it."
"What's that you're saying about guns?" inquired the Lieutenant, turning around. "You want to load them, and keep them handy. We're liable to strike some guerrillas along the way, and we must be ready for them."
"You fellers'll have to do the shootin'," whispered Shorty to Si. "It'll be a cold day when I bang $150 in greenbacks at any rebel that ever jumped. I'm goin' to take the cap off en my gun. The jostlin' o' the train's likely to knock it off at any time, and send a small fortune through the roof o' the car. I'd take the money out, but I'm afraid o' tearin' it all to pieces, with the train plungin' so."
He carefully half-cocked his piece, took off the cap, rubbed the nipple to remove any stray fragments of fulminate, and then let the hammer down on a piece of wadding taken from his cap.
The long ride to Nashville over the ground on which they had been campaigning and fighting for nearly a year would have been of deepest interest to Si and Shorty, as it was to the rest, if they could have freed their minds of responsibilities long enough to watch the scenery. But they would give only a cursory glance any say:
"We'll look at it as we come back."
In the crowded depot at Nashville they had an other panic, but the Provost-Guard kept a gangway clear as soon as it was discovered that they were on duty.
"You can stack your arms there, boys," said the Sergeant of the Guard, "and go right over there and get a warm supper, with plenty of coffee."
All but Shorty obeyed with alacrity, and stacked their guns with the quickness of old and hungry vet erans.
Shorty kept hold of his gun and started with the rest to the supper-room.
"Here, Injianny," called out the Sergeant, "stack your gun here with the rest."
"Don't want to ain't goin' to," answered Shorty.
"What's the reason you ain't?" asked the Sergeant, catching hold of the gun. "Nobody's going to take it, and if they did, you can pick up another. Plenty of 'em, jest as good as that, all around here."
"Don't care. This is my own gun. I think more of it than any gun ever made, and I ain't goin' to take any chance of losin' it."
"Well, then, you'll take a chance of losing your supper," answered the Sergeant, "or rather you'll be certain of it, for the orders are strict against taking guns into the supper-room. Too many accidents have happened."
"Well, then," said Shorty stoutly, "I'll do without my supper, though I'm hungrier than a wolf at the end of a long Winter."
"Well, if you're so infernal pig-headed, you've got to," answered the Sergeant, nettled at Shorty's obstinacy. "Go back beyond the gunstack, and stay there. Don't you come nearer the door than the other side of the stack."
Shorty's dander rose up at once. At any other time he would have conclusions with the Sergeant then and there. But the remembrance of his charge laid a repressive hand upon his quick choler, and reminded him that any kind of a row would probably mean a night in the guard-house, his gun in some other man's hands, probably lost forever, and so on. He decided to defer thrashing the Sergeant until his return, when he would give it to him with interest. He shouldered his gun, paced up and down, watching with watering mouth the rest luxuriating in a hot supper with fragrant coffee and appetizing viands, to which his mouth had been a stranger for many long months. It cost a severe struggle, but he triumphed.
Si, in his own hungry eagerness, had not missed him, until his own appetite began to be appeased by the vigorous onslaught he made on the eatables. Then he looked around for his partner, and was horrified not to find him by his side.
"Where's Shorty," he anxiously inquired.
Each looked at the other in surprise, and asked:
"Why, ain't he here?"
"No, confound it; he ain't here," said Si, excitedly springing to his feet; "he has been knocked down and robbed."
Si bolted out, followed by the rest. They saw Shorty marching up and down as a sentinel sternly military, and holding his Springfield as rigidly correct as if in front of the Colonel's quarters.
"What's the matter with you, Shorty? Why don't you come in to supper?" called out Si. "It's a mighty good square meal. Come on in."
"Can't do it. Don't want no supper. Ain't hungry. Got business out here," answered Shorty, who had gotten one of his rare fits of considering himself a martyr.
"Nonsense," said Si. "Put your gun in the stack and come in. It's a bully supper. Best we've had for a year."
"Well, eat it, then," answered Shorty crustily. "I've got something more important to think of than good suppers."
"O, rats! It's as safe in there as out here. Set your gun down and come on in."
"This gun shall not leave my side till we're home," said Shorty in a tone that would have become the Roman sentinel at Pompeii.
"O, I forgot," said Si. "Well, bring it in with you."
"Can't do it. Strictly agin orders to take any guns inside. But leave me alone. Go back and finish your gorge. I kin manage to hold out somehow," answered Shorty in a tone of deep resignation that made Si want to box his ears.
"That's too bad. But I'll tell you what we can do. I've had a purty good feed already enough to last me to Looeyville. Let me take your gun. I'll carry it while you go in and fill up. We hain't much time left."
The fragrance of the coffee, the smell of the fried ham smote Shorty's olfactories with almost irresistible force. He wavered just a little—.
"Si, I'd trust you as I would no other man in Co. Q or the regiment. I'll—"
Then his Spartan virtue reasserted itself:
"No, Si; you're too young and skittish. You mean well, but you have spells, when—"
"Fall in, men," said Lieut. Bowersox, bustling out from a good meal in the officers' room. "Fall in promptly. We must hurry up to catch the Looeyville train."
The car for Louisville was filled with characters as to whom there was entirely too much ground for fear—gamblers, "skin-game" men, thieves, and all the human vermin that hang around the rear of a great army. Neither of the boys allowed themselves a wink of sleep, but sat bolt upright the entire night, watching everyone with steady, stern eyes. They recognized all the rascals they had seen "running games" around the camps at Murfreesboro, and who had been time and again chased out of camp even the whisky seller with whom Si's father had the adventure. The Provost-Guard had been making one of its periodical cleaning-ups of Nashville, and driving out the obnoxious characters. Several of these had tried to renew their acquaintance by offering drinks from well-filled bottles, but they were sternly repulsed, and Shorty quietly knocked one persistent fellow down with a quick whirl of his gun-barrel. When Shorty was hungry it was dangerous to trifle with him.
They arrived at Louisville late in the morning, and were hurried across the river to Jeffersonville. Fortunately they were able to find there an eating-room where guns were not barred, and Shorty made amends for the past by ravaging as far as his arms could reach, holding his precious gun firmly between his knees.
"Say, pardner," said the man who ran the establishment, "I'd much rather board you for a day than a week. Rebels must've cut off the supply-trains where you've bin. You're not comin' this way agin soon, air you? I'm afraid I won't make 'nough this month to pay my rent."
Lieut. Bowersox came in with a telegram in his hand.
"We won't go on to Indianapolis," he said. "I'm ordered to wait here for our squad, which will probably get here by to-morrow evening."
A wild hope flashed up in Si's mind.
"Lieutenant," he said, "we live right over there in Posey County. Can't you let us go home? We can make it, and be back here before to-morrow night."
"I don't know," said the Lieutenant doubtfully, as he mentally calculated the distance to Posey County. "I hadn't ought to let you go. Then, you can't have more than an hour or two at home."
"O,' goodness; just think o' havin' one hour at home," ejaculated Si.
"It seems too bad," continued the Lieutenant, moved by Si's earnestness, "to bring you this near, and not let you have a chance to see your folks.
"It'll be a risk for me, and there are not many men in the regiment I'd take it for, but I'll let you go.
"Remember, it'll make a whole lot of trouble for me if you're not here by to-morrow evening."
"We'll be here by to-morrow evening, if alive," he pledged himself.
"Well, then, go," said the Lieutenant.
Si's head fairly swam, and he and Shorty ran so fast to make sure of the train that there was a suspicion in the minds of some of the citizens that they were escaping from their officers.
Si's heart was in a tumult as the engine-bell rang its final warning and the engine moved out with increasing speed. Every roll of the swift wheels was carrying him nearer the dearest ones on earth. The landscape seemed to smile at him as he sped past.
"Isn't this the grandest country on earth, Shorty?" he bubbled over. "It's God's country for a fact. So different from old run-down, rebel-ridden Tennessee. Look at the houses and the farms; look at the people and the live-stock. Look at the towns and the churches. Look at everything. Here's the country where people live. Down yonder's only where they stay and raise Cain."
"Yes," admitted Shorty, who had not so much reason for being enthusiastic; "but the Wisconsin boys say that Wisconsin's as much finer than Injianny as Injianny's finer'n Tennessee. I'll take you up there some day and show you."
"Don't believe a dumbed word of it," said Si, hot with State pride. "God never made a finer country than Injianny. Wisconsin's nowhere."
Then he bethought himself of the many reasons he had for gladness in his home-coming which his partner had not, and said thoughtfully:
"I wish, Shorty, you wuz goin' home, too, to your father and mother and sisters, and—and best girl. But my father and mother'll be as glad to see you as if you was their own son, and the girls'll make just as much of you, and mebbe you'll find another girl there that's purtier and better, and—"
"Stop right there, Si Klegg," said Shorty. "All girls is purty and nice that is, them that is purty and nice, but some's purtier and nicer than others. Then, agin, one's a hundred times purtier and nicer than any o' them. I've no doubt that the girls out your way are much purtier and nicer'n the general run o' girls, but none o' them kin hold a candle to that girl up in Wisconsin, and I won't have you sayin' so."
"If we're on time," said Si, by way of changing the subject, "we'll git to the station about sundown. The farm's about three miles from the station, and we'll reach home after supper. Pap'll be settin' out on the front porch, smokin', and readin' the Cincinnati Gazette, and mother'll be settin' beside him knittin', and the girls'll be clearin' away the supper things. My, won't they be surprised to see us! Won't there be a time! And won't mother and the girls fly around to git us something to eat! Won't they shake up that old cook-stove, and grind coffee, and fry ham and eggs, and bake biscuits, and git us cool, sweet milk and delicious butter from the old spring-house, and talk all the time! Shorty, you never heard my sisters talk, especially when they're a little excited. Gracious, they'll just talk the ears off both of us."
"Well, if they take after you, they are talkers from Talkville," said Shorty. "Mill-wheels ain't in it with your tongue, when it gits fairly started."
The train was on time, and just as the sun was setting behind the fringe of cottonwoods along Bean Blossom Creek they stopped at the little station, and started to walk out to the farm. A neighbor who was drawing a load of tile from the station recognized Si, and begged them to get up and ride, but the team was too slow for the impatient boys, and they forged ahead. A thousand well-remembered objects along the road would have arrested Si's attention were it not for the supreme interest farther on. At last they came to a little rise of ground which commanded a view of the house, and there, as Si predicted, sat his father and mother engaged in smoking, reading and knitting. His first impulse was to yell with delight, but he restrained himself, and walked as steadily on as he could to the front gate. Old Towser set up a bark and ran down the walk, and then changed his note to de lightful yelps of recognition. Si was so nervous that he fumbled vainly for a minute at the gate-latch, and while he did so he heard his mother say: "Father, there's a couple o' soldiers out there." "Wonder if they kin be from Si's company," said the father, lowering his paper, and looking over his spectacles.
"Why, it's Si himself," screamed the mother in joyful accents. The next instant she had sped down the walk quicker than she had ever gone in her girlhood days, her arms about his neck, and she was crying on his shoulder.
THE girls heard their mother's happy scream and rushed out, dish towels in hand. They at once realized what had happened, piped up their joyous altos, and precipitated themselves upon Si. The good old Deacon came trotting down the walk, fidgeting with his spectacles, but so enveloped was his son with skirts and women's arms and happy, teary faces that he could not get within arm's length of him. So he turned to Shorty:
"Great day, Shorty, but I'm glad to see you! Come right up on the steps and set down. How'd you happen to come home. Either of you sick or wounded?"
"Nope," answered Shorty sententiously. "Both sound as nuts and healthy as mules."
"Well, come right up on the porch and set down. You must be awful tired. Le'me carry your gun and things for you."
He took hold of the gun with such a desire to do something that Shorty was fain to yield it, saying:
"Deacon, you are the first man in about a million betwixt here and the Tennessee River that I'd let tech that gun. I don't know now of another man in the United States that I'd trust it with. That 'ere gun is loaded plum full of other folks's money."
"Goodness, is that so?" said the Deacon, handling the musket with increased respect. "I've heard o' a bar'l o' money, but never supposed that it was a gun bar'l."
"And more'n that," continued Shorty, "there's a full-grown cartridge below that might shoot a war widow's new dress and shoes for the children off into the moon."
"Goodness gracious!" ejaculated the Deacon, holding out the gun as he did Si the first time that interesting infant was placed in his hands, "handlin' other people's money's always ticklish business, but this's a leetle the ticklishest I ever heard of."
"That's what bin wearin' me down to the bone," responded Shorty soberly, and as they reached the porch he explained the situation to the Deacon, who took the gun in the house, and laid it carefully on a bed in the "spare room."
"Girls, you're smotherin' me! Let up, won't you? Mandy, you dabbed that wet dishcloth right in my eye then. Maria, I can't talk or even breathe with your arm over my windpipe. You, dear mother, I'll pick you up and carry you into the house, if you'll let me," Si was trying to say. "I can't answer all your questions at once, 'specially when you're shuttin' off my breath an' dinnin' my ears till I can't hear myself think."
"Le's carry your things up, Si," said Maria, after Si had gotten them calmed down a little. "You must be awful tired."
Si saw that this would be the best way to keep the girls off, while he devoted his attention to his mother. He handed his gun and belt to Maria, who marched on ahead, triumphantly waving her dish-towel as a gonfalon of victory, while she cheered for the Union in her sweet contralto. Mandy took possession of his blanket roll and haversack, while Si almost carried his tearful mother on to the porch. There her housewifely instinct at once asserted it self.
"I know you and your friend there must jest be starvin'," she said, gathering herself up. "I never knowed when you wasn't, if you'd bin an hour from the table."
"Shorty's worse'n me," said Si with a grin. "But I haven't interduced him yit. Mother, girls, this is Shorty, my pardner, and the best pardner a feller ever had."
"Glad to know you, Mr. Shorty," said they, shaking his hand. "We've heard so much of you that we feel that we've knowed you all along."
"Drop the Mister, then," said Shorty. "I'm plain Shorty to everybody until I'm out o' the army. I've heard so much of you that I feel, too, that I've bin acquainted with you all my life."
"Girls," commanded the mother, "come on and let's git the boys something to eat."
"No, mother," pleaded Si, holding fast to her hand. "Let the girls do it. I want you to sit here and talk to me."
"No, Si," answered the mother, kissing him again, and releasing her hand, "I must do it myself. I must cook your supper for you. The girls won't do it half well enough."
She hustled away to the kitchen, and Si and Shorty explained to the Deacon the circumstances of their visit, and that they must leave by the next train going east, in order to keep their promise to Lieut. Bowersox. The Deacon immediately started Abraham Lincoln and the boy on saddle horses to bring in the neighbors to see the boys, and get the money that had been sent them. They went into an inner room, carefully blinded the windows, and began to draw out the money from various pockets, cartridge-boxes, and other receptacles about their persons.
All drew a long breath of relief when, counting that in Shorty's gun, every dollar was found to be safe.
"But how in time you're ever goin' to git that money out o' that gun beats me," said the Deacon, picking up the musket, and gazing dubiously into the muzzle. "It was a mighty smart thing to do down at the front, but what are you going to do now, when you want to give the money to the people it belongs to?"
"It certainly don't seem as smart as it did that night on the banks o' the Tennessee," Shorty admitted as he fixed his bullet screw on the end of his rammer, "but I'm goin' to trust to my own smartness and the Providence that provides for war widows and orphans to git out every dollar in good shape for them it was intended for."
The bullet-screw brought out the first "wad" easily and all right.
"Well, Providence is lookin' out for Jim Irvin's wife and children all right," said Shorty, as they smoothed out the bills and found them intact.
The next attempt was equally successful, and as Shorty unrolled the bills he remarked:
"Providence is again overlookin'. There's Jim Beardslee's $50 for his widowed mother."
"And she needs it, poor woman," said the Deacon. "I've seen that she had all the meat and wood she's needed since Jim enlisted, and Deacon Flagler keeps her in flour."
The next offered more difficulty. The rammings on those above had compacted it pretty solidly. The bullet screw cut off bits of it, and when finally it was gotten out the $10 bill was in pieces.
"That's Alf Ellerby's gift to his lame sister," said Shorty, as he ruefully surveyed the fragments. "I'm afraid Providence wasn't mindin' just then, but I'll give her a good bill out o' my own pocket."
"No, you needn't," said Maria, who had slipped in, fork in hand, to pinch Si, kiss him, and ask him a question which she did not want Mandy to hear; "I kin paste that all together with white of egg so's it'll look as good as ever. I done that with a bill that Towser snatched out o' my hand and chawed before I could git it away from him. The store keeper took it and said it was just as good as any. Sophy Ellerby 'd rather have it that way than a new bill, so long's it comes direct from Alf."
Again Shorty sent down the bullet screw, and again there was more tearing off of bits, and finally a mangled $20 bill was dragged forth and laid aside for Mandy to repair. "Ike Englehardt sent that to his mother to help take his sister through the Normal School, so's she kin become a teacher. She'll git that all right. But I've broken my bullet screw in that wrastle. It snapped clean off, and I've got the worst job of all now to get out $100 in two 50's that Abe Trelawney sent his mother to meet that mortgage on her little house. Abe's bin savin' it up for months, and I was more anxious about it than any other, and so I put it down first. Si, let me have your bullet-screw."
"Hain't got none. Lost mine weeks ago, while we was on the Tullahomy march."
"Great Jehosephat! what am I goin' to do?" groaned Shorty, the sweat starting out on his fore head. "Now's the time for Providence to help out, if He's goin' to. I'm at the end o' my string."
"Supper's ready, boys; come on in," announced the sweet, motherly voice of Mrs. Klegg. She seconded her invitation with her arm around Si and a kiss on his cheek. "Father, bring Shorty, unless he'd rather walk with the girls."
Shorty was altogether too bashful to take advantage of the direct hint. Si's lively sisters filled him with a nervous dread of his social shortcomings. He grew very red in the face, hung back from them, and caught hold of the Deacon's arm.
"Go slow with him, girls," whispered the Deacon to his daughters, after they were seated at the table. "He's a mighty good boy, but he ain't used to girls."
"He's rather good looking, if he does act sheepish," returned Mandy.
"Well, he ain't a mite sheepish when there's serious business on hand," returned the father. "And next to ourselves, he's the best friend your brother has."
It had been many years since the wandering, rough-living Shorty had sat down to such an inviting, well-ordered table. Probably he never had. No people in the whole world live better than the prosperous Indiana farmers, and Mrs. Klegg was known far and wide for her housewifely talents. The snowy table linen, the spotless dishes, the tastefully-prepared food would have done credit to a royal banquet. Hungry as he was, the abashed Shorty fidgeted in his chair, and watched Si begin before he ventured to make an attack. The mother and girls were too busy plying Si with questions and anticipating his wants to notice Shorty's embarrassment.
Si was making a heroic effort to eat everything in sight, to properly appreciate all the toothsome things that loving hands were pressing upon him, and to answer the myriad of questions that were showered upon him, and to get in a few questions of his own at the same time. He just found time to ask Shorty:
"Say, this is great this 's like livin', ain't it?"
And Shorty replied with deep feeling: "Just out o' sight. How in the world'd you ever come to enlist and leave all this?"
The neighbors began gathering in fathers, mothers and sisters of members of Co. Q, all full of eager questions as to their kindred, and this relieved Shorty, for he could tell them quite as well as Si.
The supper ended, the problem of the money in the gun again loomed up. Everyone had an opinion as to how to extricate the valuable charge. The women, of course, suggested hair-pins, but these were tried without success. A gimlet taken from its handle and secured to the ramrod, refused to take hold.
Somebody suggested shooting the gun across a pond of water, and getting the money that way, but it was decided that the force of the Springfield seemed too great for any body of water in the neighborhood. Then Jabe Clemmons, the "speculative" genius of the neighborhood, spoke up:
"Gentlemen, I've an idee. Deacon, how much is in that small haystack of your'n?"
"'Bout 10 tons," answered the Deacon.
"Jest about. Well, I'll pay you the regular market price for it, and give $100 to Miss Trelawney. Now, let this gentleman stand 50 feet from it and shoot his gun at it. He mustn't tell none of us where he aims at. I'll sell you, gentlemen, that hay in 40 quarter-ton lots, commencing at the top, each man to pay $2 besides the regular price for a quarter ton o' hay, an' we'll draw numbers as to our turns in takin' the fodder."
"Looks somethin' like gamblin'," demurred the Deacon.
"No more'n church lotteries," answered Jabe, "since it's for a good purpose. Now, gentlemen, who wants to buy a quarter ton of Deacon Klegg's first-class hay?"
At once he had replies enough to take the whole stack, but while he was writing down the names Deacon Klegg had another idea.
"I can't quite git my mind reconciled to gamblin', even for a good purpose," he said. "And I ain't sure about how the two 50's 'll strike the haystack. It'd be a sin if they were destroyed, as they are likely to be. I've another idee. My well there is 25 foot deep. Let's take the bucket out, and let Shorty shoot his gun straight down into the well. I believe the money'll come out all right. If it don't I'll make it up myself, rather than be a party to a gamble."
"May blow the bottom o' your old well out," muttered Jabe Clemmons, who dearly loved anything in the shape of a game of hazard.
"I'll resk that," said the Deacon. "I kin dig an other well, if necessary."
The Deacon's proposal was carried. Shorty, holding the butt of his gun carefully upright, fired down into the well. A boy was lowered in the bucket, and soon announced by a joyful cry that he had gotten the bills. Upon being brought up and examined they were found to be uninjured, ex cept by a slight singeing at the edges.
"Providence's agin managin' things," murmured Shorty gratefully; "but the Deacon's gumption helped out."
All the money for those not present to receive it in person was turned over to the Deacon, and then for the first time the boys felt relieved of a great responsibility.
"There are two trains goin' east," said the Deacon, in response to their inquiries as to the facilities for returning. "The through express passes here at 3:15, and it'll git you to Jeffersonville early in the morning. The accommodation passes about day break, and it'll git you there in the evenin', if it makes connections, which it often doesn't."
"We must go on the through express," said Si firmly. There was a loud outcry by the mother and sisters, but the father recognized the demands of military discipline.
Si began to fidget to get away from the crowd of eager inquirers, which Mandy noticing, she found opportunity to whisper:
"Don't fret. She'll be here presently."
Si's face burned. He had thought his secret well-kept, but here his sisters read his thoughts like an open book. He had wanted to go to Annabel, and have a few golden minutes alone with her. Just what for just what he would say or do he did not in the least know he could not imagine. Only he felt that in some way the main interest of his life depended on seeing her somewhere remote from curious eyes and listening ears. He wanted to go to her, not to have her come to him, and meet him in such a throng as was gathered at his home.
While these thoughts were coursing through his mind he heard Maria call:
"Si, come here into my room. I want to show you the purtiest thing you ever saw."
While Mandy was a most correct young woman, she could not withstand giving a significant wink to those around, to which they responded with knowing smiles. These, fortunately, Si did not see. He arose at once, the people made way, and he was led by Maria to her room. She opened the door and said:
"There, now, kiss me for a loving sister."
It was a fervent kiss that Si rewarded her with, for, there, rising from her chair as the door opened, dressed in her best, and her face wreathed with smiles and blushes, stood Annabel.
"Since you are so mean about goin' away so soon, you can only have 10 minutes together; make the most of it," laughed Maria, and she scudded back to the sitting-room.
Si stood for an instant dazed. How beautiful she was far more so than his recollections had painted her. She had blossomed out from the school-girl into the mature woman, and every feature ripened. Fair as his home seemed in contrast with the country he had left, she seemed still fairer in contrast with any woman he had ever seen. Where were the thousand things that, brooding by the campfire and lying in his tent, he thought over to say to her when they met? All forgotten or dismissed as inappropriate. He simply stood and gazed at her. She re covered herself first, and said teasingly:
"Well, how do you do? Ain't you going to speak? Ain't you glad to see me?"
Si could only step forward and take her hand, and murmur:
"Annabel, how purty you look. How you've growed, and all purtier. I'm awfully glad to see you. That's what I most wanted to come home for."
Then his face burned with new blushes to think how much he had said. They sat down, he still holding her hand, with his eyes fixed upon her face. Somehow, in the mysterious telegraphy of first love, they so fully understood one another that words were unnecessary.
Speechless, but fuller of happiness than they ever dreamed was possible in the world, they sat with clasped hands until Maria came back, calling out:
"Time's up. The folks say that they can't let Annabel have you any longer. Come into the sitting-room, both of you. Come along, Si. Come along, Annabel."
Si rose obediently, but Annabel declined to go. She did not say why, but Maria, with a woman's instincts, knew that she wanted to be alone to think it all over. Maria therefore hurried back.
"Good-by, Annabel," he said, pressing her hand again. "I'll write to you first thing when I git back."
"Good-by, Si. God keep you for me, safe through battles and dangers."
She turned away to hide her bursting tears.
It was astonishing how quick midnight came. When the clock striking 12 smote the ears of the family, nobody had said, heard or asked one tithe of what he or she was burning eager to, yet the parting was but a little more than two brief hours away.
With a heart heavier even than when she parted from her boy for the first time, Mrs. Klegg arose, and sought to distract her thoughts by collecting as big a package as they could carry of the choicest eatables. How often she stopped to cry softly into her apron not even the girls knew, for she was resolved to keep up a brave front, especially before Si, and would carefully wash all traces of tears from her face, and clear the sobs from her throat before re-entering the room where he was.
Shorty had at once been taken to the hearts of everyone, and all the older men urged him to "come back here as soon as the war's over, marry a nice girl, and settle down among us."
Si received many compliments upon his development into such a fine, stalwart man.
One after another said:
"Si, what a fine, big man you've growed into. I declare, you're a credit to your father and mother and the settlement. We all expect you to come back a Captain or a Colonel, and we'll run you for Sheriff or County Commissioner, or something as big."
"O, anything but Treasurer," Si would laughingly reply. "I've had enough handling other folks' money to last me my life."
Presently Abraham Lincoln brought the spring wagon around. Even in the moonlight Si could see that freedom and the Deacon's tuition had developed the ex-slave into a much better man than the wretched runaway whom his father had protected. He wanted to know more of him, but there were too many demands upon his attention. They all mounted into the wagon, the bundles were piled in, one last embrace from his mother, and they drove away, reaching the station just in time to catch the train. As he kissed Maria good-by she shoved a letter into his hand, saying:
"This is from Annabel. Read it after you git on."
As the train whirled away Si made an excuse to go away from Shorty, and standing up under the lamp in the next car he read on a tear-stained sheet:
"Deer Si: I wanted so much to tel you, but the words
wooddent come to my lips, that Ime yours til deth, no matter
what happens, and Ime shure you feel the saim way. Annabel."
Coming back with his heart in a tumult of rapture, he found his partner fast asleep and even snoring.
FOR awhile the tumult of thought kept Si awake, but he was too young, healthy, and tired for this to last long, and soon he had his head pillowed on his blanket-roll, placed in the open car-window, and was sleeping too sound to even dream of Annabel, while the rushing train pelted his face with cinders from the engine and a hail of gravel from the road-bed. But what was that to a soldier-boy who had been home, seen his best girl, and had one of his mother's square meals?
When the train rolled into Jeffersonville in the afternoon, they saw Lieut. Bowersox on the platform anxiously waiting for them. His face lighted up with pleasure when he saw them, and eagerly coming forward he said:
"Great Cesar, boys, but I'm glad you've come. I've been waiting for you all day. Rush orders came last night to send everybody to the front. I guess they are in need of every gun they can get. I should have gone last night, but I managed to stave off my orders till now. If you hadn't come on this train, though, I should 've had to go on with out you. Hurry along, now. We are going right across the river."
Despite the Lieutenant's urgency, Si found time to hand him a jar of honey and a small crock of butter from their home supplies, which he received with proper appreciation, and handed over to the grinning negro boy he had picked up somewhere in Tennessee for a servant. They followed the Lieutenant to where he had his squad of about 100 recruits gathered. He said:
"Here, Klegg, you will act as Orderly-Sergeant, and Shorty and the rest of you as Sergeants of this detachment. Here is the list of them, Klegg. Make up a roll and call it whenever I order you to do so."
Si took the list and looked over the crowd. They were mainly boys of about the same age and style as himself when he first enlisted, but he thought he had never seen so green, gawky a lot in the world. Like him then, every one was weighted down with a bundle of things that would evidently be contributed to the well-being of the people along the line of march.
It seemed to him that they stood around the platform in as ugly crookedness as a lodgment of driftwood on a Wabash bottom after a freshet.
"Where on the Wea prairies," muttered Shorty, "did Old Abe pick up that job lot o' wind shaken, lopsided saplings? Must've bin pulled when green and warped in the dryin'."
"Well, we've got to git 'em into some sort o' shape," answered Si. "You must help."
"I help?" returned Shorty despairingly. "You'll need a West Point perfessor and a hay-press to git that crowd into soldier shape. I ain't once."
"Here, Sergeant," ordered Lieut. Bowersox, "line the men up, count them, learn their names, and give them a little preliminary drill, while I go to Headquarters and see the Colonel again about our transportation."
"Fall in, boys; fall in," commanded Si.
The crowd looked at him curiously. They knew that he wanted them to do something, they were willing to do it, but they hadn't the slightest idea what it was. They made a move by huddling up a little toward him.
"Fall in in two ranks, with the right here," shouted Si.
There was more inconsequent huddling, which seemed so purposely awkward that it irritated Si, and he spoke sharply:
"Gosh all Krismuss, what's the matter with you lunkheads? Don't you know nothing? You're dummer'n a lot o' steers."
"Guess we know 'bout as much as you did when you first enlisted," said the smallest of the lot, a red-cheeked, bright-eyed boy, who looked as if he should have been standing up before a blackboard "doing a sum" in long division, instead of on his way to the field of strife. "Show us how, and we'll learn as quick as you did."
Si looked at the fresh young boy. There was something actually girlish in his face, and it reminded him of Annabel. His heart softened toward him at once, and he remembered his own early troubles. He said gently to the boy:
"You're right. What's your name, my boy?"
"Abel Waite."
"Well, Abel, we'll make a soldier out of you in a little while. You are the smallest; you'll be the left of the line. Go and stand there at the corner. Now, boys, all lay your bundles down. Here, you tall fellow, what's your name?"
"James Bradshaw."
"Well, Bradshaw, you'll be the right of the line all the time, and the rest 'll form on you. Come, stand here."
Bradshaw shambled forward in a way that made Shorty call out:
"Here, Bradshaw, wake up! You ain't now follerin' a plow over the last year's corn-furrers. Straighten up, lift them mud-hooks livelier and drop your hands to your side."
The man stopped, raised his hands, and looked at Shorty with his mouth wide open.
"Come, Bradshaw," said Si gently, taking hold of him, "I'll show you. Now you stand right here. Put your heels together. Now turn your toes out. Throw your shoulders back this way. Close your mouth. Put your little fingers on the seams of your pantaloons that way. Now stand just so."
The poor man looked as miserable as if put in a strait-jacket, but tried to literally obey instructions.
"Now, what's your name?" Si asked the next tall est man.
"Simeon Wheelwright."
"Wheelwright, you stand behind Bradshaw, just as he does."
And so Si went painstakingly through the whole squad until he came to Abel Waite, whom he found did not need any instruction, for he had profited by hearing the lectures to the others, and was standing as stiff and correct as a veteran could have done.
"Great outfit," remarked Shorty, walking down the line, gun in hand, and surveying it critically. "Looks like a mourners' bench froze stiff. Here, you red-headed man there, take in that corporation. You won't have so much bay window after you've lived on army rations awhile."
"Now," commanded Si, "when I say 'Count twos from the right,' I want you to begin and count. The first man you, Bradshaw says 'one,' and the next man on your left says 'two' and so on. The men in the rear rank do the same. Count twos from the right Count!"
"One, two; four, six; seven, nine; ten, 'leven," shouted the boys, in all manner of tones and general bewilderment.
"Stop it; stop it!" yelled Si, his temper again rising. "Great day, can't you fellers understand plain English when it's talked to you? What's the matter with you, anyway? Here, Bradshaw, when I give the order to count, you count one. Wheel wright, you count one at the same time. Williams and Talbot, you each count two. Then Aldrich, you and Reynolds count one, and so on."
At last he got them to count to his satisfaction, and then proceeded to the next lesson.
"Now, at the command 'right face' everybody face to the right. The No. 1 men in the front rank stand fast. The No. 1 men in the rear rank take a side step to the right. The No. 2 men each take a side step to the right, and places himself on the right of No. 1."
"Great Jehosephat, Si," remonstrated Shorty; "it'll take 'em a month to learn all that."
"Don't care if it does," said Si desperately. "They've got to learn it sometime, and they can't learn no younger. Might as well begin now as any time. 'Tention! Right face!"
Si had hard work restraining the angry words which fumed up when he saw the execution of his command. Only a few had turned to the right. The rest had either stood still, turned to the left or were turning first one way and then another, to adjust themselves to those nearest them.
"Looks like a political primary just before the vote's called," remarked Shorty. "Better git red rags to tie around their right hands, so's they'll know 'em."
"It'll be a shame to take them across the Ohio river in this shape," said Si in deep vexation. "They'll shoot one another's heads off in the first fight, if they've guns in their hands."
"Don't worry," answered Shorty consolingly. "They'll pick it up mighty fast as soon as they see other fellers doing it, and 'll be in purty good shape by the time we git 'em to the regiment. We was just as green as they are."
Si repressed his petulant words with an effort, and started in to give them an ocular demonstration of the way to execute "right face," but was interrupted by the Lieutenant coming up and saying:
"Here, we've got to move right out to catch the ferryboat and the train on the other side. 'Tention! Pick up your bundles. Forward, march!"
Tactics were forgotten in a go-as-you-please rush on to the ferryboat, through the streets of Louisville, and on to the cars for Nashville. Everybody else was doing the same. The boat and streets were filled and the depot yard packed with men all pushing forward for the "front." While Si, walking alongside the Lieutenant, led, Shorty and the rest of the detail brought up the rear. After they had scrambled into the old freight cars and stowed them selves away, Si looked over his squad and counted it.
"Have you got them all aboard, Sergeant?" in quired Lieut. Bowersox.
"I've got the right number, sir," Si answered, saluting; "and if they ain't all the same men they're just as good."
"All right," returned the officer. "I had 103 put in my charge to take to the regiment, and 103 men I must have when I get there."
"You shall have the full 103, Lieutenant," assured Shorty, "if we have to snatch in a native or two to take the place of some that fall through the cracks."
At Nashville the crowd and confusion were excessive; detachments of men of all kinds, sorts and conditions armed and unarmed recruits, convalescent veterans, men coming back from furlough, stragglers under guard, squads of Quartermaster's employees, gangs of railroad laborers and bridge-builders were all surging around, while their officers, superintendents, foremen, etc., shouted themselves hoarse in trying to get their men together and keep them so. When Si at last got his men on board, and the train had moved out, he was dismayed to find that he was five short.
"They was lost in that shuffle back there in the depot," said Shorty. "Lucky it wa'n't more. Wonder that we ever got through as well as we did."
"What in the world am I going to do?" inquired Si dolefully. "There's no use sending back for them. They've probably got mixed up with some other squads, and gone the Lord knows where. They haven't sense enough to find their regiment in such a ruck as this."
Si counted his men over again, with no better result.
"I've got an idee," said Shorty, as Si came up to commune again with him as to the misfortune. "I noticed five mighty lively young Irishmen in that bridge gang that's on the rear car, and I've got a pint flash of whisky that some fellow was green enough to lay down while we was there in Nash ville. I'm goin' back to that car on recruitin' duty."
Si, unable to think of anything better, went with him. The train had stopped on a switch, and seemed likely to rust fast to the rails, from the way other trains were going by in both directions. The bridge gang, under charge of a burly, red-faced young Englishman, was in the rear car, with their tools, equipments, bedding and cooking utensils.
The English foreman was a recent arrival in the country. This was his first employment here. Naturally surly and domineering, these qualities were enhanced by potations at Nashville and since leaving.
Si and Shorty strolled up to the young Irishmen, who were standing on the ground near their car. They were very plainly recent arrivals, for they still wore the characteristic clothes of the Emerald Isle, and after a little conversation with them Shorty produced his bottle and offered them a drink. The foreman had watched them suspiciously, and he came swaggering up, saying insolently:
"'Ere, you bloomin' sojer, Hi want you to keep haway from my men, hand not be a-givin' them drink. You stay by yourselves, hand Hi won't 'ave 'em hinterfered wi' by nobuddy."
"Your men," sneered Shorty. "You talk as if they was niggers, and not white men. Who made 'em yours?"
"Stow yer wid, ye bloody blue-jack," returned the foreman contemptuously, "hand pull ha way from here. Hi never could bear sojers blokes, too lazy to work hand too cowardly to steal. Hike out o' here, and shut you 'ead, hif you know w'at's well for you."
"Shut up your own head, you British blowhard," retorted Shorty, "and mind your own business. Wait until you are a little longer in the country be fore you try to run it. And I don't want no more o' your slack. If you don't keep a civil tongue in your head I'll make you."
The Englishman was just in the mood to be savagely tickled at the prospect of a fight. He had not had a good, square one since he had been in the country, and nothing yet had offered so gratifying as the prospect of polishing off one of the despised "Hamerican sojers." Several of the hated officers had strolled up, attracted by the high words, and it would be an additional pleasure to thrash one of their men before their eyes, in revenge for the slights he felt they had put upon him.
"You won't fight," he said disdainfully, "except with a gun or a knife, like a bloody Dago. Ye dassent put up yer 'ands like a man."
For response, Shorty handed his cap, his gun, his bottle, his blanket-roll, his belt and haversack to Si, rolled up his sleeves, spit on his hands, doubled his fists, and stepped forward into a boxing attitude.
"Balance up to me, you beer-bloated Britisher," he exclaimed, "and git naturalized by a real Star-Spangled Banner lickin' by an artist who kin comb down any man that owes allegiance to Queen Victoree. Here's a Heenan for your Tom Sayers."
The Englishman began disrobing with an alacrity that showed how much his heart was in it. A ring was speedily formed, the officers, mainly Lieutenants and Captains, eagerly assisting, while keeping their eyes over their shoulders to see that no one of much higher rank was in the neighborhood.
When the men confronted one another it was seen that they were a fairly-good match. The English man was stouter and heavier; he showed a splendid forearm, with corresponding swelling muscles near the shoulders, and the way he poised himself and put up his hands revealed that he had "science" as well as strength and courage. Shorty was taller and more spare, but he was quicker and had the longer reach. It looked as if the Englishman had the advantage, from his solid strength and staying power, as well as "science." But those who looked on Shorty as inferior did not know of the training he had received among the turbulent crews of the Mississippi River boats. A man who had summered and wintered with that fractious race had little to learn in any trick or device of fighting.
The first round showed that both were past-masters of ring tactics. Their wardings and layings for openings were so perfect that neither could get a blow in.
When they stopped for a moment to breathe the Englishman said with frank admiration:
"Y're a heap better lot than Hi thort yer. Where'd ye learn to handle yer dukes?"
"Never mind where I learned," answered Shorty. "I learned enough to git away with any English man that ever chawed roast beef."
Again they closed, and sparred quick and hard for advantage, but neither succeeded in getting in any thing but light, ineffective blows. Each realized that the other was a dangerous man to handle, and each kept cool and watched his chances. When they took another second to breathe the Englishman said:
"I'm goin' to settle ye this time, young feller, in spite o' yer fibbin'. Ye peck around me like a cock pickin' up corn, but I'll bust ye. Look hout for yerself."
He made a savage rush to break through Shorty's guard by main force, but Shorty evaded him by a quick movement, the Englishman struck his toe against a piece of railroad iron, and fell to his knees. Shorty had him at his mercy, but he merely stepped back a little further, and waited for his opponent to rise and regain his position before he again advanced to the attack.
The Englishman lost his coolness. Again he rushed savagely at Shorty, with less care in his guard. Shorty evaded his mighty blow, and reaching up under his guard struck him on the chin so hard that the Englishman fell like an ox.
Shorty took him by the hand and helped him to his feet. "Do you want any more? Have you got enough?" he asked.
"Yes, Hi've got enough," answered the English man. "I'm too groggy to go on. Hi've been drink-in' a bit too much to 'andle myself wi' a first-class man like yerself. Y've downed me, and y've downed me fair, for Hi'm not the man to whimper about not being fit. There's my hand. We're friends. We'll try hit again some day, when Hi've got the likker out o' me; won't we?"
"Certainly, whenever you like," said Shorty, shak ing hands with him.
"Say, cul," said the Englishman, in the friendliest sort of way, "w'at was ye wantin' around among my men?"
"To tell you the truth," answered Shorty, "I was after them to enlist with us. We lost five men in the shuffle at Nashville, and I was lookin' out for some to take their places.
"That's w'at I thort," said the Englishman. "That's w'at I was afraid of. The 'ead bridge man 'as bin preachin' to me ever since 'e 'ired me, hand we made hup the gang in New York, to look hout hand keep my men from bein' enlisted. Say, youngster, his yours a good regiment?"
"The very best in the army," unhesitatingly as serted Shorty. "All free-born American citizens, and high-toned gentlemen. I tell you, they're daisies, they are."
"Hi don't 'know," said the Englishman meditatively, "but Hi'd like to see a little bit o' fightin' myself. Bridge buildin's 'eavy, 'ard work, and Hi wouldn' mind sojerin' a little while for a change."
"Come right along with me and this man," said Shorty catching on. "You'll see the purtiest fighting to be found anywhere in the army, for the 200th Injianny kin do it up to the Queen's taste. And we'll treat you white. A better set o' boys never lived."
"Hi'll do hit," said the Englishman decidedly.
"Mebbe," suggested Shorty, remembering that this would still leave them four short, "some o' your gang'd like to come along with you."
"Some o' them," said the Englishman earnestly. "Hevery bloomin' one o' them 'as got to go. They've got to volunteer. Hif Hi find hany cowardly bloke that'd rather be a beastly bridge-builder than a gentleman and a sojer, I'll pound 'is 'ead offen 'im. They'll all volunteer, I tell ye, w'en Hi speak to 'em."
Si had been quietly talking to the rest of the gang while this conversation was going on, and discovered a general willingness to exchange mechanical pursuits for those of a more martial character, and so when they left the train at Chattanooga, Lieut. Bowersox marched at the head of 130 recruits, instead of the 103 with whom he had crossed the Ohio River.
ALL of that eventful 19th of September, 1864, the men of Lieut. Bowersox's detachment were keyed up with the knowledge that they were heading straight for a desperate battle, and the main fear with Si, Shorty and the great majority was that they would not reach the field in time to take a hand in the affray. It seemed that never ran a locomotive at such a snail's pace as their engine was compelled to do over the wretched road bed and improvised bridges. The engineer, stimulated by the excitement and the urgent messages at every station, was doing his very best, but his engine was ditched once and narrowly escaped it a hundred times. The only curb to their impatience was the absolute knowledge that an attempt at faster running would result in not getting there in time at all.
At every stopping place news from the front was eagerly sought for and canvassed. It was at all times aggressively meager. All that could be learned was that the whole rebel army was out on the Chickamauga some miles from Chattanooga, and savagely attacking the Union army to drive it away and recapture the town.
The news was generally very encouraging. Every attack of the rebels had been repulsed, though our own loss had been heavy. But every man was needed. The rebel lines extended far beyond those of the Union army in each direction, and still they had enough for heavy assaulting columns. Everybody in the neighborhood of Chattanooga had been ordered up, leaving only the meagerest possible guards for the trains and communications.
This increased the burning impatience of the boys to get where they could be of service. But it was far into the night when they finally skirted the frowning palisades of Lookout Mountain, and went into bivouac on the banks of Chattanooga Creek. All of the squad wanted guns, and Si and Shorty had been desperately anxious to get them for them.
At the stopping places were squads of guards, men more or less sick, and men on detached duty. Whereever Si or Shorty's sharp search could find a gun not actually in use, or not likely to be, it was pretty sure, by some means or other, either openly or surreptitiously, to be gotten into the hands of one of the squad. In this way, by the time they arrived at Chattanooga, they had nearly half their men armed, and had given them some preliminary instruction in handling their guns. The Indianians needed little so far as loading and firing, for they were all natural marksmen, but to the Englishman and his Irish squad the musket was a thing of mystery and dread.
"An' is that the goon for me?" said one of the Irishmen contemptuously, as Si proudly handed him a trusty Springfield he had found unwatched some where. "That fool thing wid a bore no bigger'n a gimlet hole? Fwhy, out in the ould country, when we go man-hunting, we take a goon wid a mouth like a funnel, that ye can put a hat full av balls inter. To the divil wid such a goon as this."
"Fix your mind on learnin' the kinks o' that gun, Barney," advised Shorty. "One ball from it put in the right place 'll do more than a hat full from your old Irish blunderbuss. A man that gits only one from it won't need nothin' more'n a head stone and his name crossed offen the roster. Git a good squint at him through them sights, jest be low his belt, hold stiddy while you pull the trigger, and his name 'll be mud."
"But fwhere is the powdher to make the ball go?" persisted Barney, looking at the cartridge which Shorty had put in his hand.
"The powder is behind the ball in that paper bag," explained Shorty. "You tear the paper with your teeth this way, and pour the powder into the muzzle."
"Fhat," said Barney contemptuously, surveying the cartridge. "There isn't enough powdher there to throw a ball as far as Oi can a pebble. Fwhy, Oi used to put a whole handful o' powdher in the old blunderbuss. Oi wud do betther to whack a man wid a shillelah. And fwhere is the flint to stroike foire?"
"O, the flintlock's played out, you flannel-mouthed Irishman," said Shorty irritably. "It's as out-of-date as a bow and arrer. This's a percussion-lock; don't you understand? This is a cap. You stick it right on this nipple, an' when the hammer goes down off goes your gun. Don't you see?"
"Well, you can say, maybe, an' maybe you can't But Oi can't. Take your old goon. Oi'll none avit.
"May the divil fly away wid it, an' wid you, too. Oi'd rather have a good shtick. Wid a shtick in me fist Oi'll take care of ony spalpeen fwhat'll stand up in front av me. But wid a fool goon loike that Oi'd be kilt at wance."
While Si and Shorty were still worrying about what to do for arms for the remainder of their men, they heard what seemed to be about a company marching toward them through the darkness.
"I suppose we had better stop here and stack our arms out of the way," they heard the officer say who seemed to be in command. "We've got an all-night's job before us, fixing up that bridge, and getting those wagons across. Stack arms, boys, and leave your belts and traps with them. There's lots of work down there for us."
They could see dimly the men obeying the orders, and going down the bank of the creek, where they started large fires to light them at their work.
"They have got a job ahead of 'em," remarked Shorty, looking in the direction of the fires.
"It'll take 'em all night and a large part o' tomorrow," said Si, significantly, as a thought entered his mind.
"Indeed it will," accorded Shorty, as the same idea occurred to him. "An' they won't need their guns. They're only pioneers, anyway."
"If they do," chimed in Si, "they kin pick up plenty more just as good around somewhere, when daylight comes. That's what pioneers is for."
"Si, you ketch on like a he snappin' turtle," said Shorty joyfully. "We'll jest help ourselves to them guns and cartridge-boxes, and then move our camp over a little ways, and skeet out airly in the mornin' for the front, and we'll be all right. Don't say nothin' to the Lieutenant about it. He'll be all right, and approve of it, but he mustn't know anything of it officially. You git the men up and I'll go over and give the Lieutenant the wink and tell him that we've found a much better bivouac about a mile further on."
While the pioneers were struggling with their task, and the air down by the creek was filled with shouts and commands, Si and Shorty, with some of the others, quietly appropriated enough stands of arms to complete the equipment of their squad.
Shorty took much credit for his honesty and forbearance that he did not touch a single one of the pioneers' belongings but their arms. A little later the squad was in bivouac a mile away.
At the earliest dawn of Sept. 20 they were awake, and after a hasty breakfast moving out the Rossville road for the battlefield. Only an occasional shot from a nervous picket, peering into the deep fog, or angry spatter from a squad of scouting cavalry disturbed the stillness of the beautiful Autumn morning. The bright rays of the level sun were bringing out the rich tints of the maples and dog woods on the mountain-sides in all their gorgeous richness. Nature was smiling so benignantly on every side that it needed the turmoil and rush in the winding roads to remind one that somewhere near men were in bitter contrast with her divine serenity. But the roads were crowded with ammunition and ration wagons pushing out to the front, and with mounted officers and Orderlies making their way as rapidly as possible back and for ward with orders and messages.
Lieut. Bowersox left the road with his detachment and made his way across the fields, over ditches, ravines and creeks, through the thickets and the brush, and at last came out on top of Missionary Ridge at the north side of Rossville Gap.
With eager eyes they scanned the landscape of billowy mountains and hills to the east and south.
A fog obscured all the lowlands, but far out columns of thin smoke rising lazily on the still air showed where 150,000 men were marshaling for bloody conflict.
"That Major I spoke to," said Lieut. Bowersox, as Si and Shorty looked anxiously in his face, "is on the corps staff, and he says the whole infernal Southern Confederacy is out there for blood. They jumped us yesterday like a pack of famished wolves. But Rosecrans had just got his army together in time, though some of the divisions had to march till their tongues were hanging out. All the boys were dead game, though, and they stood the rebels off everywhere in great shape. He hasn't the faintest idea where the 200th Ind. is. The divisions and brigades have been jumped around from one end of the line to the other till he has but little more idea where any regiment is than if it was in the moon. The only way for us is to make our way as fast as we can to the front, where they need every man, and trust to luck to find the regiment. We'll probably not find it, but we'll find a place where they need us badly."
"Le's go ahead, then," said Si firmly, "as fast as we can. We'd much rather be with the regiment, but we'll take whatever comes wherever it comes, and do our level best."
"I know you will, Sergeant," answered the Lieutenant. "Take another look over your men. See that they've all cartridges, and caution them to keep cool, stay together, whatever happens, and listen to orders."
Si felt a new and keener solicitude than he had ever before experienced. Hitherto his only thoughts were as to his own safety and to do himself credit in the discharge of his duty. Now he felt a heavy responsibility for every man in the detachment.
He walked slowly down the front of the line, and looked into every man's face. They appeared anxious but resolute. The face of Wat Burnham, the Englishman, had settled into more of a bull-dog look than ever. The Irishmen seemed eager. Abel Waite, the boy on the left, was as excited as if a game of foot-ball was to come off. He called out:
"Say, Sergeant, I hain't got but 10 cartridges. Will that be enough?"
"It'll have to be enough for the present," answered Si. "Be careful of 'em. Don't waste none. Be sure o' your man, aim low, git under his belt, an' be careful to ketch your hind-sight before you pull the trigger. If we need more cartridges we'll have to find more somewhere."
From away beyond the green and yellow waves of hills came the crash of the reopened battle. The ripping noise of regiments firing by volley was hoarsely punctuated by the deep boom of the field-pieces.
"Attention, company! Forward March!" shout ed Lieut. Bowersox.
They swept down the mountain-side, over the next eminence, and so onward. At every crest that they raised the uproar of the battle became louder, the crash of musketry and the thunder of the can non more continuous. The roads were so filled with teams being urged forward or backward that they could not follow them, but had to make their way through the woods and occasional fields, only keeping such direction as would bring them quickest to some part of the stormy firing-line.
The Lieutenant and Si and Shorty tried to make themselves believe that the noise was receding, showing that the rebels were being driven. At times it certainly was so, and then again it would burst out,
"Nearer, clearer, deadlier than before," and their hearts would sink again. A little past noon they came upon a hight, and there met a sight which, for the moment, froze their blood. To their right front the whole country was filled with men flying in the wildest confusion. All semblance of regimental order was lost in the awful turmoil. Cannon, sometimes drawn by two or three horses, sometimes by only one, were plunging around amid the mob of infantrymen. Mounted officers were wildly galloping in all directions. Colors were carried to crests and ridges, and for a moment groups of men would gather around them, only to melt again into the mob of fugitives. From far behind came the yells of the exultant rebels, and a storm of shot and shell into the disorganized mass.
The boys' hearts sickened with the thought that the whole army was in utter rout. For a minute or two they surveyed the appalling sight in speech less despair. Then a gleam of hope shot into Si's mind.
"Listen," he said; "the firing is heavier than ever over there toward the center and left, and you can see that men are goin' up instid o' runnin' away. It's Stone River over again. McCook's bin knocked to pieces, just as he always is, but old Pap Thomas is standing there like a lion, just as he did at Stone River, and he's holding Crittenden with him."
"You're right, Si," shouted the Lieutenant and Shorty. "Hip, hip, hooray for the Army o' the Cumberland and old Pap Thomas!"
They deflected to the left, so as to avoid being tangled up in the mass of fugitives, and pushed forward more determinedly, if possible, than ever. They kept edging to the right, for they wanted to reach Thomas's right as nearly as possible, as that was the natural position of their regiment.
Presently, on mounting a roll of the ground, they saw sloping down from them a few rods away, and running obliquely to their right, a small "deadening," made by the shiftless farmer for his scanty corn crop. A mob of fugitives flying through had trampled the stalks to the ground. Si and Shorty had seen some of them and yelled at them to come up and form on them, but the skedaddlers either would not or could not hear.
Beyond the "deadening" came a horde of pursuing rebels, firing and yelling like demons. The sight and sound swelled the boys' hearts with the rage of battle.
"Lieutenant," suggested Si, "there's no need o' goin' any further just now for a fight. We can have just as nice a one right here as we can find anywhere. I move that we line up back here and wait for them rebels to come on, an' then git 'em on the flank with an enfilade that'll salivate 'em in a holy minute."
"The same idea has occurred to me," said the Lieutenant; "though I've felt all along that we should not be diverted by anything from making our way as fast as possible up to the main line. What do you think, Shorty?"
"My idee is to down a rebel whenever you git a good chance," said Shorty. "'Do the work nearest thy hand,' I once heard an old preacher say. Le's jump these hounds right here."
"All right," assented the Lieutenant quite willingly. "Form the men just back of the edge of the woods. Keep them out of sight, and caution them not to shoot till they get the order. We must wait till we get the rebels just right."
Si and Shorty hurriedly posted the men behind trees and rocks, cautioned them to wait for orders, and fire low, and then stationed themselves, one at the right, and the other at the left of the irregular line. They had scarcely done so when the rebels came surging through the "deadening" in a torrent. They were urged on by two mounted officers wear ing respectively the silver stars of a Colonel and a Major.
"The feller on the bay hoss's my meat," shouted Shorty from the left.
"All right," answered Si. "I'll take the chap on the roan."
"Wait a little," cautioned the Lieutenant. "We'll get more of them if you do. Now, let them have it. Ready Aim FIRE!"
Down went the Colonel and Major and fully 50 of their men. The Indiana recruits might be green as to tactics, but they knew how to level a gun.
The startled rebels ceased yelling, and looked around in amazement in the direction whence the unexpected fire came. A few began firing that way, but the majority started to run back across the "deadening" to the sheltering woods. Groups gathered around the fallen officers to carry them back.
"Load as fast as you can, boys," commanded the Lieutenant. "That was a good one. Give them an other."
The young Irishmen were wild with excitement, and wanted to rush down and club the rebels, but the Lieutenant restrained them, though he could not get them to reload their guns. As Si was bringing down his gun he noticed the Englishman aiming at the groups about the officers.
"Don't shoot them. Fire at the others," Si called out, while he himself aimed at a man who was try ing to rally his comrades.
"W'y the bloody 'ell shouldn't Hi shoot them the same has the hothers?" snarled the Englishman, firing into the group. "They're all bloody rebels."
By the time the second round was fired the "deadening" was clear of all the rebels but those who had been struck. The others were re-forming on the knoll beyond, and a field-piece was hurried up to their assistance, which threw a shell over at the line.
"We had better move off," said the Lieutenant. "They're forming out there to take us in flank, and we can't hold them back. We have done all that we can here, and a mighty good job, too. We have saved a lot of our men and salted a good bagful of rebels. Attention! File left March!"
"That was a mighty good introduction for the boys," said Si to Shorty as they moved on through the woods. "They begin to see how the thing's done; and didn't they act splendidly? I'm proud of Injianny."
"Sergeant, didn't I do well?" asked Abel Waite, in the tone that he would have inquired of his teacher about a recitation. "I done just as you told me. I kep' my eye on the tall feller in front, who was wavin' his gun and yellin' at the rest to come on. I aimed just below his belt, an' he went down just like I've seen a beef when pap shot him."
"Good boy," said Si, patting him on the shoul der. "You're a soldier already."
LIEUT. Bowersox, Si, Shorty and the recruits left the woods and entered a large clearing, in the midst of which was a log cabin, with a few rude outbuildings. Over it flew the yellow flag of the hospital service, and beyond could be seen the parked trains and other evidences of the line-of-battle.
The roar of the battle would have told them as much, for it was now deafening. The earth seemed to throb and the trees shake with the awful shocks. As they passed the hospital they saw a grewsome pile of amputated legs and arms, while the ground around about was filled with wounded, whose groans pierced through the roar of battle.
James Bradshaw and Simeon Wheelwright, the two tall, stalwart men who had stood on the right and who had shown great coolness during the fight, gave one look at the dismembered limbs, turned pale as death, gasped, and fell in a faint.
"Forward! Can't stop to pay attention to them," commanded the Lieutenant, in whom the battle-fever was burning.
Though still more than two miles from the low crest of Snodgrass Hill, where Gen. Thomas, with the remainder of the Army of the Cumberland, was standing savagely at bay against the fierce assaults of Bragg's and Longstreet's overwhelming numbers, they were soon in the midst of the wild ruck and confusion of the rear of a great battle. Miles of wagons were being urged hither and yon, some times in accordance with intelligent orders by officers, more often from the panicky fears of wagon-masters and teamsters; riderless horses with saddles under their bellies were galloping frantically around; squads of artillerymen in search of ammunition were storming about, cursing cowardly teamsters, whom they could not find; streams of wounded men were trying to make their way to the hospitals; officers were yelling and swearing in their attempts to rally shirks and cowards who had fled from the front; men from regiments which had been broken and scattered by the fierce assaults were trying to find their colors; Colonels whose regiments had been ordered up from the rear were fiercely forcing their way forward, with many dire objurgations on all who impeded their progress.
It was a scene to discourage any but the stoutest heart, yet it only wrought up the boys to greater eagerness to get through to the firing-line.
The smoke-crowned crest of Snodgrass Hill was seen but half a mile away. They could make out the ragged, irregular line of blue constantly vailing itself in sulphurous vapor as it poured murderous volleys into the enemy. The shrill yell of the rebels as they renewed the charge, and the deep-toned cheer of the Union soldiers as they repulsed it, reached their ears in the momentary lulls of the firing.
So far, in spite of all deterrents, they had brought every man through except the two who had fainted at the hospital. Everyone had shown true metal. Little Abel Waite had particularly distinguished him self by skillful dodging under wagons and past flanks, in order to keep up with the swift pace of the longer-legged men.
They had as yet found no one in all the throng to give them the least information as to their regiment, when Si spied a member of Co. Q walking deliberately back, holding the wrist of his shattered left hand in his right, with his fingers compressing the artery to restrain the flow of blood.
"There's Silas Peckham," exclaimed Si, running up to him. "Badly hurt, Sile?"
"No," answered Silas, more coolly than if he had stubbed his toe. "Left hand's gone on a strike. That's all. Wisht I could find a doctor to fix it up so I could git back to the boys. They're havin' an awful tussle up there, an' need me bad. Better hurry up, Si. Don't waste no time on me. I'll find a doctor soon an' be back with you."
"Where's the regiment, Sile?" asked the Lieutenant.
"Right up there to the left o' them tall hickories," answered Silas, pointing with his bloody hand. "To the right o' that battery, you see there. That's our bully old battery at work. Greatest battery in the army. I've kept my eye on the place, because I want to git back as soon's I kin find the Surgeon. Ain't much left o' the regiment, or battery either, for that matter; but they're raisin' hell with the Johnnies every time, and don't you forgit it. Capt. McGillicuddy's in command."
"Capt. McGillicuddy?" said the Lieutenant. "Why, he's the junior Captain in the regiment."
"He was yisterday mornin', but he's now senior to everybody that's alive," answered Silas. "The Kunnel wuz killed yisterday forenoon. The Lootenant-Kunnell held out about three hours an' then he got it for keeps, an' the Major tuck command an' stuck out till nigh evenin', when they knocked him.
"This mornin' the Captains 's bin going down so fast that I couldn't keep track of 'em, till Capt. McGillicuddy was the only one left, an' he's swearin' that the rebels never run no bullet that could hit him. The Adjutant's acting Lootenant-Kunnel an' Major both to-wunst, and shootin' a gun when he hain't nothin' else to do. But the boys that's left 's stayers, I tell you. They've jest stuck their toenails into that hilltop there, an' every time them howlin' rebels come yippin' an' ki-yi-in' out o' the woods they send 'em back on the dead run. But they want you up there bad. You've got more than's left in the regiment. Hurry up. I'll be back with you jest as soon's I kin find a doctor to cooper me up a little."
"Forward Quick time March!" shouted the Lieutenant. "Guide on those tall hickories."
Onward they rushed full into the smoke that drifted backward down the hill. As they gained the crest the air became clearer, and they saw the sadly-shrunken remnant of their regiment strung in an irregular line along the forward edge. Some were binding up wounds more or less severe, some were searching the boxes of the dead and wounded for cartridges, some were leaning on their hot guns, looking curiously into the woods at the foot of the slope into which the rebels had fled.
Every face was blackened with powder almost beyond recognition. The artillerymen to the left were feverishly swabbing out their guns and trying to cool them off, and bringing up everything in the shape of ammunition from the limbers in the rear.
Capt. McGillicuddy was leaning on his sword at the right of the line, intently watching everything. He looked sharply around, when the men raised a cheer on recognizing Si and the rest, and coming back shook Lieut. Bowersox warmly by the hand, saying:
"Great God, Lieutenant, I've always been glad to see you, but I never was so glad to see a man in my life as I am you this minute. How many men did you bring?"
"I've got 128 with me," answered the Lieutenant. "What's the situation?"
"You have? Well, you've got more than we have left. You'll act as Major. Poor Wilkinson just got his dose. You can see him lying down there in the rear of the left. Put your men in anywhere. Mix them up with the others.. It don't matter much about formation. The main thing's to stand and shoot. The rebels have been charging us all after noon, but we have whipped them back every time.
"You can see our work out there (pointing to the slope in front, which was literally covered with dead and wounded). I've thought every time that they couldn't stand another such a slaughter, but they've rallied in those woods there and come out again with their infernal yell, just as before. The last time it seemed to me that we just swept them off the face of the earth, and I don't see how in God's name they can stand any more of that sort of thing. It's worse killing than we gave them at Stone River. It seems to me that hell has let out for noon, and sent all its devils to reinforce them. But it will soon be night now, when they'll have to stop. If they won't we'll have to depend on the bayonet, for we haven't five rounds apiece left, and I can't get more anywhere."
Si and Shorty had been distributing the detachment along the line, and had posted the Englishman and his squad of Irishmen, with themselves, around the tattered colors, which were now in the hands of the last survivor of the color guard, who was himself wounded.
Dusk was fast coming on, when the woods beyond the foot of the slope began to darken again with masses of men arraying in column of assault.
"They're coming again," called out Capt. McGillicuddy. "Lieut. Bowersox, look out there for the left. Men, if we haven't stopped them when we've fired out last shot, we'll fix bayonets and charge them. We must keep them off this hill or die right here."
He was answered with cheers. A demoniac yell from 10,000 fierce throats rang through the woods, and the next instant thunder and flames burst from the sweeping crescent of rebel cannon, and the ground in front of the foot of the hill was hidden from view by the tide of men rushing over it.
A fierce storm of cannon and musketry answered from the crest of the hill. As they reloaded, Si and Shorty saw in quick glances that the rebel line to the right and left seemed beaten to a standstill by the terrific storm which fell upon them, but in their immediate front a body of men, apparently a regiment, kept stubbornly forging forward. Upon their flag, held gallantly aloft, could be made out the let ters "Miss."
By the time every shot in the cartridge-boxes had been fired at them they had forced their way half-up the slope.
"Attention, 200th Indiana," shouted Capt. McGillicuddy. "Dress on the colors. Fix bayonets."
"They'uns 's Injiannians," shouted the rebel Color-Sergeant, waving his flag defiantly. "Come on, you Hoosiers. We'uns 's Mississippians. Remember Buny Visty. Injiannians 's cowards."
"Shorty, le's have that 'ere flag," said Si.
"Le's," said Shorty, pushing around the ring that locked his bayonet on.
"Forward March Charge!" shouted Capt. McGillicuddy.
Of the mad whirl of an eternity of events in the next few minutes neither Si nor Shorty had anything but a delirious remembrance. They could only recollect the fierce rush of the lightning-like play of bayonet and gun-barrel in the storm-center around the rebel colors. Each after an instant's savage fencing had sent his bayonet home in his opponent's body. Si had sprung at and seized the rebel colors, only to fall, as he grasped them, from a bullet out of the revolver of a rebel Captain, whom Shorty instantly bayoneted, and fell himself from a blow across the head with a musket-barrel.
The man who struck him was bayoneted by Abel Waite, who was dancing around the edges of the melee like a malignant little fiend, prodding wherever he could get a chance at a rebel body. The Irishmen, yelling like demons, were using their guns like shilelahs, and crushing heads in every direction, while Wat Burnham had thrown his musket aside, and was rushing at everybody with his mighty fists.
At length the rebels fled, leaving the Indianians in possession of their colors and the hillside.
"Some of you find Lieut. Bowersox, and bring him here," said Capt. McGillicuddy, sitting up, and beginning to twist a handkerchief around his thigh, to form a tourniquet. "Lieutenant, you all right?"
"Nothing more than a mere scratch on the side of my head," said the Lieutenant, wiping away the blood.
"Well, Lieutenant, you'll have to take command of the regiment. I had a personal altercation with that Mississippi Colonel lying over there, and he put a bullet through my thigh. Get the men together, pick up our wounded, and fall back to the top of the hill again."
"I'm afraid there's no use of picking up Corp'l Klegg and Shorty," said the Lieutenant, with tears in his eyes. "They got the rebel flag, but they're lying there stiff and cold."
"Well, bring them back, anyway, so we can lay them beside the other gallant boys who have fallen to-day."
FOR a short time a silence that seemed oppressive followed the fierce turmoil of the last charge of the rebels upon Snodgrass Hill and its repulse. Both sides had exhausted themselves in the awful grapple, and had to regain breath and thought. Then the night was pierced by the agonizing groans of the innumerable wounded, the stern commands of officers to their men to re-form, the calls of scattered men seeking their regiments and companies.
The sadly-shrunken remnant of the unconquer able 200th Ind. gathered around its regimental colors, on the front of the crest of Snodgrass Hill, and grimly, silently prepared for the next event, whatever it might be. The wounds of those still able to fight were bound up, and they resumed their places in line. The worst hurt were helped or carried back to the busy Surgeon under the shelter of the hill. The newly-dead were brought up and added to the row of those who had already fought their last battle. Cartridge-boxes of both dead and wounded were carefully searched for remaining cartridges. Si and Shorty were laid at the end of the long row.
The chill air of the evening began to revive Si and Shorty. Si's brain responded long before any of his muscles. At first it seemed the vaguest and most shadowy of dreams. There was a dim consciousness of lying somewhere. Where it was, how he came there, what was going on around he had not the slightest idea nor desire to know. There was just the feeling of being there, without any sensation of comfort or discomfort, wish or longing.
One by one, and very slowly, other nerves awoke. He became conscious that there was a sharp stone or knot under his head, which hurt, and he tried to move it, but queerly his head would not move, and then he found that neither would his hands. This was faintly puzzling, as things are in dreams. Then his throat became on fire with thirst, and somehow there came a dream of the deliciously cool well on the farm at home, the bucket covered with green moss swinging over it, the splash of cool water when it was lowered, the trough by the side, where they used to pour water for the fowls to drink, the muddy spot around, where water plants grew on the splashings and drippings. Then were visions of the eternal, parching thirst of the damned, which he had often heard preachers describe, and he was conscious of a faint curiosity as to whether he had died and waked up in the home of the lost.
Still not a muscle waked up to obey his will, and he seemed indifferent whether it did or not. Then he forgot everything again, until presently his burning throat recalled his consciousness.
He felt the cold, bracing air in his nostrils, and slowly, very slowly at first, he began to hear and understand the sounds around him. The shriek of a wounded comrade carried past, whose leg had been shattered, first sounded like the hum of bees, and finally translated itself into something like its true meaning, but he had no comprehension or sympathy for its misery.
He tried to make some sound himself, but his tongue was as hypnotized as his other muscles, and refused to obey his will. Yet at the moment he did not seem to care much. His wishes were as numb as his tendons and sinews. He became shadowly conscious of his comrades gathering around him, picking him up, carrying him back up the hill, and laying him down again. This relieved the sharp pain from the stone under his head; but when they laid him down again his head fell too low. He heard the murmur of their voices, and felt their hands searching his pockets for cartridges.
Consciousness began returning more swiftly, though the muscles were yet paralyzed. He could feel to the tips of his fingers, yet he could not move them. He began to understand the words spoken about him, and comprehend their meaning. The first sentence that filtered its way to his brain was Lieut. Bowersox's order to the regiment:
"The orders are to fall back quietly. We'll follow the 1st Oshkosh, on our right. As soon as it is well down the hill we'll move by the right flank, and fall in behind it. Our wagon is right at the bottom of the hill. Those that are not able to march will start now, and get in it. It will move right after the regiment. Don't anybody say a word of this above his breath. The rebels are listening sharply for our movements. We dare not even cheer, for fear they'll find out how few are left of us. All of you keep a lookout, and follow right after me when I start, for I won't give any order."
Then all his consciousness seemed to wake up at once into an agony of fear of being left behind to fall into the hands of the rebels. He made a desperate effort to call out, but his tongue seemed dry and useless as a cornhusk in his parched mouth, and his throat too burning hot to perform its office. Nor could he lift a finger nor move a toe.
He found room for anger at Shorty that he did not look him up, and satisfy himself as to his condition, and Lieut. Bowersox and the rest seemed selfishly thoughtful of their own safety and neglectful of his.
He listened in agony to the regiment on the right marching off, to the cautions and admonitions given those who were carrying off the badly-wounded, and then to Lieut. Bowersox starting off with the right of the 200th Ind.
Then he heard little Abel Waite say:
"I know that Si Klegg has some things on him that his folks' d like to have. I know where they live. I'm goin' to git 'em, and send 'em to 'em."
"Make haste, then, young feller," he heard Wat Burnham growl. "Don't let the rebels ketch yer. We're movin' now."
He heard Abel Waite's steps running toward him, and felt his hands thrust into his blouse pocket over his breast. Then the boy said with a start of surprise:
"Why, he's alive yet. Come here, Wat."
Wat and the Irishmen hastened to him. He felt
Wat's hand laid on his breast, and then held over his mouth.
"'E's certainly warm yet. Hand 'e breathes."
Shorty made a violent effort, and summoned enough strength to reach over and touch the Englishman's foot.
"The tall feller's alive, too," said Wat.
"We must take 'em along with us," said Abel Waite excitedly.
"Yes, but 'ow?" growled the Englishman. "Don't speak so loud, you young brat. Do you want to hopen hup that 'ell's kitchen hagin?"
"The Liftinant's far down the hill wid the regiment," said Barney McGrath. "There's no toime to sind for him. Here, lit's pick thim up an' carry thim down to the wagon."
He put his hand under Si's shoulder. The others did the same, Wat lifting Shorty's feet.
"Halt, there, you Yanks, and surrender," said a stern voice just behind Wat.
Wat looked back over his shoulder and saw a single adventurous rebel who, divining what was going on, had slipped forward in the darkness, with his gun leveled on the squad bearing Si. Wat realized instantly that the rebel must be suppressed with out alarm to others that might be behind him. He dropped Shorty's foot, and with a backward sweep of his mighty right took the rebel in the stomach with such force as to double him up. The next instant Wat had his throat in his terrific grip, and tried to tear the windpipe from him. Then he flung the rebel forward down the hill, gathered up Shorty's feet again, and gave the command:
"Hall right. Go a'ead, boys, quick has you can."
With great difficulty they made their way over the wreckage of battle down the hill toward where they expected to find the regimental wagon. But it had received all that it could hold of its ghastly freight and moved off.
They were is despair for a few minutes, until Abel Waite discovered an abandoned wagon near by, with one mule still hitched to it. Next they found a wounded artillery horse which had been turned loose from his battery. He was hitched in, and Si and Shorty were laid on the layer of ammunition-boxes which still covered the bottom of the bed.
"Who'll drive the bloody team?" growled Wat. "Hi never druv a 'oss hin my life. 'Ere, Barney, you get hin the saddle."
"Not Oi," answered Barney. "Oi niver could droive ayven a pig, on the brightest day that shone. Oi'll not fool wid a couple av strange horses, a wagon-load av foire an' brimstone, an' a brace av dead men, in the midst av Aygytian darkness. Not Oi."
"Here, I kin drive two horses, anyway," said Abel Waite, climbing into the saddle. "I've done that much on the farm."
They pushed off into the road marked by the dark line of troops moving silently toward McFarland's Gap, and after some contest with other drivers secured a place behind one of the regiments of their brigade.
A couple of miles ahead Forrest's cavalry was making a noisy dispute of the army's retreat, the woods were on fire, and the fences on either side of the road were blazing.
The long line was halted in anxious expectation for a little while, as the storm of battle rose, and the men looked into each other's faces with sickening apprehension, for it seemed much like defeat and capture. Then loud cheers, taken up clear down the line', rose as Turchin's Brigade, by a swift bayonet charge, swept away all opposition, scattered the rebels to the shelter of the woods, and reopened the way. But the rebels still continued to fire long distance shots at the road as outlined by the burn ing fences.
Though one of his team was wounded, Abel Waite had little difficulty in keeping his place in column until the burning lane was reached. The regiment ahead had gone through on the double-quick, and teams as fast as they could be lashed.
"What'll we do now?" he called out to the others in his boyish treble. "I can't git these plugs out of a walk. If we go ahead the fire'll bust the ammunition, and send us all sky-huntin'. If we stop here them rebels 'll git us, sure."
"Go a'ead, Habe," growled Wat, after a moment's thought. "We can't 'elp you, but we'll stay wi' you. Hif she busts, she busts, hand that's hall there'll be hof hit hor hof us. We'll stick by the wagon, though, till she busts, hand then nobuddy but the crows 'll hever find hany hof hus. Go a'ead, you bloody brat."
"Cut me one o' them young hickories for a gad," said Abel, pointing to the brush by the side of the road, "and I'll git as good time out o' these poor brutes as they kin make, if I skin 'em alive."
Abel lashed his animals with all the strength of his young arm, and succeeded in keeping them in something like a trot. The men ran alongside, and fought the fire as well as they were able. Several times the wagon-cover caught fire from the intense heat, but it was at once beaten out by hats and blouses, and blouses were laid over the holes to protect them against the sparks.
They succeeded at last in getting through the fire-bordered road without an explosion, but they were all so exhausted that they could not move another step until they rested. The poor horse lay down and refused to get up.
Wat and Abel looked in to see how Si and Shorty had fared. The jolting of the wagon and the cold night air had at first revived them so that they could speak. Then they swooned again from the effects of the heat and the stifling smoke, and were speech less and motionless when Wat and Abel looked in.
"We've 'ad hall hour trouble for nothink," said Wat disconsolately, as he felt them over. "The 'eat and smoke's killed 'em."
"Not by a durned sight," slowly gasped Shorty. "Seen sicker dogs'n this git well. Nearly dead for a drink o' water, though. Then I'll be all right."
Abel snatched a canteen, ran to a branch a little way off, filled it, and returning, put it to Shorty's lips.
"Jehosephat, how good that tastes," said Shorty, speaking still faintly, but far more freely than at first, after he had drained the canteen. "Sonny, run and git some more; and mind you fill the canteen full this time. I feel as if I could drink up the Mississippi River. Say, boys, what's happened? Appearintly, I got a sock-dologer on my head from some feller who thought I was too fresh. I'm afraid I'll have a spell o' headache. But we got the flag, didn't we?"
"Yo're bloody right we did," said Wat; "hand we wolloped them bloomin' rebels till they 'unted their 'oles hin the woods."
"That's good enough," said Shorty, sinking back.
"The column's movin' agin," said Abel Waite, turn ing his attention to his team.
Shortly after daybreak the team limped painfully up the slope of Mission Ridge, through Rossville Gap, on either side of which stood Thomas's indomitable army in battle array, sternly defying the rebel hosts of Bragg and Longstreet, which swarmed over the hills and valleys in front, but without much apparent appetite for a renewal of the dreadful fray.
"Where do you men belong? What have you got in that wagon? Where are you going?" demanded the Provost officer in the road.
"We belong to the 200th Hinjianny. We've got two badly-wounded men and ha lot o' hammynition in the wagon. We want to find our regiment," an swered Wat Burnham.
"Stop your wagon right there. We need all the ammunition we can get. Lift your wounded men into that ambulance, and then go up to that side of the gap. Your division is up there somewhere."
It was late in the afternoon before the overworked Surgeon in the field hospital at Chattanooga, in which Si and Shorty were finally deposited, found time to examine them.
"You got a pretty stiff whack on your head, my man," he said to Shorty, as he finished looking him over; "but so far as I can tell now it has not fractured your skull. You Hoosiers have mighty hard heads."
"Reglar clay-knob whiteoak," whispered Shorty; "couldn't split it with a maul and wedge. Don't mind that a mite, since we got that flag. But how's my pardner over there?"
"I think you'll pull through all right," continued the Surgeon, "if you don't have concussion of the brain. You'll have to be—"
"No danger o' discussion of the brains," whispered Shorty. "Don't carry 'em up there, where they're liable to get slubbed. Keep 'em in a safer place, where there's more around 'em. But how's my pardner?"
"You'll come through all right," said the Surgeon smiling. "You're the right kind to live. You've got grit. I'll look at your partner now."
He went to Si and examined him. Shorty turned on his side and watched him with eager eyes. His heart sickened as he saw the Surgeon's face grow graver as he proceeded. The Surgeon probed the bullet's track with his fingers, and drew out a piece of folded letter paper stained with blood. Instinctively he unfolded it, and read through the ensanguined smears, written in a cramped school-girl hand:
"Dear Si: Though I did not have the heart to say it, Ime
yours till death, and Ime sure you feel the same way.
Annabel."
"I'm much afraid the end has come too soon to a brave as well as loving heart," said the Surgeon sadly.
"Doctor, he can't die. He mustn't die," said Shorty in agony. "The regiment can't spare him. He's the best soldier in it, and he's my pardner."
"He may live, but it's a very slender chance," said the Surgeon. "Men live in this war against all science and experience, and it is possible that he may."
"Major," said Lieut. Bowersox, coming in, "I understand that two of my men were brought in here wounded. The report which was sent North this morning gave them as killed. If you have them here I want to correct it and save their people sorrow."
"One of them," answered the Surgeon, "has no thought of dying, and will, I'm sure, pull through. I am sorry I cannot say the same for the other. It he lives it will be a wonder."
"Neither of us is a-going to die till we've put down this damned rebellion, and got home and married our girls," gasped Shorty with grim effort. "You can jist telegraph that home, and to ole Abe Lincoln, and to all whom it may concern."
And he fell back exhausted on his blanket.
THAT evening Lieut. Bowersox sent a telegram to Deacon Klegg. It had to be strictly limited to 10 words, and read:
JOSIAH KLEGG, ESQ.,
Somepunkins Station, Ind.:
Josiah not killed. Hospital at Chattanooga. Badly wounded.
E. C. BOWERSOX.
It did not arrive at Sumpunkins Station, three miles from the Deacon's home, until the next forenoon. The youth who discharged the multifarious duties of Postmaster, passenger, freight and express-agent, baggage-master, and telegraph operator at Sumpunkins Station laboriously spelled out the dots and dashes on the paper strip in the instrument. He had barely enough mastery of the Morse alphabet to communicate the routine messages relating to the railroad's business aided by the intelligence of the conductors and engineers as to what was expected of them. This was the first outside message that he had ever received, and for a while it threatened to be too much for him, especially as the absence of punctuation made it still more enigmatical. He faithfully transcribed each letter as he made it out and then the agglomeration read:
"Josiamn otkildho spitalat chatano ogabadl ywounded ecbower sox."
"Confound them smart operators at Louisville and Jefferson ville," he grumbled, scanning the scrawl. "They never make letters plain, and don't put in half of 'em, just to worrit country operators. I'd like to take a club to 'em. There's no sort o' sense in sich sending. A Philadelphia lawyer couldn't make nothing out of it. But I've got to or get a cussing, and mebbe the bounce. I'll try it over again, and see if I can separate it into words. Why in thunder can't they learn to put a space be tween the words, and not jumble the letters all to gether in that fool fashion?"
The next time he wrote it out:
"J. O. S. I am not kild Hospital at Chattanooga badly wounded E. C. Bower sox."
"That begins to look like something," said he, wiping the sweat from his forehead. "But who is J. O. S.? Nobody o' them initials in this neighbor hood. Nor E. C. Bower. Deacon Klegg can't know any of 'em. Then, how's the hospital badly wounded Bower? What's that about his socks? I'll have to try it over again as soon as No. 7, freight, gets by."
After No. 7 had gotten away, he tackled the message again:
"No, that sixth letter's not an m, but an h. H is four dots, and m is two dashes. It's specks in the paper that makes it look like an h. I'll put in some letters where they're needed. Now let's see how it'll read:"
228 SI KLEGG.
"Josiah Nott killed Hospital at Chattanooga. Badly wounded E. C. Bower sox."
"That seems to have more sense in it, but I don't know any Josiah Nott in this country. Does it mean that he killed a man named Hospital at Chattanooga, and badly wounded E. C. Bower in the socks? That don't seem sense. I'll try it again."
The next time he succeeded in making it read:
"Josiah Nott killed. Hospital at Chattanooga. Badly wounded E. C. Bower's ox."
"There, that's best I can do," he said, surveying the screed. "It'll have to go that way, and let the Deacon study it out. He's got more time 'n I have, and mebbe knows all about it. I can't spend no more time on it. No. 3, passenger, from the West 's due in 20 minutes, and I've got to get ready for it. Good luck; there comes the Deacon's darky now, with a load of wheat. I'll send it out by him."
The operator wrote out his last version of the message on a telegraph-blank, inclosed it in a West ern Union envelope, which he addressed to Deacon Klegg, and gave to Abraham Lincoln, with strong injunctions to make all haste back home with it.
Impressed with these, Abraham, as soon as he delivered his grain to the elevator, put his team to a trot, and maintained it until he reached home.
Everything about the usually cheerful farm-house was shrouded in palpable gloom. The papers of the day before, with their ghastly lists of the dead and wounded, had contained Si's and Shorty's names, besides those of other boys of the neighborhood, in terrific, unmistakable plainness. There were few homes into which mourning had not come. The window curtains were drawn down, the front doors closed, no one appeared on the front porch, and it seemed that even the dogs and the fowls were op pressed with the general sadness, and forebore their usual cheerful utterances. Attired in sober black, with eyes red from weeping, and with camphor bottle near, Mr. Klegg sat in Si's room, and between her fits of uncontrollable weeping turned over, one after another, the reminders of her son. There were his bed, his clothes, which she had herself fashioned in loving toil for him; the well-thumbed school-books which had cost him so many anxious hours, his gun and fishing rod. All these were now sacred to her. Elsewhere in the house his teary-eyed sisters went softly and silently about their daily work.
The father had sought distraction in active work, and was in the cornfield, long corn-knife in hand, shocking up the tall stalks with a desperate energy to bring forgetfulness.
Abraham Lincoln burst into the kitchen, and taking the dispatch from his hat said:
"Hyah am a papeh or sumfin dat de agent down at de station done tole me to bring hyah jest as quick as I done could. He said hit done come ober a wire or a telugraph, or sumfin ob dat ere sort, and you must hab hit right-a-way."
"O, my; it's a telegraph dispatch," screamed Maria with that sickening apprehension that all women have of telegrams. "It's awful. I can't tech it. Take it Sophy."
"How can I," groaned poor Sophia, with a fresh outburst of tears. "But I suppose I must."
The mother heard the scream and the words, and hurried into the room.
"It's a telegraph dispatch, mother," said both the girls as they saw her.
"Merciful Father," ejaculated Mrs. Klegg, sinking into a chair in so nearly a faint that Maria ran into the next room for the camphor-bottle, while Sophy rushed outside and blew the horn for the Deacon. Presently he entered, his sleeves rolled to the elbow over his brawny arms, and his shirt and pantaloons covered with the spanish-needles and burrs which would grow, even in so well-tilled fields as Deacon Klegg's.
"What's the matter, mother? What's the matter, girls?" he asked anxiously.
Mrs. Klegg could only look at him in speechless misery.
"We've got a telegraph dispatch," finally answered Maria, bursting in a torrent of tears, into which Sophia joined sympathetically, "and we know it's about poor Si."
"Yes, it must be about poor Si; nobody else but him," added Sophia with a wail.
The father's face grew more sorrowful than be fore. "What does it say?" he nerved himself to ask, after a moment's pause.
"We don't know," sobbed Maria. "We haint opened it. We're afraid to. Here it is."
The father took it with trembling hand. "Well," he said after a little hesitation, "it can't tell nothin' no worse than we've already heard. Let's open it. Bring me my specs."
Maria ran for the spectacles, while her father, making a strong effort to calm himself, slit open the envelope with a jack-knife, adjusted his glasses, and read the inclosure over very slowly.
"Josiah Nott killed Hospital at Chattanooga badly wounded E. C. Bower's ox. What on airth does that mean? I can't for the life o' me make it out."
"Read it over again, pap," said Maria, suddenly drying her eyes.
The father did so.
"Le' me read it, pap," said Maria, snatching the telegram from his hand. "Josiah," said she, read ing. "That's Si's right name."
"Certainly it is," said her mother, reviving.
"Certainly; I didn't think o' that before," echoed the father.
"Josiah not killed," continued she. "Good heavens, that's what that means. They rebels has got hold o' the wires, and shook 'em and tangled up the rest, but the beginnin's all straight."
"I believe that Sam Elkins down at the station 's mixed it up," said Sophia, with hope springing in her breast. "He never can get things straight. He was in the class with me when I went to school, and too dumb to come in when it rained. He was the worst writer, speller and reader in the school. Think o' him being a telegraph operator. Why, he couldn't spell well enough to make tally-marks on a door when you're measurin' corn. Railroad was mighty hard up for help when it hired him. Let me read that dispatch. 'Josiah not killed.' That means Si Klegg, as sure's you're born. It can't mean nothin' else, or it wouldn't be addressed to you, pap. 'Hospital at Chattanooga.' Chattanooga's near where the battle was fought. 'Badly wounded.' That means Si's bin shot. 'E. C. Bower's ox.' What in the world can that be?"
"Bowersox?" said her father, catching the sound. "Why, that's the name o' the Lootenant Si and Shorty was under when they came home. Don't you remember they told us about him? I remember the name, for a man named Bowersox used to run a mill down on Bean-Blossom Crick, years ago, and I wondered if he was his son. He's sent me that dispatch, and signed his name. The Lord be praised for His never-endin' mercies. Si's alive, after all. Le' me read that over again."
He took the dispatch with shaking hands, but there was too much mist on his glasses-, and he had to hand it back to Maria to read over again to convince himself.
"I'll tell you what let's do: Let's all get in the wagon and ride over to the station, and get Sam Elkins to read the dispatch over again," suggested Sophia. "I'll jest bet he's mummixed it up."
"Don't blame him, Sophy," urged Maria. "I think the rebels has got at the poles or wires and shook 'em, and mixed the letters up. It's just like 'em."
Sophy's suggestion was carried out. Abraham Lincoln was directed to get out the spring wagon, and the Deacon helped hitch up, while the "women folks" got ready.
While they were at the station getting Sam Elkins to re-examine the dots and dashes on his strip of paper, the Eastern express arrived, bringing the morning papers. The Deacon bought one, and the girls nervously turned to the war news. They gave a scream of exultation when they read the revised returns of the killed and wounded, and found under head of "Wounded, in Hospital at Chattanooga":
"Corporal Josiah Klegg, Q, 200th Ind.
"Private Daniel Elliott, Q, 200th Ind."
"Mother and girls, I'm goin' to Chattanoogy on the next train," said the Deacon.
It was only a few hours until the train from the East would be along, and grief was measurably forgotten in the joy that Si was still alive and in the bustle of the Deacon's preparation for the journey.
"No," he said, in response to the innumerable suggestions made by the mother and daughters. "You kin jest set all them things back. I've bin down there once, and learned something. I'm goin' to take nothin with me but my Bible, a couple o' clean shirts, and my razor. A wise man learns by experience."
Mother and girls were inconsolable, for each had something that they were sure "Si would like," and would "do him good," but they knew Josiah Klegg, Sr., well enough to understand what was the condition when he had once made up his mind.
"If Si and Shorty's able to be moved," he consoled them with, "I'm going to bring them straight back home with me, and then you kin nuss and coddle them all you want to."
The news of his prospective journey had flashed through the neighborhood, so that he met at the station the relatives of most of the men in Co. Q, each with a burden of messages and comforts for those who were living, or of tearful inquiries as to those reported dead.
He took charge of the letters and money, refused the other things, and gave to the kin of the wounded and dead sympathetic assurances of doing every thing possible.
He had no particular trouble or advanture until he reached Nashville. There he found that he could go no farther without procuring a pass from the Provost-Marshal. At the Provosts's office he found a highly miscellaneous crowd besieging that official for the necessary permission to travel on the military railroad. There were more or less honest and loyal speculators in cotton who were ready to take any chances in the vicissitudes of the military situation to get a few bales of the precious staple. There were others who were downright smugglers, and willing to give the rebels anything, from quinine to gun-caps, for cotton. There were sutlers, pedlers, and gamblers. And there were more or less loyal citizens of the country south who wanted to get back to their homes, some to be honest, law-abiding citizens, more to get in communication with the rebels and aid and abet the rebellion.
Deacon Klegg's heart sank as he surveyed the pushing, eager crowd which had gotten there before him, and most of whom were being treated very cavalierly by the Provost-Marshal.
"No," he heard that official say to a man who appeared a plain farmer like himself; "you not only can have no pass, but you can't stay in Nashville an other day. I remember you. I've heard you tell that story of a sick son in the hospital before. I remember all the details. You haven't changed one. You're a smuggler, and I believe a spy. You've got mule-loads of quinine somewhere in hiding, and may be gun-caps and other munitions of war. If you know what's good for you, you'll take the next train north, and never stop until you are on the other side of the Ohio River. If you are in town to-morrow morning, I'll put you to work on the fortifications, and keep you there till the end of the war. Get out of my office at once."
Others were turned away with similar brusqueness, until the Deacon was in despair; but the though of Si on a bed of pain nerved him, and he kept his place in the line that was pushing toward the Provost's desk.
Suddenly the Provost looked over those in front of him, and fixing his eye on the Deacon, called out:
"Well, my friend, come up here. What can I do for you?"
The Deacon was astonished, but in obedience to a gesture from the Provost, left the line, and came up.
"What's your name? Where are you from? What are you doing down here? What do you want?" inquired the Provost, scanning him critically.
The Deacon's eyes met his boldly, and he answered the questions categorically.
"Well, Mr. Klegg, you shall have a pass at once, and I sincerely hope that you will find your son recovering. You probably do not remember me, but I have seen you before, when I was on the circuit in Indiana. My clerk there is writing out a pass for you. You will have to take the oath of allegiance, and sign the paper, which I suppose you have no objection to doing."
"None in the world," answered the Deacon, surprised at the unexpected turn of events. "I'll be only too glad. I was gittin' very scared about my pass."
"O, I have hard work here," said the Provost smiling, "in separating the sheep from the goats, but I'm now getting to know the goats tolerably well. There's you're pass, Deacon. A pleasant journey, and a happy termination to it."
The Deacon took out his long calf-skin wallet from his breast, put the precious pass in it, carefully strapped it up again and replaced it, and walked out of the office toward the depot.
He had gone but a few steps from the building when he saw the man who had been ordered out of the city by the Provost, and who seemed to be on the lookout for the Deacon. He came up, greeted the Deacon effusively and shook hands.
"You're from Posey County, Ind., I believe? I used to live there myself. Know Judge Drake?"
"Very well," answered the Deacon a little stiffly, for he was on his guard against cordial strangers.
"You do;" said the stranger warmly. "Splendid man. Great lawyer. Fine judge. I had a great deal to do with him at one time."
"Probably he had a great deal to do with you," thought the Deacon. "He was a terror to evil-doers."
"Say, my friend," said the stranger abruptly, "you got a pass. I couldn't. That old rascal of a Provost-Marshal's down on me because I wouldn't let him into a speculation with me. He's on the make every time, and wants to hog everything. Say, you're a sly one. You worked him fine on that wounded son racket. I think I'd like to tie to you. I'll make it worth your while to turn over that pass to me. It'll fit me just as well as it does you. I'll give you $50 to let me use that pass just two days, and then I'll return it to you."
"Why, you're crazy," gasped the Deacon.
"O, come off, now," said the other impatiently. "Business is business. I haint no time to waste. It's more'n it's worth to me, but I'll make it $100, and agree to be back on this spot to-morrow night with your pass. You can't make $100 as easy any other way."
"I tell you, you're crazy," said the Deacon with rising indignation. "You can't have that pass for no amount o' money. I'm goin' to see my wounded son."
"That's a good enough gag for the Provost, but I understand you, in spite of your hayseed airs. Say, I'll make it $250."
"I tell you, you old fool," said the Deacon angrily, "I won't sell that pass for a mint o' money. Even if I wasn't goin' to see my son I wouldn't let you have it under any circumstances, to use in your traitorous business. Let go o' my coat, if you know what's good for you."
"Now, look here," said the stranger; "I've made you a mighty fair proposition more'n the pass's worth to you. If you don't accept it you'll wish you had. I'm onto you. I'll go right back to the Provost and let out on you. I know enough to settle your hash mighty sudden. Do you hear me?"
It was very near train time, and the Deacon was desperately anxious to not miss the train. He had already wasted more words on this man than he usually did on those he didn't like, and he simply ended the colloquy with a shove that sent the impertinent stranger into the gutter as if a mule had kicked him there, hurried on to the depot, and managed to get on just as the train was moving out.
It was night, and he dozed in his seat until the train reached Bridgeport, Ala., when everybody was turned out of the train, and a general inspection of the passengers made.
"Very sorry for you, sir," said the Lieutenant; "but we can't let you go on. Your pass is all right up to this point, but the Commandant at Nashville has no authority here. Orders are very strict against any more civilians coming to Chattanooga under any pretext. Rations are very short, and there is danger of their being much shorter, with the rebel cavalry slashing around everywhere at our cracker-line. We only saved two bridges to-night by the greatest luck. You'll have to go back to Nashville by the next train."
"O, Mister Lootenant," pleaded the Deacon, with drops of sweat on his brow. "Please let me go on. My only son lays there in Chattanooga, a-dyin' for all I know. He's bin a good soldier. Ask anybody that knows the 200th Injianny, and they'll tell you that there ain't no better soldier in the regiment than Corporal Si Klegg. You've a father yourself. Think how he'd feel if you was layin' in a hospital at the pint o' death, and him not able to git to you. You'll let me go on, I know you will. It aint in you to re fuse."
"I feel awful sorry for you sir," said the Lieutenant, much moved. "And if I had it in my power you should go. But I have got my orders, and I must obey them. I musn't allow anybody not actually be longing to the army to pass on across the river on the train."
"I'll walk every step o' the way, if you'll let me go on," said the Deacon.
"I tell you what you might do," said the Lieutenant suggestively. "It isn't a great ways over the mountains to Chattanooga. There's a herd of cattle starting over there. The Lieutenant in charge is a friend of mine. I'll speak to him to let you go along as a helper. It'll be something of a walk for you, but it's the best I can do. You'll get in there some time to-morrow."
"P'int out your friend to me, and let me go as quick as I kin."
"All right," said the Lieutenant in charge of the herd, when the circumstances were explained to him. "Free passes over my road to Chattanooga are barred. Everybody has to work his way. But I'll see that you get there, if Joe Wheeler's cavalry don't interfere. We are going over in the dark to avoid them. You can put your carpet-bag in that wagon there. Report to the Herd-Boss there."
"You look like a man of sense," said the Herd-Boss, looking him over, and handing him a hickory gad. "And I believe you're all right. I'm goin' to put you at the head, just behind the guide. Keep your eye peeled for rebel cavalry and bushwhackers, and stop and whistle for me if you see anything suspicious."
It was slow, toilsome work urging the lumbering cattle along over the steep, tortuous mountain paths. Naturally, the nimblest, friskiest steers got in the front, and they were a sore trial to the Deacon, to restrain them to the line of march, and keep them from straying off and getting lost. Of course, a Deacon in the Baptist Church could not swear under any provocation, but the way he remarked on the conduct of some of the "critters" as "dumbed," "confounded," and "tormented," had almost as vicious a ring as the profuse profanity of his fellow-herders.
Late in the afternoon the tired-out herd was halted in a creek bottom near Chattanooga. The patient animals lay down, and the weary, footsore Deacon, his clothes covered with burs, his hands and face seamed with bloody scratches, leaned on his frayed gad and looked around over the wilderness of tents, cabins, trains and interminable lines of breastworks and forts.
"Mr. Klegg," said the Herd-Boss, coming toward him, "you've done your duty, and you've done it well. I don't know how I could've ever got this lot through but for your help. Here's your carpet-sack, and here's a haversack o' rations I've put up for you. Take mighty good care of it, for you'll need every cracker. That lot o' tents you see over there, with a yaller flag flyin' over 'em, is a general hospital. Mebbe you'll find your son in there."
The Deacon walked straight to the nearest tent, lifted the flap and inquired:
"Does anybody here know where there is a boy named Si Klegg, of Co. Q, 200th Injianny Volunteers?"
"Pap, is that you?" said a weak voice in the far corner.
"Great, jumpin' Jehosephat, the Deacon!" ejaculated a tall skeleton of a man, who was holding a cup of coffee to Si's lips.
"Great Goodness, Shorty," said the Deacon, "is that you?"
"What's left o' me," answered Shorty.
"YOU are the father of that boy in the far end of the tent," said the Surgeon coming up to the Deacon, who had stepped outside of the tent to get an opportunity to think clearly. "I'm very glad you have come, for his life hangs by a thread. That thread is his pluck, aided by a superb constitution. Most men would have died on the field from such a wound. Medicine can do but little for him; careful nursing much more; but his own will and your presence and encouragement will do far more than either."
"How about Shorty?" inquired the Deacon.
"Shorty's all right if he don't get a setback. The danger from the blow on his head is pretty near past, if something don't come in to make further complications. He has been pulled down pretty badly by the low fever which has been epidemic here since we have settled down in camp, but he seems to be coming out from it all right."
"I've come down here to do all that's possible for these two boys. Now, how kin I best do it?" asked the Deacon.
"You can do good by helping nurse them. You could do much more good if there was more to do with, but we lack almost everything for the proper care of the wounded and sick. We have 15,000 men in hospital here, and not supplies enough for 3,000. When we will get more depends on just what luck our cavalry has in keeping the rebels off our line of supplies."
"Show me what to do, give me what you kin, and I'll trust in the Lord and my own efforts for the rest."
"Yes, and you kin count on me to assist," chimed in Shorty, who had come up. "I won't let you play lone hand long, Deacon, for I'm gittin' chirpier every day. If I could only fill up good and full once more on hardtack and pork, or some sich luxuries, I'd be as good as new agin."
"You mean you'd be put to bed under three feet of red clay, if you were allowed to eat all you want to," said the Surgeon. "There's where the wind is tempered to the shorn lamb. If you could eat as much as you want to eat, I should speedily have to bid good-by to you. For the present, Mr. Klegg, do anything that suggests itself to you to make these men comfortable. I need scarcely caution you to be careful about their food, for there is nothing that you can get hold of to over-feed them. But you'd better not let them have anything to eat until I come around again and talk to you more fully. I put them in your charge."
The Deacon's first thought was for Si, and he bestirred himself to do what he thought his wife, who was renowned as a nurse, would do were she there.
He warmed some water, and tenderly as he could command his strong, stubby hands, washed Si's face, hands and feet, and combed his hair. The overworked hospital attendants had had no time for this much-needed ministration. It was all that they could do to get the wounded under some sort of shelter, to dress their wounds, and prepare food. No well man could be spared from the trenches for hospital service, for the sadly-diminished Army of the Cumberland needed every man who could carry a musket to man the long lines to repel the constantly-threatened assaults.
The removal of the soil and grime of the march and battle had a remarkably vivifying effect upon Si. New life seemed to pulse through his veins and brightness return to his eyes.
"Makes me feel like a new man, Pap," he said faintly. "Feels better than anything I ever knowed. Do the same to Shorty, Pap."
"Come here, Shorty, you dirty little rascal," said the Deacon, assuming a severely maternal tone, at which Si laughed feebly but cheerily, "and let me wash your face and comb your hair."
Shorty demurred a little at being treated like a boy, and protested that he could wash himself, if the Deacon would get him some warm water; but he saw that the conceit amused Si, and submitted to having the Deacon give him a scrubbing with a soapy rag, giving a yell from time to time, in imitation of an urchin undergoing an unwilling ablution. Si turned his head so as to witness the operation, and grinned throughout it.
"I think you'd both feel still better if you could have your hair cut," said the Deacon, as he finished and looked from one to the other. "Your hair's too long for sick people, and it makes you look sicker'n you really are. But I hain't got no shears."
"I know I'd feel better if I was sheared," said Shorty. "Hain't neither of us had our hair cut since we started on the Tullyhomy campaign, and I think I look like the Wild Man from Borneo. I think I know a feller that has a pair o' shears that I kin borry."
The shears were found and borrowed. Then ensued a discussion as to the style of the cut. The boys wanted their hair taken off close to their heads, 'but the Deacon demurred to this for fear they would catch cold.
"No, Si," he said; "I'm goin' to cut your hair jest like your mother used to. She used to tie one of her garters from your forehead down across your ears, and cut off all the hair that stuck out. I hain't any garter, but I guess I kin find a string that'll do jest as well."
"There," said the Deacon, as he finished shearing off the superabundant hair, and surveyed the work. "That ain't as purty a job as if your mother'd done it, but you'll feel lighter and cleaner, and be healthier. If hair was only worth as much as wool is now, I'd have enough to pay me for the job. But I must clean it up keerfully and burn it, that the birds mayn't git hold of it and give you the headache."
The Deacon had his little superstitions, like a great many other hard-headed, sensible men.
"Well, Mr. Klegg," said the Surgeon, when he made his next round, "I must congratulate you on your patients. Both show a remarkable improvement. You ought to apply for a diploma, and go into the practice of medicine. You have done more for them in the two or three hours than I have been able to do in as many weeks. If you could only keep up this pace awhile I would be able to return them to duty very soon. I have an idea. Do you see that corn-crib over there?"
"The one built of poles? Yes."
"Well, I have some things stored there, and I have been able to hold it so far against the soldiers, who are snatching every stick of wood they can find, for their cabins, or for the breastworks, or firewood. I don't know how long I'll be able to keep it, unless I have personal possession. I believe you can make it into a comfortable place for these two men. That will help them, you can be by yourselves, you can take care of my things, and it will relieve the crowd in the tent."
"Splendid idea," warmly assented the Deacon. "I'll chink and daub it, and make it entirely comfortable, and fix up bunks in it for the boys. I know they'll be delighted at the change. I wonder where Shorty is?"
The Deacon had just remembered that he had not seen that individual for some little time, and looked around for him with some concern. It was well that he did. Shorty had come across the haversack that the Deacon had brought, and it awakened all his old predatory instincts, sharpened, if anything, by his feebleness. Without saying a word to any body, he had employed the time while the Surgeon and Deacon were in conversation in preparing one of his customary gorges after a long, hard march.
He had broken up the crackers into a tin-cup of water which sat by his side, while he was frying out pieces of fat pork in a half-canteen.
"My goodness, man!" shouted the Deacon, spring ing toward him. "Are you crazy? If you eat that mess you'll be dead before morning."
He sprang toward him, snatched the half-canteen from his hand, and threw its contents on the ground.
"That stuff's not fit to put into an ostrich's stomach," he said. "Mr. Klegg, you will have to watch this man very carefully."
"Can't I have none of it to eat?" said Shorty, dejectedly, with tears of weakness and longing in his eyes.
"Not a mouthful of that stuff," said the Surgeon; "but you may eat some of those crackers you have soaked there. Mr. Klegg, let him eat about half of those crackers no more."
Shorty looked as if the whole world had lost its charms. "Hardtack without grease's no more taste than chips," he murmured.
"Never mind, Shorty," said the Deacon, pityingly; "I'll manage to find you something that'll be better for you than that stuff."
The Surgeon had the boys carried over to the corncrib, and the Deacon went to work to make it as snug as possible. All the old training of his pioneer days when literally with his own hands, and with the rudest materials, he had built a comfortable cabin in the wilderness of the Wabash bottoms for his young wife came back to him. He could not see a brick, a piece of board, a stick, or a bit of iron anywhere without the thought that it might be made useful, and carrying it off. As there were about 40,000 other men around the little village of Chattanooga with similar inclinations, the Deacon had need of all his shrewdness in securing coveted materials, but it was rare that anybody got ahead of him. He rearranged and patched the clapboards on the roof until it was perfectly rain-tight, chinked up the spaces between the poles with stones, corncobs and pieces of wood, and plastered over the outside with clay, until the walls were draft proof. He hung up an old blanket for a door, and hired a teamster to bring in a load of silky-fine beech leaves which, when freshly fallen, make a bed that cannot be surpassed. These, by spreading blankets over them, made very comfort able couches for Si, Shorty and himself.
Then the great problem became one of proper food for the boys. Daily the rations were growing shorter in Chattanooga, and if they had been plentiful they were not suited to the delicate stomachs of those seriously ill. Si was slowly improving, but the Deacon felt that the thing necessary to carry him over the breakers and land him safely on the shores of recovery was nourishing food that he could relish.
He had anxiously sought the entire length of the camp for something of that kind. He had visited all the sutlers, and canvassed the scanty stocks in the few stores in Chattanooga. He had bought the sole remaining can of tomatoes at a price which would have almost bought the field in which the tomatoes were raised, and he had turned over the remnant lots of herring, cheese, etc., he found at the sutler's, with despair at imagining any sort of way in which they could be worked up to become appetizing and assimilative to Si's stomach.
"What you and Si needs," he would say to Shorty, "is chicken and fresh 'taters. If you could have a good mess of chicken and 'taters every day you'd come up like Spring shoats. I declare I'd give that crick bottom medder o' mine, which hasn't it's beat on the Wabash, to have mother's coopful o' chickens here this minute."
But a chicken was no more to be had in Chattanooga than a Delmonico banquet. The table of the Major-General commanding the Army of the Cumberland might have a little more hardtack and pork on it than appeared in the tents of the privates, and be cooked a little better, but it had nothing but hardtack and pork.
The Deacon made excursions into the country, and even ran great risks from the rebel pickets and bushwhackers, in search of chickens. But the country had been stripped, by one side or the other, of everything eatable, and the people that remained in their cheerless homes were dependent upon what they could get from the United States Commissary.
One day he found the Herd-Boss in camp, and poured forth his troubles to him. The Herd-Boss sympathized deeply with him, and cudgeled his brains for a way to help.
"I'll tell you what you might do," he said at length, "if you care to take the risk. We're goin' back with some teams to Bridgeport to-morrow mornin'. You might git in one of the wagons and ride back 10 or 15 miles to a little valley that I remember that's there, and which I think looks like it hain't bin foraged. I was thinkin' as we come through the other day that I might git something goo'd to eat up there, and I'd try it some day. No body seems to 've noticed it yit. But it may be chock full o' rebels, for all I know, and a feller git jumped the moment he sets foot in it."
"I'll take my chances," said the Deacon. "I'll go along with you to-morrer mornin'."
The Deacon found that a ride in a wagon was not such an unqualified favor as he might have thought. The poor, half-fed, overworked mules went so slowly that the Deacon could make better time walking, and he was too merciful to allow them to pull him up hill.
The result was that, with helping pry the stalled wagons out and work in making the roads more passable, the Deacon expended more labor than if he had started out to walk in the first place.
It was late in the afternoon when the Herd-Boss said:
"There, you take that path to the right, and in a little ways you'll come out by a purty good house. I hain't seen any Johnnies around in this neighborhood since I've bin travelin' this route, but you'd better keep your eye peeled, all the same. If you see any, skip back to the road here, and wait awhile. Somebody 'll be passin' before long."
Thanking him, the Deacon set out for the house, hoping to be able to reach it, get some fowls, and be back to Chattanooga before morning. If he got the chickens, he felt sanguine that he could save Si's life.
He soon came in sight of the house, the only one, apparently, for miles, and scanned it carefully. There were no men to be seen, though the house appeared to be inhabited. He took another look at the heavy revolver which he had borrowed from the Surgeon, and carried ready for use in the pocket of Si's overcoat, and began a strategic advance, keep ing well out of sight under the cover of the sumachs lining the fences.
Still he saw no one, and finally he became so bold as to leave his covert and walk straight to the front door. A dozen dogs charged at him with a wild hullabaloo, but he had anticipated this, and picked up a stout hickory switch in the road, which he wielded with his left hand with so much effect that they ran howling back under the house. He kept his right hand firmly grasping his revolver.
An old man and his wife appeared at the door; both of them shoved back their spectacles until they rested on the tops of their heads, and scanned him searchingly. The old woman had a law-book in her hand, and the old man a quill pen. She had evidently been reading to him, and he copying.
The old man called out to him imperiously:
"Heah, stranger, who air yo'? An' what d'yo' want?"
The tone was so harsh and repellant that the Deacon thought that he would disarm hostility by announcing himself a plain citizen, like themselves. So he replied:
"I'm a farmer, and a citizen from Injianny, and I want to buy some chickens for my son, who's sick in the hospital at Chattanoogy."
"Injianny!" sneered the old man. "Meanest people in the world live in Injianny. Settled by scalawags that we'uns run outen Tennessee bekase they'uns wuz too onery to live heah."
"Citizen!" echoed the woman. "They'uns heap sight wuss'n the soldjers. Teamsters, gamblers, camp-followers, thieves, that'll steal the coppers off en a dead man's eyes. I had a sister that married a man that beat her, and then run off to Injianny, leavin' her with six children to support. All the mean men go to Injianny. Cl'ar out. We don't want nobody 'round heah, and specially no Injiannians. They'uns is a pizun lot."
"Yes, cl'ar out immejitly," commanded the old man. "I'm a Jestice of the Peace, and ef you don't go to wunst I'll find a way to make yo'. We've a law agin able-bodied vagrants. Cl'ar out, now."
"Come, have a little sense," said the Deacon, not a little roiled at the abuse of his State. "I'm just as respectable a man as you dare be. I never stole anything. I've bin all my life a regler member o' the Baptist Church strict, close-communion, total-immersion Baptists. All I want o' you is to buy some o' them chickens there, and I'll give you a fair price for 'em. No use o' your flaring up over a little matter o' bizniss."
"I don't believe a word of hit," said the woman, who yet showed that she was touched by the allusion to the Baptist Church, as the Deacon had calculated, for most of the people of that section professed to be of that denomination. "What'll yo' gi' me for them chickens?"
The bargaining instinct arose in the Deacon's mind, but he repressed it. He had no time to waste. He would make an offer that at home would be considered wildly extravagant, close the business at once and get back to Chattanooga. He said: "I'll give you a dollar apiece for five."
"Humph," said the woman contemptuously. "I don't sell them for no dollar apiece. They'uns 's all we got to live on now. If I sell 'em I must git somethin' that'll go jest as fur. You kin have 'em at $5 apiece."
"Betsy," remonstrated the old man, "I'm afeard this 's wrong, and as a Magistrate I shouldn't allow hit. Hit's traffickin' with the inemy."
"No, hit hain't," she asserted. "He's not a soljer. He's a citizen, and don't belong to the army. Besides, he's a Baptist, and hit hain't so bad as ef he wuz a Presbyterian, or a shoutin' Methodist. Most of all, I'm nearly dead for some coffee, and I know whar I kin git a pound o' rayle coffee for $10."
The Deacon had been pondering. To his thrifty mind it seemed like a waste to give a crisp, new $5 bill for such an insignificant thing as a chicken. Like Indiana farmers of his period, he regarded such things as chickens, eggs, butter, etc., as "too trifling for full-grown men to bother about. They were wholly women-folks' truck." He fingered the bills in his bosom, and thought how many bushels of wheat and pounds of pork they represented. Then he thought of Si in the hospital, and how a little chicken broth would build him up. Out came five new $5 bills.
"Here's your money," he said, thumbing over the bills clumsily and regretfully.
The old woman lowered her spectacles from the top of her head, and scrutinized them.
"What's them?" she asked suspiciously.
"Why, them's greenbacks Government money the very best kind," explained the Deacon. "You can't have no better'n that."
"Don't tech hit! Don't have nothin' to do with it!" shouted the old man. "Hit's high treason to take Federal money. Law's awful severe about that. Not less'n one year, nor more'n 20 in the penitentiary, for a citizen, and death for a soljer, to be ketched dealin' in the inemy's money. I kin turn yo' right to the law. Ole man, take yo' money and cl'ar off the place immejitly. Go out and gather up yo' chickens, Betsy, and fasten 'em in the coop. Go away, sah, 'or I shell blow the horn for help."
"I wuz talkin' 'bout Confederit money," said the woman, half apologetically. "I wouldn't tech that 'ere stuff with a soap-stick. Yo'd better git away as quick as yo' kin ef yo' know what's good for yo'."
She went into the yard to gather up her flock, and the Deacon walked back into the road. When out of sight he sat down on a rock to meditate. There was not another house in sight anywhere, and it was rapidly growing dark. If he went to an other house he would probably have the same experience. He had set his heart on having those chickens, and he was a pretty stubborn man. Somehow, in spite of himself, he parted the bushes and looked through to see where the woman was housing her fowls, and noted that it was going to be very dark. Then he blushed vividly, all to himself, over the thoughts which arose.
"To think of me, a Deacon in the Baptist Church, akchelly meditatin' about goin' to another man's coop at night and stealin' his chickens? Could Maria ever be made to believe such a thing? I can't be lieve it myself."
Then he made himself think of all the other ways in which he might get chickens. They all seemed impossible. He turned again to those in the coop.
"Nothin' but measly dunhills, after all dear at a fip-and-a-bit, and yet I offered her a dollar apiece for 'em. If she'd bin a real Christian woman she'd bin glad to 've given me the chickens for as sick as man as Si is. Gracious, mother'd give every chicken on the place, if it'd help a sick person, and be glad o' the chance. They're both tough old rebels, anyhow, and their property oughtter be confiscated."
He stopped and considered the morals of the affair a little further, and somehow the idea of taking the fowls by stealth did not seem so abhorrent as at first. Then, everything was overslaughed by the thought of going into camp with the precious birds, of cleaning one and carefully stewing it, making a delicate, fragrant broth, the very smell of which would revive Si, and every spoonful bring nourishment and strength.
"Mebbe the army's demoralizin' me," he said to himself; "but I believe it's a work o' necessity and mercy, that don't stand on nice considerations. I'm goin' to have five o' them chickens, or know the reason why."
As has been before remarked, when Deacon Klegg made up his mind something had to happen. It was now quite dark. He took one of the $5 bills out of his breast pocket and put it in a pocket where it would be handy. He looked over at the house, and saw the old man and woman sitting by the fire smoking. He picked up the hickory withe to keep off the dogs, and made a circuit to reach the chicken-coop from the rear of the house. The dogs were quarreling and snarling over their supper, and paid no attention to him, until he had reached the coop, when they came at him full tilt.
The Deacon dealt the foremost ones such vicious blows that the beasts fell as if they had been cut in two, and ran howling under the house. With a quickness and skill that would have done credit to any veteran in the army, he snatched five chickens from their roosts, wrung their necks, and gathered them in his left hand. Alarmed by the noise of the barking and yelping, the old couple flung open the door and rushed out on the porch with shouts. The open door threw a long lane of bright light directly on the Deacon.
"Blow the horn, granddad blow the horn," screamed the woman. Her husband snatched the tin horn down from the wall, and put all his anger into a ringing blast. It was immediately answered by a shot from a distant hill. Still holding his game in his left hand, the Deacon pulled the $5 bill out of his pocket with his right, walked up to the porch, laid it at the woman's feet and put a stone on it.
"There's full pay for your dumbed old dunghills, you cantankerous rebel," said he, as he disappeared into the darkness. "Go into the house and pray that the Lord may soften your heart, which is harder than Pharaoh's, until you have some Christian grace."
When he reached the road he could hear the sound of hoofs galloping toward the house. He smiled grimly, but kept under the shadow of the trees until he reached the main road leading to Chattanooga, where he was lucky enough to find a train making its slow progress toward the town, and kept with it until he was within our lines.
THE Deacon reached the corn-crib again be fore daylight, and found Si and Shorty fast asleep. This relieved him much, for he had been disturbed with apprehensions of what might happen them while he was gone. Though he was more tired, it seemed to him, than he had ever been before in all his life, yet he nerved himself up to clean and cook one of the chickens, so as to give Si a delightful surprise when he awoke.
The Deacon had grown so wise in the army ways that his first problem was how to hide the remaining four fowls until he should need them.
"I'd simply be mobbed," he communed with him self, "if daylight should come, and show me with four chickens in my possession. The whole Army o' the Cumberland 'd jump me as one man, and I'd be lucky if I got away with my life. Mebbe even the General himself 'd send a regiment down to take the things away from me. But what kin I do with 'em? If I hang 'em up inside the corn-crib they'll spile. The weather is cold enough to keep 'em outside, but I'd need a burglar-proof safe to hold on to 'em. It's just awful that morals are so bad in the army, and that men will take things that don't belong to 'em."
He stopped short, for there arose the disturbing thought as to just how he himself had come into possession of the birds, and he murmured:
"'Tain't in me to blame 'em. What is 't the Bible says about 'Let him who is without sin cast the first stone?' Certainly I'm not the man to be heavin' dornicks just now."
Mindful of past experiences, he took the fowls in one hand, when he went down to the branch with a camp-kettle to get water. He washed his face and hands in the cold water, which revived him, and returning, built a fire and hung the kettle over it, while he carefully picked and cleaned one of the chickens for cooking. Then he plucked and cleaned the others, and burned the feathers and entrails in the fire.
"Chicken feathers 's mighty tell-tale things," he said to himself. "I once knowed a man that was finally landed in the penitentiary because he didn't look out for chicken feathers. He'd bin stealin' hosses, and was hidin' with them in the big swamp, where nobody would 've suspicioned he was, if he hadn't stole chickens from the neighborhood to live on, and left their feathers layin' around careless like, and some boys, who thought the foxes was killin' the chickens, followed up the trail and run onto him."
Then a bright idea occurred to him. He had a piece of board, which he laid on the stones that formed the foundation of one end of the crib, immediately under the flooring, and on this shelf he laid the other chickens.
"I remember that Wash Jenkins that we arrested for counterfeitin' had hid his pile o' pewter dollars in the underpinnin' of his cabin, and we'd never found any stuff to convict him, except by the merest accident. We hunted all through his cabin, below and in the loft, pulled the clapboards off, and dug up every likely place in the yard, and just about as we wuz givin' the whole thing up, somebody pulled a board out o' the underpinnin' to lay in the bed o' his wagon, and the bogus dollars run out. Wash made shoes for the State down at Jeffersonville for some years on account of that man wantin' a piece o' board for his wagon-bed."
But the astute Deacon had overlooked one thing in his calculations. The crisp morning air was filled with the pungent smell of burning feathers and flesh, and the fragrance of stewing chicken. It reached hungry men in every direction, made their mouths water and their minds wonder where it could come from.
First came a famished dog, sniffing and nosing around. His appearance filled the Deacon with alarm. Here was danger to his hidden stock that he had not thought of. He took his resolution at once. Decoying the cur near him he fastened a sinewy hand upon his neck, cut his throat with his jack-knife, and dragged the carcass some distance away from the corn-crib.
"I'll git a mattock and shovel and bury it after awhile," he murmured to himself, as he returned and washed his hands. "He's settled for good, any way. He won't be snoopin' around steal in' my chickens. I hope there hain't no more measly hounds around. Should've thought they wuz all starved out long ago. My! but that chicken does smell so nice. How Si and Shorty will enjoy it. It'll build 'em right up. I'd like awfully to take some of it myself, but they'll need every drop, poor fellows."
He got a spoon, and tested some of the broth appreciatively.
"Mother'd done much better, at home in her own kitchen, or anywhere you could've put her, than me with my clumsy ways," he continued, "but she never cooked anything that'll taste better to them boys."
A negro cook appeared, with a tin cup in his hand.
"Afo' de Lawd, Boss, is hit you dat's cookin' dat chicking? I done smelled hit more'n a miled away, and hab been huntin' foh hit all ober camp. Say, Boss, foh de Lawd's sake, jist gib me a little teenty, weenty sup in dis heah tin cup for my boss. He's an ossifer, an' is layin' in de ossifer's horsepitol ober dar. Hit'll do him a powerful sight ob good."
"Awful Sorry, my friend," said the Deacon, hardening his heart, "but I haven't a bit to spare. Hain't got as much as I need for my own son and his partner. I couldn't spare a mouthful for the General o' the army even. Let your Colonel or Major sendout men to git chickens for himself."
"My boss'll be powehful disappunted," said the negro, with his big, white eyes full of tears. "He's powehful weak, foh sartin. A leetle sup ob broth'd do him an everlastin' world ob good. He ain't no Kunnel or Majah. He's only a Cappen Cappen McGillicuddy, ob the 200th Injianny."
"Capt. McGillicuddy, o' the 200th Injianny," said the Deacon, much moved. "You Bay you're Capt. McGillicuddy's man?"
"Yes, boss."
"And he's layin' very low over in a tent there?"
"Yes, boss. Got shot in de thigh in de battle, an' den had de feber. He's de very best man in de world, and I'd do ennyt'ing to help him. He's jest starvin' to def. I can't git nuffin' dat'll lay on his stummick, and stick to his ribs. I've done ransacked de hull camp and de country clean up to Jineral Bragg's Headquartehs. De tings dat I couldn't git wuz eider chained down, or had a man wid a gun ober dem. Foh Gawd's sake, boss, jist gib me a half a cupful for him."
"There's no man in the world I'd rather help than Capt. McGillicuddy," said the Deacon. "He's bin a mighty good friend to my son. I know that Si and Shorty'd divide their last crumb with him. Look here, Sambo, if I give you a cupful o' this broth and a piece o' the meat, will you git down on your knees and swear you'll take every bit straight to him, and not take even a smidjin of it for your self?"
"De Lawd be praised and magnified foreber, but I will," said the negro, dropping on his knees and holding up his hand. "Swar me on a pile o' Bibles big as a haystack. I'd radder go to hell on my knees backward dan tech de fust drap ob dat. I's too anxious to hab Cappen McGillicuddy git well, so I is. What'd become ob dis pore niggeh if he should die? No, indeedy. Hope I'll drap dead in my tracks if I taste de least wee morssel."
"I'm goin' to trust you," said the Deacon, stirring up the savory mess, ladling out a generous cupful, adding a drumstick, and covering the cup with a piece of paper. "Now, carry it carefully. Every drop's worth its weight in gold."
The Deacon looked a little regretful at the shrinking of the contents of the kettle, made by taking out the cupful, and said:
"Mebbe I oughtn't 've done it. The boys need every spoonful. But if it'd bin themselves, I know they'd have given their Captain more'n I did. He is twice blessed that giveth, and probably they'll git more somehow on account o' what I've given away. But I mustn't give any more."
"Say, Mister," said a very feeble voice at his elbow, "can't you give me a cupful o' that? It smells so good. It smells like home. I smelled it away over there in the tent, and it seemed to me that if I could get some of it I'd certainly get well, though they all say they think there's no hope for me. I crawled out of the tent and come while the nurse was asleep and wasn't watching. They won't let me get upon my feet when they're watching me, but I fooled them this time."
As he spoke, he sank down from sheer exhaustion, but still held out his cup imploringly, while an in tense longing filled his great, blue eyes.
The Deacon looked pityingly at him. His wan face was fair and delicate as a girl's, and even be fore disease had wasted him he had been very tall and slender. Now his uniform flapped around his shrunken body and limbs.
The Deacon could not stand the appeal of those great, plaintive eyes and that wasted form.
"The Lord blesses the giver," he said, taking the cup from the thin hand, and proceeding to fill it from the kettle. "It may be that my own son will have the more from what I give this poor sick boy. It may be bread cast upon the waters. At any rate, I'm goin' to take the chances. There's still enough left for one meal for Si and Shorty, and I've four chickens left. After that the Lord'll provide. I'll do this in His name, and I'll trust Him. There, my boy, let the cup set on the ground till it cools, and then drink it, and here's a piece o' bread to go with it."
The boy could scarcely wait for the cooling, and his swimming eyes expressed a gratitude that no words could convey.
"Here, pardner, I'll take a cupful o' that 'ere, too," said a frazzled and frowsy teamster, shambling up through the half-light of the dawn. "I smelled it, and follered my nose till it brung me here. My, but it smells good! Jest fill my cup, and I'll do as much for you some time when you're hungry."
"Go away, Groundhog," said the Deacon, recognizing him. "I've only got a little here for Si and Shorty. I hain't a spoonful left for myself, and none to give away. Go and get your own chickens, and bile 'em yourself."
"Can't have any, eh?" said Groundhog, swagger ing up. "We'll see about that, old man. I watched you givin' away to that nigger, and this little dead-beat here, but you hain't none to give me, who is doin' hard work for the army, and helpin' keep 'em from starvin'. If you've got enough for that nigger and that whinin' boy you've got enough for me, and I'm goin' to have it, for I need it."
"You're not goin' to have a dumbed spoonful, Groundhog. Go away. I hain't enough for Si and Shorty, I tell you. Go away."
"And I tell you I need it more'n they do, for I'm workin' for the whole army, while they're layin' around, makin' out they're sick. You give me a cupful o' that and I'll go away and make no trouble.
"If you don't I'll kick the whole kettle over. An old fool citizen like you 's got no business in camp, any way, and no right to be havin' things that ought to go to the laborin' men."
And he raised his foot threateningly.
The Deacon laid down the spoon with which he had been stirring the broth, and doubling up his mighty fist, placed himself between Groundhog and the kettle, and said:
"Groundhog, I'm an old man, and always have bin a man o' peace. I don't believe in no kind o' fightin', nor molestin' no one. I belong to church, and 've always tried to lead a Christian life. But if you don't skip out o' here this minute, I'll bust your head as I would a punkin."
Groundhog retreated a few steps, but still kept up a show of determination.
"What are you foolin' with the ole hayseed for?" said another teamster, coming up behind Groundhog. "Slap the old hawbuck over, snatch up the kittle and run with it. I'll do it if you don't."
"Go for 'em, Deacon; I'm with you. We kin lick both of 'em," shouted Shorty, who had been awakened by the noise of the dispute, and came tottering out, trying to raise a stick of wood for a club.
At that moment a rebel cannon roared on Lookout Mountain, just over them, and the wicked screech of a shell cleft the air. Both of the team sters dropped on the ground in a paralysis of fear.
"The rebels 've got a new battery planted on the mountain," said Shorty, turning to study the smoke that drifted away, in order to get its location.
"The shell struck right over there, and hain't bursted yet," said the sick boy, looking up from sipping his broth, and pointing to a spot a short distance away. "I can hear the hissing of the fuse."
The teamsters sprang up like jacks-in-the-box, and ran with all the power of their legs. By the time the explosion came they were hundreds of yards away.
A column of dirt and stones was thrown up, of which a little sprinkle reached the fire. Thousands of voices yelled derisively at the rebel gunner.
"They're shootin' wuss and wuss every day," remarked Shorty, after judicially considering the shot and making comparison with its predecessors. "They'll git so after awhile that they can't hit the Tennessee Valley."
"Shorty," said the Deacon, "take this revolver and watch that kittle while I wash Si's face, and git him ready for his breakfast. If you let anybody git away with it you lose your breakfast. If I ever go into restaurantin' for a bizniss, I'm goin' to find a quieter neighborhood than Chattanoogy. I ain't exactly grumblin', so to speak, but there's enough excitement before breakfast every mornin' to last me a full year."
CONTENTS
PREFACE
SI KLEGG
CHAPTER I. THE DEACON PROVIDES
CHAPTER II. THE DEACON ATTEMPTED RESTITUTION
CHAPTER III. A COW IN CAMP
CHAPTER IV. THE DEACON'S PLAN
CHAPTER V. TROUBLE ENCOUNTERED
CHAPTER VI. THE BOYS IN THE OLD HOME ON BEAN BLOSSOM CREEK
CHAPTER VII. WEEKS OF CONVALESCENCE
CHAPTER VIII. SI IS PROMOTED
CHAPTER IX. SHORTY IN TROUBLE
CHAPTER X. SHORTY AS ORDERLY
CHAPTER XI. SHORTY RUNS HEADQUARTERS
CHAPTER XII. SHORTY ON A HUNT
CHAPTER XIII. AN UNEXPECTED MEETING
CHAPTER XIV. GUARDING THE KNIGHTS
CHAPTER XV. OFF FOR THE FRONT
CHAPTER XVI. THE TROUBLESOME BOYS
CHAPTER XVII. THE FRIGHTENED SURGEON
CHAPTER XVIII. NO PEACE FOR SI AND SHORTY
CHAPTER XIX. THE FIRST SCRAPE
CHAPTER XX. AFTER THE SKIRMISH
CHAPTER XXI. CHATTANOOGA AT LAST
ILLUSTRTIONS
Git Down from There! Commanded the Deacon 21
Well, I'll Be Dumbed, Muttered the Deacon. 35
Purty Good Milker, is She? Inquired the Deacon 51
The Deacon Reconnoitered the Situation 62
In Despair, the Deacon Turned to a Major. 77
"Arabella Curled Her Lip at Seeing Maria Take the Baby." 87
Shorty Went Outside Where There Was More Air. 101
Why, It's Shorty! Said the General, Recognizing Him At Once 129
"What Do You Think of That?" Said the Gambler. 141
Don't You Know Better Than to Come To Headquarters Like That? 156
How Do You Like the Looks of That, Old Butternut 169
The Prisoners Had Too Much Solicitude About Their Garments to Think of Anything Else. 185
Have Come, Sir, in the Name of The People Of Indiana To Demand the Release of Those Men. 199
I'll Send You a Catridge and Cap for Every Word You Write About Maria. 213
Here, You Young Brats, What Are You up to 225
Smallpox, Your Granny, Said si 237
There Was a Chorus of Yells, and then Another Volley. 247
Watching the Bridge Burners at Work 259
Wild Shooting of the Boys Saves The Surprised Colored Man. 273
"Si Klegg, of the 200th Ind., and Shorty, his Partner," were born years ago in the brain of John McElroy, Editor of The National Tribune.
These sketches are the original ones published in The National Tribune, revised and enlarged somewhat by the author. How true they are to nature every veteran can abundantly testify from his own service. Really, only the name of the regiment was invented. There is no doubt that there were several men of the name of Josiah Klegg in the Union Army, and who did valiant service for the Government. They had experiences akin to, if not identical with, those narrated here, and substantially every man who faithfully and bravely carried a musket in defense of the best Government on earth had sometimes, if not often, experiences of which those of Si Klegg are a strong reminder.'
The Publishers.
THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO THE RANK AND FILE OF
THE GRANDEST ARMY EVER MUSTERED FOR WAR.
THE Deacon was repaid seventyfold by Si's and Shorty's enjoyment of the stew he had prepared for them, and the extraordinary good it had seemed to do them as they lay wounded in the hospital at Chattanooga, to which place the Deacon had gone as soon as he learned that Si was hurt in the battle.
"I won't go back on mother for a minute," said Si, with brightened eyes and stronger voice, after he had drained the last precious drop of the broth, and was sucking luxuriously on the bones; "she kin cook chickens better'n any woman that ever lived. All the same, I never knowed how good chicken could taste before."
"Jehosephat, the way that does take the wrinkles out down here," said Shorty, rubbing appreciatively the front of his pantaloons. "I feel as smooth as if I'd bin starched and ironed, and there's new life clear down to my toe-nails. If me and Si could only have a chicken a day for the next 10 days we'd feel like goin' up there on the Ridge and bootin' old Bragg off the hill. Wouldn't we, Si?"
"Guess so," acceded Si cheerily, "if every one made us feel as much better as this one has. How in the world did you git the chicken, Pap?"
"Little boys should eat what's set before 'em, and ask no questions," said the father, coloring. "It's bad manners to be pryin' around the kitchen to find out where the vittles come from."
"Well, I've got to take off my hat to you as a forager," said Shorty. "A man that kin find a chicken in Chattenoogy now, and hold on to it long enough to git it in the pot, kin give me lessons in the art. When I git strong enough to travel agin I want you to learn me the trick."
The Deacon did not reply to the raillery. He was pondering anxiously about the preservation of his four remaining chickens. The good results manifest from cooking the first only made him more solicitous about the others. Several half-famished dogs had come prowling around, from no one knew where. He dared not kill them in daylight. He knew that probably some, if not all, of them had masters, and the worse and more dangerous a dog is the more bitterly his owner resents any attack upon him. Then, even hungrier looking men with keen eyes and alert noses wandered near, with inquiry in every motion. He would have liked to take Shorty into his confidence, but he feared that the ravenous appetite of convalescence would prove too much for that gentleman's continence.
He kept thinking about it while engaged in what he called "doin' up the chores," that is, making Si and Shorty comfortable for the day, before he lay down to take a much-needed rest. He had never been so puzzled in all his life. He thought of burying them in the ground, but dismissed that because he would be seen digging the hole and putting them in, and if he should escape observation, the dogs would be pretty certain to nose them out and dig them up. Sinking them in the creek suggested itself, but had to be dismissed for various reasons, one being fear that the ravenous catfish would devour them.
"If I only had a balloon," he murmured to himself, "I might send 'em up in that. That's the only safe way I kin think of. Yes, there's another way. I've intended to put a stone foundation under that crib, and daub it well, so's to stop the drafts. It orter be done, but it's a hard day's work, even with help, and I'm mortal tired. But I s'pose it's the only way, and I've got to put in stones so big that a dog can't pull 'em out."
He secured a couple of negroes, at prices which would have paid for highly-skilled labor in Indiana, to roll up enough large stones to fill in the space under the crib, and then he filled all the crevices with smaller ones, and daubed over the whole with clay.
"There," he said, as he washed the clay from his hands, "I think them chickens are safe for to-night from the dogs, and probably from the men. Think of all that trouble for four footy chickens not worth more'n four bits in Injianny. They're as much bother as a drove o' steer'd be. I think I kin now lay down and take a wink o' sleep."
He was soon sleeping as soundly as only a thoroughly-tired man can, and would have slept no one knows how long, had not Shorty succeeded in waking him towards morning, after a shaking which exhausted the latter's strength.
"Wake up, Mister Klegg," said Shorty; "it must 've bin rainin' dogs, and they're tryin' to tear the shanty down."
The Deacon rubbed his eyes and hastened a moment to the clamor outside. It seemed as if there were a thousand curs surrounding them, barking, howling, snarling, fighting, and scratching. He snatched up a club and sprang out, while Shorty tottered after. He ran into the midst of the pack, and began laying about with his strong arms. He broke the backs of some, brained others, and sent the others yelping with pain and fright, except two particularly vicious ones, who were so frenzied with hunger that they attacked him, and bit him pretty severely before he succeeded in killing them. Then he went around to the end of the crib nearest his precious hoard, and found that the hungry brutes had torn away his clay and even the larger of the stones, and nothing but their fighting among themselves had prevented the loss of his chickens. "What in tarnation set the beasts onto us," inquired Shorty wonderingly. "They were wuss'n cats around catnip, rats after aniseed, or cattle about a spot o' blood. I've felt that me and Si wuz in shape to bring the crows and buzzards around, but didn't expect to start the dogs up this way."
"I've got four chickens hid under the underpinnin' there for you and Si," confessed the Deacon. "The dogs seemed to 've smelled 'em out and wuz after 'em."
He went to the hiding place and pulled out the fowls one after another. "They are all here," he said; "but how in the world am I goin' to keep 'em through another night?"
"You ain't a-goin' to keep 'em through another night, are you?" asked Shorty anxiously, as he gloated over the sight. "Le's eat 'em to-day."
"And starve to-morrer?" said the thrifty Deacon rebukingly. "I don't know where any more is comin' from. It was hard enough work gittin' these. I had calculated on cookin' one a day for you and Si. That'd make 'em provide for four more days. After that only the Lord knows what we'll do."
"Inasmuch as we'll have to trust to the Lord at last, anyway," said Shorty, with a return of his old spirit, "why not go the whole gamut? A day or two more or less won't make no difference to Him. I feel as if I could eat 'em all myself without Si's help."
"I tell you what I'll do," said the Deacon, after a little consideration. "I feel as if both Si and you kin stand a little more'n you had yesterday. I'll cook two to-day. We'll send a big cupful over to Capt. McGillicuddy. That'll leave us two for to-morrer. After that we'll have to trust to Providence."
"If ever there was a time when He could use His ravens to advantage," said the irreverent Shorty, "it's about now. They carried bread and meat to that old prophet. There's a lot o' mighty good men down here in this valley now in terrible want of grub, and nothin' but birds kin git over the roads to the rear very well."
"Don't speak lightly o' the Lord and His ways, Shorty," said the Deacon severely.
"'Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace.
Behind a frowning Providence
He hides a smilin' face,'
as the hymn says. Here, take these chickens in one hand and this pistol in the other, and guard 'em while I go down to the branch and wash and git some water. Then I'll cook your breakfast."
Again the savory smell of the boiling chickens attracted sick boys, who begged for a little of the precious food. Having double the quantity, the Deacon was a little more liberal, but he had to restrain Shorty, who, despite his own great and gnawing hunger, would have given away the bigger part of the broth to those who so desperately needed it.
"No, Shorty," said the prudent Deacon. "Our first duty is to ourselves. We kin help them by gittin' you and Si on your feet. We can't feed the whole Army o' the Cumberland, though I'd like to."
A generous cupful was set aside for Capt. McGillicuddy, which his servant received with gratitude and glowing reports of the good the former supply had done him.
With the daylight came the usual shells from the rebel guns on Lookout Mountain. Even the Deacon was getting used to this noisy salutation to the morn, and he watched the shells strike harmlessly in the distance with little tremor of his nerves. As the firing ceased, amid the derisive yells of the army, he said quietly:
"That last shell's saved me a good deal o' work diggin'. It, tore out a hole that'll just do to bury the carcasses of these dogs."
Accordingly, he dragged the carcasses over after breakfast, and threw the dirt back in the hole upon them.
The two remaining chickens were stowed in a haversack, and during the day hung outside from the ridge-pole of the crib, where they were constantly under the eye of either the Deacon or Shorty, who took turns watching them. That night the Deacon slept with them under his head, though they were beginning to turn a little, and their increasing gameness brought a still larger herd of dogs about. But the Deacon had securely fastened the door, and he let them rage around as they pleased.
When they were cooked and eaten the next morning the Deacon became oppressed with anxious thought. Where were the next to come from? The boys had improved so remarkably that he was doubly anxious to continue the nourishing diet, which he felt was necessary to secure their speedy recovery. Without it they would probably relapse.
He could think of nothing but to go back again to the valley where he got the chickens, and this seemed a most desperate chance, for the moment that either of the old couple set eyes on him he or she would give the alarm. He went to sleep thinking about the matter, and when he rose up in the morning, and had nothing to offer his boys but the coarse and uninviting hardtack, pork and coffee, he made up his mind to take the chances, whatever they might be. He set out again immediately after breakfast, and by cutting across the mountain came to the entrance to the valley a little after noon. Keeping close under cover of the woods, he approached within sight of the house, and carefully scanned it. What to do he had scarcely planned. He was only determined to have some fresh meat to take back to camp. He was going to get it as honestly and fairly as he could, but fresh meat he must have.
He could see no other house anywhere in the distance, and probably if he went farther he would run into rebel bushwhackers and guerrillas, who were watching from the high ridges. So long as he kept under cover of the woods he would feel all right, for he was as skilled in woodcraft as any of them, and could take care of himself. But if he should come out into the open fields and road to cross the valley they would have him at an advantage. He was confirmed in this fear by seeing several little clouds of smoke rise up above the tops of the trees on the ridge.
"There's a gang of rebels in camp over there," said he to himself, with a woodman's quick reading of every sign. "That smoke's from their fires. 'Tain't enough of it to be clearin' ground; people ain't clearin' up at this time o' year; that ground over there ain't the kind they'd clear up for anything. 'Twouldn't raise white beans if it was cleared; and you don't hear nobody choppin'."
He looked again at the house. Everything was very quiet and peaceful around it. There was no stock in the barnyard or fields, and the only signs of life were the smoke rising from one of the great stone chimneys, the chickens picking and scratching in the garden, a couple of negresses, who occasionlly passed back and forth between the main house and another cabin apparently used as a kitchen.
The Deacon had almost made up his mind to march boldly down to the house, snatch up a few of the chickens, and make his way back to the woods again, before the old couple could summon assistance. Suddenly his quick eyes caught a glimpse of something at a point where the road from the ridge came down out of the woods. Then that something developed into a man on horseback, who rode forward to a little rise, stopped, and surveyed the landscape cautiously, and then rode forward toward the house.
He dismounted and entered the house. In a few minutes there appeared unusual bustle and activity, during which the man rode back again, munching as he went at a piece of cornpone and one of meat, which he had gotten at the house, and held in either hand, while his reins lay on his horse's neck.
The old woman came out into the yard with some meat in her hand, and the shrill note of her orders to the negresses reached the Deacon's ears, though he could not make out the words. But he saw one of them go to the spring and bring water, which she poured in a wash-kettle set up in the yard, while the old woman prepared the beef and put it in, the other negress started a fire, and the old man chopped and split wood to put around the kettle and fill the stone oven near by.
"They're cookin' vittels for them rebels on the ridge." The Deacon correctly diagnosed the situation. "By-and-by they'll come for 'em, or take 'em to 'em. Mebbe I kin find some way to collar some of 'em. It's a slim chance, but no other seems to show up just now. If no more'n one man comes for that grub I'm goin' to jump him."
The Deacon looked at the caps on his revolver and began laying plans for a strategic advance under the cover of the sumachs to a point where he could command the road to the house.
His cheek paled for an instant as the thought obtruded that the man might resist and he have to really shoot him.
"I don't want to shoot nobody," he communed with himself, "and it won't 'be necessary if the other fellow is only sensible and sees, that I've got the drop on him, which I will have before I say a word. Anyway, I want that grub for a work of necessity and mercy, which justifies many things, and as a loyal man I ought to keep it from goin' to rebels. If I've got to put a bullet into another feller, why, the Lord'll hold me guiltless and blame the other feller. I ain't no Free Will Baptist. I believe things 've bin foreordained. Wisht I knowed that it was foreordained that I was to git that grub back to Si and Shorty."
Presently he saw the old man come out and take a path into the woods. He cautiously circled around to where he could follow and watch him. He saw him make his way to a secluded little cove, where there was a corn-crib partially filled and a rude shelter, under which were a buckboard and fairly-good young horse. The old man began putting the clumsy harness of ropes, chains and patched leather on the horse and hitching him to the buckboard.
"Good, the old man's goin' to take the grub out to 'em himself," thought the Deacon with relief. "He'll be easy to manage. No need o' shootin' him."
He hurried back to his covert, and then shpped unseen down to where he had selected for his ambush. The old man drove the buckboard around to the front of the house, and the negresses, obeying the shrill orders of the old woman, brought out pones of smoking cornbread, and buckets, tin pans and crocks containing the meat, potatoes, turnips and other food, and loaded them on to the buckboard. The fragrance of the food reached the Deacon's nostrils, and made his mouth water and fond anticipations rise as to the good it would do the boys.
"I'll have that grub, and the boys shall have it," he determined, "or there'll be an Injianny Deacon pretty badly used up."
The old man mounted into the seat, gathered up the rope lines, and chirruped to the horse to start.
When he came opposite, the Deacon jumped out, seized the reins, and pointing his revolver at him, commanded sternly:
"Git down from there, and git down quick."
The old man dropped the lines, and for an instant gazed at him with scared eyes.
"Why, yo' robber, what d'yo' mean?" he gasped.
"Git down from there, and git down quick!" repeated the Deacon.
"Why, this is highway robbery, threats, puttin' in bodily fear, attempted murder, hoss-stealin'."
"Hain't no time to argy law with you," said the Deacon impatiently. "This ain't no court-room. You ain't in session now. Git down, and git down quick!"
"Help! help! murder! robbery! thieves!" shouted the old man, at the top of his voice.
The negresses, who had been watching their master depart, set to screaming, and the old woman rushed back into the house and blew the horn. The Deacon thrust his revolver back into the holster, caught the old man with his sinewy hand, tore him from the seat, and flung him into the fence-corner. He sprang into the seat, turned the horse's head toward Chattanooga, and hit him a sharp cut with a switch that lay in the wagon.
"I've got about three miles the start," he said as he rattled off. "This horse's young and fresh, while their's probably run down. The road from here to the main road's tollably good, and I think I kin git there before they kin overtake me."
At the top of the hill he looked back, and saw the rebels coming out. Apparently they had not understood what had happened. They had seen no Yankees and could not have seen the Deacon's tussle with the old man. They supposed that the holler simply meant for them to come in and get their dinner, instead of having it taken out to them. All this passed through the Deacon's mind, and he chuckled over the additional start it would give him.
"They won't find out nothin' till they git clean to the house," he said. "By that time I'll be mighty nigh the main road. My, but wouldn't I like to have as many dollars as they'll be mad when they find the Yankee trick that's bin played on 'em, with their dinner hauled off into the Union camp."
He rattled ahead sharply for some time, looking back at each top of a hill for his pursuers. They did not come in sight, but the main road to Chattanooga did, and then a new trouble suggested itself.
"I won't never dare haul this load uncovered through camp," he said to himself. "The first gang o' roustabout teamsters that I meet'll take every spoonful of the vittles, and I'd be lucky if I have the horse and wagon left. I must hide it some way. How? That's a puzzler."
At length a happy idea occurred to him. He stopped by a cedar thicket, and with his jack-knife cut a big load of cedar boughs, which he piled on until every bit of food was thoroughly concealed. This took much time, and as he was finishing he heard a yell on the hill behind, and saw a squad of rebels riding down toward him. He sprang to the seat, whipped up his horse, and as he reached the main road was rejoiced to see a squad of Union cavalry approaching.
"Here, old man," said the Lieutenant in command; "who are you, and what are you doing here?"
"I'm a nurse in the hospital," answered the Deacon unhesitatingly. "I was sent out here to get some cedar boughs to make beds in the hospital. Say, there's some rebels out there, comin' down the hill. They saw me and tuk after me. You'll find 'em right over the hill."
"That's a pretty slick horse you're driving," said the Lieutenant. "Looks entirely too slick to belong to Chattanooga. It's a much better horse than mine. I've a notion—"
"Say, them rebels are just over the hill, I tell you," said the Deacon in a fever of apprehension of losing his steed. "They'll be on top of you in a minute if you don't look out."
"Right over the hill, did you say?" said the Lieutenant, forgetting for the moment the horse. "Attention, there, boys. Look out for the rebels. Advance carbines—Forward—trot! I'll come back directly and take another look at that horse."
The squad trotted up the hill in the direction the Deacon had pointed, and as he drove off as fast as he could he heard the spatter of exchanging shots.
Late in the evening, as he drove off the pontoon into Chattanooga and turned to the right toward his corn-crib he muttered over to himself:
"They say that when a man starts down the path of sin and crime the road seems greased for his swift progress. The other day I begun with petty larceny and chicken stealin'. To-day it's bin highway robbery, premeditated murder, horse stealin', grand larceny, and tellin' a deliberate lie. What'll I be doin' this time next week? I must git that old man's horse and buckboard back to him somehow, and pay him for his vittles. But how'm I goin' to do it? The army's terribly demoralizin'. I must git Si back home soon, or I won't be fit to associate with anybody outside the penitentiary. How kin I ever go to the communion table agin?"
SI AND SHORTY were on the anxious lookout for the Deacon when he arrived, and not a little worried lest something might have befallen him.
Si's weakness made him peevish and fretful, and Shorty was not a great deal better.
"It's an awful risk to have an old man and a civilian come down here into camp," Si complained. "And he oughtn't to go about alone. He's always been used to mingling with the quiet, honest, respectable people. Up home the people are as honest as the day is long. They're religious and peaceable, and Pap's never knowed no other kind. He wouldn't harm nobody for the world, and none o' them'd harm him. He's only a child among these toughs down here. I wisht one of us was able to be with him all the time."
"That father o' yours is certainly quite an innocent old party," Shorty answered, consolingly, "and the things he don't know about army life'd make more'n a pamphlet. But he has a way of wakin' up to the situation that is sometimes very surprisin'. I wisht I was able to go about with him, but I think he's fully able to take care o' himself around in camp. There's always somebody about who won't see an old man and a citizen imposed on. But what I'm afraid of is that he's wandered out in the country, huntin' for somethin' for us to eat, and the guerrillas've got him."
And he and Si shuddered at the thought of that good old man in the hands of the merciless scoundrels who infested the mountains and woods beyond the camps.
"Yes," mourned Si, "Pap's likely to mosey out into the country, jest like he would on Bean Blossom Crick, and stop at the first house he come to, and set down with 'em on the porch, and talk about the weather, and the crops, and the measles in the neighborhood, and the revivals, and the price o' pork and corn, and whether they'd better hold their wheat till Spring, and who was comin' up for office, and all the time the bushwhackers'd be sneakin' up on him, an' him know no more 'bout it than where the blackbirds was roostin'. He's jest that innocent and unsuspiciouslike."
"If they've ketched him," said Shorty fiercely, "we'll find out about it, and when we git able, we'll go out there and kill and burn everything for five miles around. I'll do it, if I have to spend the rest o' my life at hard labor on the Dry Tortugas."
They heard the rattle of light wheels on the frozen ground outside, and the hoof-beats of a quickly-moving horse.
"Buggy or spring-wagon," muttered Si with a farmer boy's instinctive interpretation of such sounds. "What's it doin' in camp? Strange horse. In better condition than any around here."
The vehicle stopped in front of the corn-crib at the Deacon's command, "Whoa!"
"Gracious—there's Pap now," ejaculated Si, with whom memory went in a bound to the many times he had listened for his father's coming and heard that order.
"Hello, boys," called out the Deacon. "How are you? Shorty, come out here."
Shorty sprang up with something of his old-time alacrity, and Si made an effort to rise, but was too weak.
"Throw a piece o' that fat pine on the fire. Shorty," said the Deacon, "and let's see what I've got."
By the light of the blazing pine, the Deacon pulled off the cedar boughs and developed his store. The boughs had kept in the heat, so that the food was not yet quite cold, though it had a resinous flavor, from its covering. The Deacon broke one of the cornpones in two and gave half of it to Shorty, with as much as he thought he should have of the meat and vegetables. Then he fed Si, who relished the new diet almost as much as he had relished the chicken broth. The Deacon made a hearty supper himself, and then stored away the rest in his "cellar" under the crib, rolling up some more large stones as an additional precaution.
"Well, you beat me," said Shorty admiringly, as he studied over the Deacon's booty. "I used to think I was as slick a forager as there was in the army, but I simply ain't in the same class with a man that kin go out in this Sahara Desert o' starvation and bring in a four-year-old horse and a wagon-load o' cooked vittles. I'd never even see the distance pole runnin' with him. Gen. Rosecrans ought to know you. He'd appoint you Commissary-General o' the army at once. When I get a little stronger I want you to take me out and learn me the ABC's o' foragin'. To think that me and Si wuz grievin' about your being ketched by the guerrillas. What fools we wuz. It wuz lucky for the guerrillas that you didn't run acrost 'em, for you'd a ketched 'em, instid o' 'em you."
"That's what I come purty nigh doin'," chuckled the Deacon. "But what in the world 'm I goin' to do with that hoss and buckboard? I must hunt around and find that poor beast some corn for tonight. He's bin driven purty sharp, and he needs his supper jest as bad as I did mine, and I won't feel right unless he has it. Then I must try to git him back to his owner termorrer."
"If he's here to-morrer," said Shorty, looking at the animal carefully, "it'll be a miracle. That's too good a hoss to be kept in this camp by anybody lower'n a Brigadier-General. The boys'll steal him, the Captains take him, the Colonels seize him, and the Brigadier-Generals appropriate him for the Government's service. They'll call it by different names, but the horse goes all the same. I don't see how you're goin' to keep him till mornin'. You can't put him in your cellar. If they don't steal him, it's because it's too dark to see him. I'm sorry to say there's an awful lot o' thieves in the Army o' the Cumberland."
And Shorty looked very grieved over the deplorable lack of regard in the army for the rights of property. He seemed to mourn this way for several minutes, and then broke out with:
"Say, Mr. Klegg, I've an idee. That Quartermaster o' the Maumee Muskrats is a sport from way back. He'd give his vary eyes for a good hoss—one that kin beat everybody else's. The way the horses are run down now this one kin carry a heavy handicap, and beat any one in camp. I'll bet I kin take this hoss over to him and git $150 in greenbacks for him, for he kin win a bushel o' money with him the very first day."
"Shorty," said the Deacon, in a tone that made that worthy start, "necessity and the stress o' circumstances may force me to do many things which are agin my conscience, and for which I shall repent in sackcloth and ashes, if needs be, but I hain't yit bin reduced to sellin' stolen property. The Lord save me from that. That hoss and wagon's got to go back to the owner, if I risk my life in takin' 'em."
Shorty wisely kept his reply to himself, but he thought how absurd it was to have men about the army who were too old and set in their ideas to learn army ways. He muttered to himself:
"If he succeeds in gittin' that hoss outen camp agin, I'll expect to see the back o' my neck, or something else quite as wonderful."
The Deacon finally succeeded in getting a couple of ears of corn and a handful of fodder for the horse's supper, and it was decided that Shorty should watch him the first part of the night, and the Deacon from thence till morning.
As the Deacon pondered over the matter in the early morning hours, he saw that his only chance of getting the horse back was to start with him before daylight revealed him to the men in camp.
"I'll drive him well outside our lines, and as near to the house as I think it prudent to go, and then turn him loose," he said to himself. "If he's got the sense o' the horses up North he'll go straight home, and then my conscience will be clear. If he don't, I'll have done all I could. The Lord don't ask unreasonable things of us, even in atonement."
So he cooked as good a breakfast for the boys as he could prepare from his materials, woke up Shorty and put him in charge, and an hour before daybreak turned the horse's head toward the pontoon bridge, and started him on a lively trot.
He had only fairly started when a stern voice called out to him from a large tent:
"Here, you, stop that trotting. What do you mean? Don't you know that it's strictly against orders to trot horses in their present condition?"
"Excuse me. Captain," said the Deacon. "I"
"Blank your Captain," roared the voice; "I'm no Captain."
"Major," said the Deacon deprecatingly.
"To thunder with your Majors, you ignorant fool. You"
"I beg your pardon, Colonel. I was"
"What's the matter with you, you ignoramus?" roared the voice, more indignantly than ever. "Don't you know Brigade Headquarters when you see them? Don't you know your own officers when you hear their voices?"
"Rayly, General," said the Deacon, much disturbed, "I didn't mean to insult you. I'm only a citizen, and a stranger in the camp, and—"
"A citizen and a stranger," echoed the voice. "What are you doing in here, anyway? Orderly, bring that man in here till I see him."
The Orderly started to obey, when a regiment which had been ordered to report at Headquarters came up at quick step, halted, and ordered arms with much clatter. The frightened horse bounded off down the road, with the Deacon sawing on the lines and trying to stop him.
He only slowed down when he came up near a corral of other horses, to which he turned for companionship and sympathy.
"Frosty mornin' makes that hoss purty frisky," said the Deacon, as he readjusted his hat, and got himself in shape after his jolting. "Lucky, though. I didn't like that old General's voice. I'm afraid he had it in for me, and would 've made me trouble for lowerin' his dignity by callin' him Captain. Big officers are awfully tetchy."
"Here, who are you? And what are you doin' out there?" came the stem inquiry from the dark depths of one of the sheds.
"Excuse me. General," answered the Deacon hastily, "I"
"General? Who are you callin' General, you fool? Don't try to be funny with me. You know I'm no General."
"I meant Colonel," the Deacon started to explain.
"The blazes you did. You expect Colonels to run hoss-corrals, and manage mule boarding-houses, do you? stop your blimmed nonsense and answer my questions."
"Major, I was tryin' to say"
"I'll Major you when I git my boots on and git out there. Don't think to shut my eye up callin' me big titles."
"But, Captain."
"I'm no Captain, neither. I'm plain Jim Crimmins, Quartermaster-Sergeant, in charge o' this corral, that you're stealin' around. I'm comin' out there to break every bone in your body. You infernal sneaks 've pestered the life out o' me stealin' my corn and my mules, even. I've bin watchin' you piroutin' around in the dark for a long time. I'm goin' to stop this business if I've got to kill every thievin' varmint in the Army o' the Cumberland. Don't you dare move till I come out, or I'll put a bullet through you. Do you hear?"
"I don't believe I've got any more time to waste on that bellerin' bull-calf," said the Deacon to himself. He gathered up the lines, turned the horse's head toward the road, and gave him a lick with a switch, and he dashed off, followed by a couple of shots from Mr. Crimmins, to give color and confirmation to the story that worthy related later in the day of a particularly audacious attempt on the part of sneak thieves to get away with his mules and corn, and which was frustrated by his vigilance and daring.
As the horse slowed down to a walk again a Sergeant of the Guard at the head of a squad stepped out and took him by the reins.
"Here, who are you, and where are you going so early in the morning?" he inquired.
"My name's Josiah Klegg, sir," said the Deacon, prudently ignoring titles. "I'm from Injianny, and am down here 'tendin' to my son, who belongs to Co. Q, 200th Injianny Volunteers, and who was shot at Chickamaugy. I borryed this hoss and wagon from a man out in the country to bring in some vittles for him and his pardner, and some boughs for 'em to sleep on, and I'm takin' 'em back to him."
"Well, that story may be true, and it mayn't. Probably it ain't. Men don't get up before daybreak to take back borrowed horses. You're up to some devilment; probably taking information or contraband out to the rebels. I haven't time now to investigate. I'll put you under guard until I have. As for the horse, we've got use for him. McCook's Cavalry needs about a thousand such as he. We're out lookin' for horses now. Unhitch him, boys."
The Deacon started to make an earnest protest, but at that moment the rebels on Lookout Mountain made their usual daylight salute to the camp. The size of the squad had attracted their attention, and a shell shrieked over and struck quite near. This was too much for the nervous horse. He made a convulsive leap, which scattered the guards around him and almost threw the Deacon out of the seat. When the latter recovered himself, and got the horse under control again the guards were far away, and he was at the approach to the pontoon bridge.
"I'll be plagued," mused the Deacon, as the horse moved over the bridge at a slow walk, and gave him time to think, "the army's a terrible place. I had no sort o' trouble when I was doin' something that mebbe I oughtn't to have done, but the minute I start out to do a right thing I meet no end o' difficulties. But these are the obstacles that Satan always puts in the way of the righteous. I'm goin' to git this boss 'back to its owner, or know the reason why. Git up, there."
He soon came to a piece of the road which was in full view of the rebels on Lookout Mountain. They had been preparing the day before to stop all travel by that route, and the Deacon's was the first vehicle that had appeared since they had got their guns planted. They waited until he was fairly out into the open, and sent a shell which struck a panel of the fence off to the left, burst with a crash, and sent rails, chunks, stones and pieces of brush flying through the air. The horse became frantic, and tore up the hill at such a rate the buckboard and harness speedily went to pieces, and the Deacon was flung in the ditch, while the horse galloped wildly over the hill.
The Union artillerymen on Moccasin Point had evidently anticipated just such an attempt on the part of the rebels. Instantly a score of guns which had been placed to cover that spot thundered out, and their shells could be seen striking and tearing up the ground all around where the shot came from. Other rebel guns came to the assistance of the first one; the Union batteries within reach started in to help their side, and in a minute the whole country was shaking with the uproar.
"Well, I'll be dumbed," muttered the Deacon, crawling out of the ditch, shaking himself together again, cleaning off the mud, and trying to comprehend what was happening. "Did anybody ever see sich a commotion kicked up over one four-year-old hoss, and not a particularly good hoss at that? 't'd take a mighty smart man to git as much as $100 for him up in Posey County. Nobody but a Methodist Elder could do it. I've sold a better hoss than that for $80, and got all he was worth."
He stood for a few minutes and looked at the grand display until the Union batteries, satisfied that they had finally quashed the impudent rebel, ceased firing, and then he looked around.
"Well, that buckboard's done for. I can't take it back. It's only good for kindlin' wood now. But I may ketch the hoss and take him back."
He went up on top of the hill, and saw the horse standing under a tree, apparently pondering over what had happened, and wondering whether he should run farther or remain where he was.
The horse gave him a glad whinney of recognition, as if congratulating him on escaping from the crash of matter.
"Yes, you beast," snorted the Deacon; "I'm safe, but no thanks to you. You done your best to kick my brains out. Twice your condemned heels jest grazed my eyebrows. All the thanks I git for tryin' to save you from being starved to death there in Chattanoogy, and git you back home. But you go back home all the same."
He led the horse to a rock, mounted him, and started up the road. He reached the point where the road to the house turned off, and was debating whether he should go farther or turn the horse loose there, when he saw a company of cavalry coming up the main road from the other direction—that toward Bridgeport. Though they wore blue overcoats, he had learned enough about army life to not trust this implicitly, so he prudently rode into the woods to watch them until he could make sure. The company came up to where the roads parted, and he overheard a man who rode by the Captain at the head, and who wore a semi-soldier costume and seemed to be a scout or guide, tell the Captain:
"Their camp's right over there on that ridge (pointing to the crest on which the Deacon had seen the smoke). They're probably on the lookout for us, and we'll have to be very careful if we get near enough to jump them. I thought I saw one of their lookouts about here when we came up. Yes, there he is in there."
The Deacon had started to ride boldly toward them when he was sure they were Union troops, and a couple of the men, who in their dealings with bushwhackers had learned that it is best to shoot first and ask questions afterward, had promptly fired, and cut twigs uncomfortably near the Deacon's head. His horse plunged, but he kept him in hand and called out:
"Hold on! Hello! Don't do that. I'm a friend. I'm from Injianny."
"You're a devil of a way from home, and in a bad neighborhood," said one of the men who had fired, as he slipped another cartridge into his Sharpe's.
The Captain interrogated him as to who he was and what he was doing out there, while the scout fidgeted in his saddle over the time that was being wasted.
"Captain," said the scout finally, "we must hustle if we're going to strike those fellers before dark. We can't go down here, but' ll have to make a long circuit around, so they won't see us."
"That's so," said the Captain, adjusting himself to start.
"Captain," said one of the men, "my horse can't go any farther. He's been in bad shape, and he fell and broke his knee coming up the hill."
"Well, here, take that citizen's horse. Old man, get off, and let this man have that horse."
The Deacon started to protest, but the man was in a hurry, and almost pulled him off, and slapped his own saddle on in a flash.
"But what am I do to?" asked the Deacon bewildered.
"Do? Do as you please," laughed the Captain. "You are as well off here as anywhere. When a man's away from home one place's the same's another to him. Here, I'll tell you what you can do. See that cow back there? The boys have been trailing her along, in hopes to get her into Chattanooga and make beef of her. We've got to leave her now, for we are going on the jump. We'll make you a present of her and this broken-down horse. That'll start you in business. A horse and a cow's a big start for any man. Good-by. Attention, company! Forward, head of column right—March!"
"Well, I've done all I could," said the Deacon, going back and picking up the rope which was tied to the cow's horns. "The Lord knows I've tried hard enough to git that hoss back. The cow looks as if she's a good milker. A little milk'll do the boys good. Then, they kin have fresh beef. Come along, Bos."
Late at night he tied the cow to the corn-crib and went to his weary bed.
IT DID not seem that so many dangers beset the possession of a cow as of a horse, yet the Deacon prudently rose while it was yet dark to look after the animal.
He was none too soon, for there were getting to be thousands of very hungry men in Chattanooga who remembered the axiom about the early bird catching the worm, and thought the best time for "snatching" something was in the dark just before reveille. If they could find nothing better, and too often they did not, they would rob the mules of their scanty rations of corn, and soon a mule's feed-box had to be as carefully guarded as the commissary tent of the Headquarters mess.
These morning prowlers were as cunning as rats in finding their prey, and the only security that a man had of keeping his rations till morning was to eat them up before he went to bed. Their sharp eyes had not failed to notice the signs of unusual plenty about the Deacon's corn-crib, and they gave it earnest attention.
The Deacon had slipped out very quietly, and taken a little turn around the end of the crib, to see that his other provisions had not been disturbed, before he approached the cow. As he did so he saw a figure squatted beside her, and heard a low voice say:
"So, Bos! H'ist, Lady! H'ist up, you measly heifer!"
"Well, I declare to goodness," gasped the Deacon. "How could they've found her out so soon?"
He walked quietly up to the milker, and remarked:
"Purty early in the mornin' to do your milkin'. Didn't used to git up so early when you was at home, did you?"
"Sh—sh—sh!" whispered the other. "Don't speak so loud. You'll wake up that old galoot inside. Keep quiet till I fill my cup, and then I'll let you have a chance. There'll be plenty for you."
"Purty good milker, is she?" inquired the Deacon with interest.
"Naw!" whispered the other. "She's got her bag full, but she won't give down worth a cent."
"Better let me try my hand," said the Deacon. "You've bin away from the farm for so long you've probably lost the knack. I'm a famous milker."
"You'll play fair?" said the milker doubtfully.
"Yes; just hold her till I go inside and git my bucket, and I'll milk your cup clean full," answered the Deacon, starting inside the corn-crib.
"Well, you're a cool one," gasped the milker, realizing the situation. "But I'll hold you to your bargain, and I'll play fair with you."
The Deacon came back with his bucket, and after filling the man's cup as full as it would hold, handed it to him, and then began drawing the rest into his own bucket.
Careful milker that he was, he did not stop until he had stripped the last drop, and the cow, knowing at once that a master hand was at her udder, willingly yielded all her store.
"There," said the Deacon, "if anybody gits any more out o' her till evenin' he's welcome to it."
Two or three other men had come up in the meanwhile with their cups, and they started, without so much as asking, to dip their cups in.
"Hold on!" commanded the first-comer sternly. "Stop that! This old man's a friend o' mine, and I won't see him imposed on. Go somewhere else and git your milk."
A wordy war ensued, but the first-comer was stalwart and determined. The row waked up Shorty, who appeared with an ax.
"All right," said one of the men, looking at the ax; "keep your durned old milk, if you're so stingy toward hungry soldiers. It'll give you milk-sick, anyway. There's lots o' milk-sick 'round here. All the cows have it. That cow has it bad. I kin tell by her looks. We had lots o' milk-sick in our neighborhood, and I got real well-acquainted with it. I kin tell a milk-sick cow as fur as I kin see her, and if that cow hasn't it, no one ever had it."
He made a furtive attempt to kick the bucket over, which was frustrated by the Deacon's watchfulness.
"Better do something with that cow right off," advised the first-comer, as he walked off. "You can't keep her in camp all day. Somebody'll git her away from you if they have to take her by main force."
"Are you willin' to risk the milk-sick?" asked the Deacon, handing Shorty a cupful of the milk, together with a piece of cornpone.
"Yum—yum, I should say so," mumbled that longlegged gentleman. "I'll make the milk sicker'in it kin me, you bet. Jest bring along all the milk-sick you've got on hand, and I'll keep it from hurtin' anybody else. That's the kind of a philanthropist I am."
"I see you've got a cow here," said a large man wearing a dingy blue coat with a Captain's faded shoulder-straps. "I'm a Commissary, and it's my duty to take her."
He walked over and in a businesslike way began unfastening the rope. The Deacon shuddered, for he had too much respect for shoulder-straps to think of resisting. Shorty looked up from his breakfast, scanned the newcomer, and said:
"Look here. Bill Wiggins, you go back and take off that Captain's coat as quick as you kin, or I'll have you arrested for playin' officer. None o' you Maumee Muskrats kin play that little game on the 200th Injianny. We know you too well. And let me advise you, Mr. Wiggins, the next time you go out masqueradin' to make up clean through. That private's cap and pantaloons burned around the back, and them Government cow-hides give you dead away, if your mug didn't. If they wuz givin' commissions away you wouldn't be a brevet Corporal. Skip out, now, for here comes the Provost-Guard, and you'd better not let him catch you wearin' an officer's coat unless you want to put in some extra time on the breastworks."
Mr. Wiggins made off at once, but he had scarcely gotten out of sight when a mounted officer, attracted by the strange sight of a cow in camp, rode up and inquired whence she came and to whom she belonged.
The Deacon was inside the crib taking care of Si, and the burden of the conversation fell upon Shorty.
"Me any my pardner sent out into the country and bought that cow," he said, "with three $10 gold pieces we've bin savin' up ever since we've bin in the service. We wouldn't give 'em for anything else in the world. But we wuz jest starved for a drink o' fresh milk. Never felt so hungry for anything else in our lives. Felt that if we could jest git a fillin' o' fresh milk it'd make us well agin."
"Paid $30 in gold for her," said the officer, examining the cow critically. "Pretty high price for that kind of a cow."
"Well, I don't know about that," answered Shorty argumentatively, and scenting a possible purchaser. "Good fresh cows are mighty scarce anywhere at this time o' year, and particularly in this region. Next Spring they'll be much cheaper. But not this, one. That's no ordinary cow. If you'll look carefully at her you'll see that she's a thoroughbred. I'm a boss judge o' stock myself, and I know. Look at her horns, her bag, and her lines. She's full three-quarters Jersey."
"What's the other quarter," asked the officer, much amused.
"Jest—jest—jest—cow," answered Shorty, momentarily stumped for once in his volubility. And then he went on more garrulously than ever, to make amends. "She's as gentle as a lamb, will live on two ears o' corn and a kind word a day, and give two gallons o' milk, nearly all cream. Me and my pardner wouldn't take $10.0 in gold for that cow. We're goin' to send her up home as soon as the lines are open, to start our stock-farm with."
"Where did you say you got her?" said the officer, getting off his horse and going up closer to examine the animal.
"O, we bought her from a man named Wilson over in the Sequatchie Valley. You must've heard of him. We've knowed him a long time—before he moved down here from Injianny. Runs a fine stockfarm. Cried like a baby when he parted with his cow. Wouldn't have done it, but he had to have the money to buy provisions for his family."
"Let me see," said the officer, looking at him. "Seems to me I ought to know you. Where do you belong?"
"Co. Q, 200th Injianny Volunteers."
"I thought so. I do know you. You are Shorty. I don't want to say anything against your honesty or your veracity, but if Gen, Rosecrans was to order me to get him the smartest forager and smoothest liar in the Army of the Cumberland, I think I should order you to report at Headquarters."
"You do me proud," said Shorty with a grin, but an inward feeling that trouble was impending.
"Now, tell me the truth. Where did you get that cow?"
"I have bin tellin' you the truth," protested Shorty with an injured air. "Why should I tell you a lie about a little thing like a cow?"
"You are not within a mile of the truth. I know it. Look here: I believe that is Gen. Rosecrans's own cow. She's gone, and I got an order to look around for her. I've never seen her, but from the description given me I believe that's she. Who brought her here?"
"Great Jehosephat, he's after the Deacon," thought Shorty with a shudder. "I mustn't let him git him." Then he spoke out boldly:
"I brung her here."
"Shorty," said the officer with a smile, "I admire your talents for prevarication more than I can express. As a good, off-hand, free-going, single-gaited liar you have few equals and no superiors. Your lies usually have so much probability in them that they seem better than the truth—for your purposes. But this has no probability whatever in it. I doubt if you are able to walk to Headquarters. If you were well and strong, I should believe you quite capable not only of stealing the cow from Army Headquarters, but President Lincoln's cow from his back-door of the White House. But you are good now because you haven't strength enough to be up to any devilment. Now, tell me, who brought that cow here?"
"I brung her here myself, I tell you. I felt unusually peart last night. Felt that I had to snatch something jest to keep my hand in, like. Couldn't find nothin' else on four legs worth takin', and couldn't take nothin' that couldn't walk. So I took her. You kin send me to the guard-house if you want to. I expect I deserve it."
And Shorty tried to look contrite and penitent.
"Yes; you're in nice shape to send to the guardhouse. I'd sent you there quick enough if you were well, for telling me such a preposterous lie. You've usually paid more respect to my intelligence by telling me stories that I could believe if I wanted to, as I usually wanted do; but this is too much."
As the conversation began the Deacon had passed out with a bucket to go to the creek for water for the cow. He now came back, set the bucket down in front of the cow, and began, from force of long habit in caring for his stock, to pick off some burs, and otherwise groom her.
"Say, my friend," said the officer, "who brought that cow in?"
Shorty had been frantically trying to catch the Deacon's eye, and was making all manner of winks and warning gestures without avail, for the Deacon answered frankly:
"I brung her in."
"You're just the man I'm looking for," returned the officer. Then turning to a Sergeant who had just come up at the end of a squad, he said:
"Here, Sergeant, take charge of this citizen and this cow, and bring them both up to Army Headquarters. Don't let that citizen get away from you. He's a slick one."
As they moved off. Shorty bolted into the crib and shouted:
"Great Jehosephat, Si, that dad of your'n 's a goner! He's got nerve that looms up like Lookout Mountain! He's a genius! He's got git-up and git to spare! What do you think he done last night? Walked up to Gen. Rosecrans's Headquarters, and stole the General's cow right from under the noses o' the Headquarters Guards, and brung her down here and milked her. Did you ever hear o' sich snap? I only wisht that me and you was half the man that he is, old as he is. The only trouble is that he isn't as good a hider as he is on the take. They've dropped on to him, and they're now takin' him up to Headquarters. But he'll find some way to git off. There's no end to that man. And to think that we've bin playin' him right along for a hayseed."
And Shorty groaned in derision of his own acumen.
"Pop stole Gen. Rosecrans's cow from Headquarters? They've arrested him and are taking him up there?" ejaculated Si in amazement. "I don't believe a word of it."
"Well, the cow was here. He brung her here last night, and owned up to it. He milked her, and you drunk some of the milk. The Provost-Guard's now walkin' the cow and him up to Headquarters. These are early mornin' facts. You kin believe what you dumbed please."
"Pap arrested and taken to Army Headquarters," groaned Si, in deepest anxiety. "What in the world will they do with him?"
"O, don't worry," said Shorty cheerfully.
"Your dad ain't as green as you are, if he has lived all his life on the Wabash. He's as fly as you make 'em. He's fixin' up some story as he goes along that'll git him out of the scrape slick as a whistle. Trust him."
"Shorty," said Si severely, "my father don't fix up stories. Understand that. He's got some explanation for this. Depend upon it."
"They call it explanation when it gits a feller out, and blamed lie when it don't," muttered Shorty to himself, as he went out again, to follow the squad as far as he could with his eyes. "Anyway, I'll bet on the Deacon."
The squad arrived before Headquarters, and the officer dismounted and went in. Early as it was he found the indefatigable Rosecrans at work with his staff and clerks.
"General, I've found your cow, and got the man who took her," said the officer.
"Good," said the General joyfully. "Now we'll have some fresh milk again. I can give up anything cheerfully, rather than fresh milk. Say you've got the thief, too?" continued the General, relapsing into one of his testy moods. "Put the rascal at the hardest labor you can find. I'll give him a lesson that stealing from Headquarters don't pay. The rascals in my army seem to think that I and everything I have belongs to them as much as it does to me. But I'll draw the line at my cow and my horses. They can steal everything else but them. Hold on a minute. I'll go out and see if it's really my cow."
"Yes, that is she; glad to see you back, Missy," said the General, patting the cow on the back. "Take her back and give her a good feed, if you can find it, for probably she's pretty hungry."
Then turning to the Deacon:
"You old rascal, you'll steal the General's cow, will you? Fond of thorobred stock, are you? And a citizen, too. Well, I'll see whether a month of hard work on the fortifications won't cure you of your fancy for blooded cattle."
"Look here, Gen. Rosecrans," said the Deacon firmly, "I didn't steal your cow, and I won't allow you nor no other man to say so. I'm an honest man, or at least I've always passed for one at home. I was out over the river yesterday, tryin' to git a hoss back to his owner, and a Captain of a cavalry company come along and took my hoss away, and give me this cow in exchange. He said his men'd got the cow down the road apiece, and that's all I know of her."
"A very likely story," sneered several of the staff.
"Let me see," said the General, who prided himself on remembering names and faces. "Haven't I met you before? Aren't you from Indiana?"
"Yes, sir; from Posey County."
"And you've got a son in one of the regiments?"
"Yes, sir. Corporal Si Klegg, Co. Q, 200th Injianny Volunteers. Him and his partner Shorty wuz badly wounded, and I come down here to take care of 'em. I've bin moseyin' around out in the country tryin' to find something for 'em to eat, and the other day I—borryed a hoss, which I was tryin' to take back, when this cavalry Captain come along, and tuk the hoss away from me and give me this cow instid. I hadn't no idee where he got her, and he didn't give me time to ask, for he started on the jump after some guerrillas."
"I shouldn't wonder if his story is true, General," said a member of the staff. "You see, your cow has been gone really two days. Day before yesterday we sent Blue Jim out into the country with her. She needed it awfully. We laid the law down to Blue Jim about being very careful with her and keep her near the road. It seems that he found a good piece of meadow, and turned her loose in it, but then, nigger like, he forgot all that we had told him about staying light alongside of her, and wandered off to gather persimmons, and afterward fell asleep in a fence-corner. When he woke up the cow was gone, and he was scared nearly to death. He hunted around for her all day, and came in last night nearly starved to death, and whimpering and blubbering. We told him that you would order him shot as soon as you found out. He has been to see the Chaplain twice, to prepare for death."
"So?" said the General, smiling. "Well, Mr.— Mr.— I did know your name once—"
"Klegg, Josiah Klegg," answered the Deacon promptly.
"Yes; how stupid of me to forget it. Well, Mr. Klegg, I'm very much obliged to you for finding my cow and bringing her home. You've got a very fine son—splendid soldier. How is he getting along?"
"Tollably well, General, thank you. Look here, General, please let me take those boys home. If you will, I'll send 'em back to you in a few weeks good as new. All they need is mother's cookin' and mother's nursin' to bring 'em right out. And I want to go home, too. The army is demoralizin' me. I guess I'm gittin' old, and 'm not as strong to resist sin and the suggestions of sin as I once was. I'm gittin' scared of myself down here."
"It's pretty hard work getting back now," said the General. "Do you think you can do it, if I give you leave?"
"O, yes. Jest give the order, and I'll get the boys and myself back home, sure's you're livin'."
"Very well," said the General; "you shall have the chance." He turned to one of his staff and said:
"Look into this matter. If the Surgeon thinks they can be moved, have furloughs and transportation made out for them and the father. Good-by, Mr. Klegg. Take good care of those boys, and send them back to me as soon as they are well."
THE Surgeon, who had conceived quite a good opinion of the Deacon's ability, readily certified that the boys could be safely taken home, since they would have the benefit of his care and attention, and the necessary papers came down from Headquarters that day. The Deacon had the good luck to find his old friend, the Herd-Boss, who took a deep interest in the matter. He offered to have as good a team as he had at the crib the next morning, with the wagon-bed filled with cedar-boughs, to make as easy a couch as possible for the rough ride over the mountains.
With his heart full of hope and joy, the Deacon bustled around to make every possible preparation for the journey.
"It's a long way back home, I know," he said to himself, "and the road's rough and difficult as that to the New Jerusalem; but Faith and Hope, and the blessin' o' God'll accomplish wonders. If I kin only hold the souls in them boys' bodies till I kin git 'em back to Bean Blossom Crick, I'll trust Mother Klegg's nursin' to do the rest. If there ever was a woman who could stand off the Destroyin' Angel by good nursin' that woman's Mother Klegg, bless her soul."
The next morning he was up betimes, and cooked the boys as good a breakfast as he could out of the remainder of his store and what he could get from the hospital, and then gave what was left to whoever came. The comfortable crib, which had cost the Deacon so much labor, had been pre-empted by the Surgeon for some of his weakest patients.
The news had reached the 200th Ind. that the boys were going home, and they came over in a body to say "Good-by."
The sight of them pained the Deacon's good heart. Instead of the hundreds of well-fed, well-clothed, comfortable-looking young men he had seen at Murfreesboro a few months before, he now saw a shrunken band of gaunt, unkempt men, their clothing ragged and patched, many of them almost shoeless, many of them with pieces of blankets bound around their feet instead of shoes, many of them with bandages about their still unhealed wounds, but still keeping their places bravely with their comrades, and stubbornly refusing to count themselves among the sick and disabled, though it required all their will-power to do their share of the duty. But all of them were brimming over with unconquerable cheerfulness and pluck. They made light of their wounds and disabilities, jested at one another's ragged clothes, laughed at their hunger, teased one another about stealing corn from mules, jeered at the rebel shells from Lookout Mountain, yelled derisively at the rebel pickets across the creek, and promised them to soon come out and run Bragg's army off the face of the earth.
All were eager to do something toward the comfort of their departing comrades. They scanned the arrangement of the boughs in the wagon with critical eyes, and picked them over and rearranged them, so as to avoid every chance of uncomfortable knots and lumps. They contributed blankets from their own scanty supply, to make sure that there would be plenty, and so many were eager to help carry Si out and put him in the wagon, that the Orderly-Sergeant of Co. Q had to take charge of the matter and make a detail. The teamster was given strong admonitions as to careful driving, and fearful warning as to what would happen to him in case of an accident.
"Hain't anything to send back home with you, boys, this time, but our love," said one of them. "That's the only thing that's safe now-a-days from bein' stole, because no one kin eat or wear it. Tell the folks to pay no attention to what the paper says. No danger o' bein' run out o' Chattanoogy. Tell 'em that we're all fat, ragged and sassy, and only waitin' the word from Gen. Rosecrans to fall on old Bragg like a thousand o' brick and mash the lights outen him."
"Yes," joined another, "tell 'em we've got plenty to eat, sich as it is, and good enough, what there is of it. Don't worry about us. We're only blowin' up our muscle to git a good lick at old Bragg."
"Your muscle," said Shorty, satirically. "You've got about as much muscle now as a musketo. But you're good stuff all the same, and you're goin' to everlastingly lick the rebels when the time comes. I only wisht I was here to help you do it. I don't think I'll go any further than Nashville. I'll be well enough to come back by that time. I'll see Si and his father off safely, and then gether up a crowd of other convalescents, and come back and clean the rebels off your cracker line."
"Good-by, boys," piped out Si. "I'll be back soon. Don't bring on the big battle till I do. I want to help. Just skirmish around and push the rebels back into the woods while I'm gone, and hive 'em up for a good lickin' by the time I git back."
As the wagon moved off the 200th Ind. gave three cheers, and the regimental soloist struck up the "Battle Cry of Freedom," in which they all joined with so much energy as to attract the attention of the rebel artillerist on Lookout Mountain, who favored them with a shell intended for their express benefit. It was no better directed than any of its many predecessors had been, and was greeted with yells of derision, in which all the camp joined.
Having done all possible for the boys' comfort, the Deacon had lighted his pipe and taken his seat on a board laid over the front, where he could oversee the road and the teamster, and take a parting look at the animated scenery. The wagon pulled into the line of those moving out toward Bridgeport, and jogged along slowly for some hours until it was nearing the top of one of the hills that jutted out close to the Tennessee River, at the base of Lookout Mountain. The Deacon saw, with a little nervousness, that they were approaching the open space in which he had had his experience with the horse and buckboard, and he anxiously scanned the Craven House slope for signs of a rebel cannon. He saw that his apprehensions were shared by the drivers of the three or four teams just ahead. They were whipping up, and yelling at their teams to get past the danger point as quick as possible.
They had need of anxiety. A scattering volley of shots came from the bushes and the rocks on the opposite side of the Tennessee River and one of the leaders in the team just ahead of him dropped dead in his tracks. The teams in front were whipped up still harder, and succeeded in getting away. The shots were answered from a line of our own men on this side of the river, who fired at the smoke they saw rising.
The Deacon's own teamster sprang from his saddle, and prudently got in the shelter of the wagon until the affair would be over. The teamster next ahead ran forward, and began cutting the fallen mule loose, but while he was doing so another shot laid the other mule low. The teamster fell fiat on the ground, and lay there for a minute. Then he cautiously arose, and began cutting that mule loose, when a shot struck the near-swing mule in the head, and he dropped. The Deacon kept that solid old head of his throughout the commotion, and surveyed the scene with cool observance.
"There's one feller somewhere over there doin' all that devilment," he said to Shorty, who was pushing his head eagerly out of the front of the wagon to find out what was going on. "He's a sharpshooter from way back. You kin see he's droppin' them mules jest about as fast as he kin load his gun. Them other fellers over there are jest putterin' away, makin' a noise. You kin see their shots strikin' down the hill there, and everywhere, where they ain't doin' nothin'. But that feller's out for business. I've bin tryin' to locate him. He's somewhere closter than any o' the others. Their bullets don't quite reach, while his goes home every time. See there."
The off-swing mule dropped this time. "Land's sakes," ejaculated the Deacon, "he's costin' Uncle Sam $150 every time his gun cracks. It's jest sinful to be destroyin' property that way. Shorty, kin you reach me that gun o' Si's out o' the wagon? I believe I'll slip down toward the bank and see if I can't find that feller. I've bin watchin' the willers along the aidge o' the water, and I believe he's in there."
"Don't go, Pap," pleaded Si. "Some of the boys on the skirmish-line 'll find him soon, and settle him. Don't expose yourself. Stay behind the wagon."
"Yes, stay back under cover, Deacon," joined in Shorty. "Let the boys down there 'tend to him. They're gittin' $16 a month for it, and don't want nobody else to interfere in their job." Just then the near wheel mule dropped. "Gi' me that gun at onct," said the Deacon sternly. Shorty handed him the Springfield and its cartridge-box without another word. The Deacon looked over the rifle, "hefted" it, and tried it at his shoulder to get its poise, critically examined its sights by aiming at various objects, and then wiped out its barrel, as he would that of his trusty hunting-rifle at home. All of his old deer-hunting instincts revived. He took out several cartridges, turned them over in his hand, and carefully selected one, tore open the paper, poured the powder in, removed the paper from the ball, and carefully rammed it home, struck the butt of the gun on the ground to make sure of its priming, and put on the cap.
"Hold her about a foot under. Pap, at 400 yards," said Si, who had rolled over to the side of the wagon, and was watching him from under the cover, which was raised up a little. "Put your sights up to the 400 mark, and then draw the top o' the bead down fine into that notch, and she'll put it right where you hold her."
By this time the sharpshooter had finished up the mules on the team ahead, and begun on that of the Deacon. The firing was furious all along both sides of the river, and the teamsters in the rear were showing signs of stampeding. The Wagonmaster was storming up and down to hold them in place, and the officers in command of the line along the river bank were raging at their men for not suppressing the fire from over the stream.
"Old man, you'd better not go down there," said a Captain as the Deacon came walking down, looking very grim and determined. "It's getting hotter down there every minute. The rebels seem determined to stick to their work, and I've had three men wounded already."
"Look out for your own men, my son," answered the Deacon, in whom the fire of battle was burning. "I'll look out for myself. If I'm hit the Gover'ment won't lose nothin'. I'm only a citizen."
He had kept his eye on the clump of willows, and was sure that his man was in there, though the smoke hung around so confusingly that he could not always make out where a fresh shot came from. He got down to where an occasional bullet struck in his neighborhood, but that did not disturb him. He began to feel that thrill of man-hunting which when it seizes a man is an overpowering passion.
"I'm goin' to stop him killin' mules," he said to himself. "I rayly hope I won't kill him, but that's a secondary matter. Providence'll settle that. It's my duty to stop him. That's clear. If his time's come Providence'll put the bullet where it'll kill him. If it ain't, it won't. That's all. Providence indicates my duty to me. The responsibility for the rest is with Providence, who doeth all things well."
He reached the firing-line, strung along the ragged bluffs, and hiding behind trees, stumps and stones.
"Lay down, there, old man; grab a root; keep under cover, or you'll git hit," some of them called out to him, noticing him as they turned to load. "The air is so full o' bullets you kin ketch your hat full if you only hold it up."
"All right, boys, I'll lay low. I've come down here to help you," answered the Deacon.
"Bully for you; we need it."
The Deacon took his position behind a big black walnut, while he reconnoitered the situation, and got his bearings on the clump of willows. He felt surer than ever of his man, for he actually saw a puff of smoke come from it, and saw that right behind the puff stood a willow that had grown to the proportions of a small tree, and had its bark rubbed off by the chafing of driftwood against it.
"He's right behind that peeled wilier," the Deacon said, "and takes a rest agin it. Three inches to the left o' that, and three foot from the ground'll take him square in the breast, as he is probably kneeling down."
Before him he noticed a deep gully cut in the bank, by which he could get down to the water's edge where there was a clump of paw-paws projecting out toward the willows. If he went down there it would make his shot surer, but there was much danger that he would be noticed and fired at on his way.
"I'm goin' down there," he said, after a moment's deliberation. "Providence has sent me on this job, and intends I shall do it right, which I kin by goin' down there. Providence'll take care o' me while I'm goin'. Same time, Providence expects me to show gumption, by not exposin' myself any more'n possible."
Therefore he cut a young, thick-branched cedar and held it in front of him as he crouched and made his way to the gully and down it.
He had nearly reached the cover of the paw-paws, and was beginning to congratulate himself that his cedar screen and the turmoil on the bank above had enabled him to escape attention, when a bullet struck a stone to his left, and threw it against him with such force as to almost knock all the breath out of his body. He fell to the ground, but retained coolness enough to understand that this was to his advantage, and he crawled slowly forward until he was safely behind the bushes.
"That come from that hound in the willers," said he to himself. "He's a sharp one. He got on to me somehow, and now it's me and him fur it. Anyhow, he didn't kill a mule worth $150 with that bullet. But it'll take as much as six bits' worth o' porous plaster to take the swellin' out o' my side where that rock welted me."
He hitched forward cautiously a little farther, to where he could peer through the bushes, being exceedingly wary not to repeat his opponent's mistake, and set their tops in motion. A rock protruding through the ground in front of him made an opening through which he could see, and also afforded a rest for his musket. He looked sharply, and at length was rewarded by seeing the gun-barrel come out by the side of the barked willow, rested on a bare limb, and apparently aimed at the hill beyond. He took a long breath to steady his nerves, stretched out his legs to make himself more at ease, pushed his musket forward until he got exactly the right poise, aimed about nine inches below the level of his opponent's gun-barrel, and a little to the left, drew his bead down to a hair's nicety in the hind sight, and pulled the trigger just as the rebel sharpshooter did the same. Both muskets seemed to flash at the same moment. The rebel sprang up through the willows and fell forward on his face.
The Deacon picked up his gun and walked back up the bank. The Union skirmishers had seen the man fall and raised a yell, which they changed to cheers as they saw the Deacon coming up the bank.
The Captain in command came up and said:
"Sir, I congratulate you. That was splendidly done. I was just getting on to that fellow when you went down. I watched you through my glass, and saw you fetch him. You are entitled to all our thanks."
"No thanks to me, sir. I only done the dooty Providence marked out for me. I hope the man ain't killed. If he is, it's because Providence had fixed the number of his days. I only wanted to stop his killin' mules, and destroyin' Gover'ment property, and let us go on our journey in peace."
"Well, I wish you'd stay here and help us with some more of those fellows over there. I'm sure their time has come, but my men don't seem to be quite as good in carrying out the decrees of Providence as you are."
"Thankee, sir," said the Deacon. "But I must go back and 'tend to my boys. We've got a long ways to go yet to-day."
He went back to the road and reported to the Wagonmaster:
"Now you kin clear away them dead mules and go ahead. You won't scarcely be bothered any more for awhile at least."
IT WAS not until late the next afternoon that the wagon-train finally reached Bridgeport, and the weak, wornout mules had at last a respite from straining through the mud, under the incessant nagging of the teamsters' whips and their volleyed blasphemy.
The Deacon's merciful heart had been moved by the sufferings of the poor beasts. He had done all that he could on the journey to lighten the labor of those attached to his own wagon. He had restrained as much as possible the St. Vitus Dance of the teamster's keen whip, uselessly remonstrated with him against his profanity, carried a rail to help pry the wheels out of the mudholes, and got behind and pushed going up the steep hills. At the journey's end when the exhausted brutes stood motionless, with their ears drooping and their eyes looking unutterable disgust at everything connected with the army and war, the Deacon helped the teamster take their harness off, and carry them as much corn and hay as the Forage-Master could be pursuaded to dole out to them.
The Deacon's next solicitude was to get the boys aboard a train that would start out soon. This was a sore perplexity. All was rush and bustle about the railroad yard. Trains were coming, being switched hither and yon, unloaded, and reloaded, and going, in a way that was simply bewildering to the plain farmer. Men in uniform and men in plain clothes were giving orders, and these were obeyed, and everybody seemed too busy to answer questions or give information.
"Naw; git out. Don't bother me with no questions, I tell you," impatiently said a man in citizen's clothes, who with arms outspread was signalling the switching engines. "'Tain't my business to give information to people. Got all I kin do to furnish brains for them bull-headed engineers. Go to that Quartermaster you see over there in uniform. The Government pays him for knowin' things. It don't me."
"I don't know anything about the different cars, my friend," said the Quartermaster haughtily. "That's the business of the railroad people. I simply order them to make up the trains for me, and they do the rest. There's a Yard-Master over there. Go ask him."
"Blazes and brimstone," exploded the Yard-Master; "how in the devil's name do you suppose I can tell anything about the trains going out? I'm just pestered to death by such fool questions, while the life's being worried out of me by these snoozers with sardine-labels on their shoulders, who strut around and give orders, and don't know enough about railroading to tell a baggage-check from a danger-signal. If they'd only let me alone I'd have all these trains running in and out like shuttles in a loom. But as soon's I get one arranged down comes a shoulderstrap and orders something different. Go off and ask somebody that wears brass buttons and a basswood head. Don't bother me. Get out of the way of that engine there."
In despair, the Deacon turned to a man who wore a Major's shoulder-straps.
"No," he answered; "I'm sorry to say that I cannot give you any information. I'm only in command of the guards here. I haven't anything to do with the trains. The Quartermasters run them, and they run them as they run everything they have anything to do with—like the old man and woman run their fulling mill on the Kankakee—that is, like—
"Dumb this mixin' o' military and civilian," said the irritated Deacon, "It's worse'n mixin' religion and politics, and preachin' and tavern-keepin'. Down there in camp everything was straight and systematic. Every feller what don't have nothin' in his shoulder-straps bosses all the fellers what hain't no shoulder-straps at all. The feller what has one bar in his shoulder-straps bosses all the fellers what hain't nothin in theirs, and the feller what has two bars bosses the fellers with but one; the feller with leaves gives orders to the fellers with bars; the feller with an eagle lays clear over him, and the man with a star jest makes everybody jump when he talks. Out at the depot on Bean Blossom Crick Sol Pringle has the say about everything. He knows when the trains come and when they go, and what goes into 'em. This seems to be a betwixt and between place, neither pork nor bacon, I don't like it at all, I always want things straight—either one thing or t'other—reg'ler close communion, total-immersion Babtist, or free-for-all, shoutin' Methodist."
"I think I can help you, 'Squire," said a big, goodnatured-looking civilian railroad man, who had become interested in the Deacon's troubles. "I've bin around with the Assistant Yard-Boss pickin' out a lot o' empties to hustle back to Nashville for grub. That's one o' them over there, on the furthest switch—X634. See? It's got a chalk mark on it. I'll help you carry your boys into it, and fix 'em comfortable, and you'll go back with it all right."
The Deacon turned gladly to him. The man summoned some of his friends, who speedily transferred Si and Shorty, with their belongings, cedar boughs and all, to the car, and made them as comfortable as possible, and added some little offerings of their own to contribute to the ease of the journey. They bestired themselves to find something to eat that the boys would relish, and brought out from somewhere a can of peaches and one of tomatoes, which proved very acceptable. The Deacon was overwhelmed with gratitude.
"I want every one of you to come up to my house, whenever you git a chance," he said, "and make a long visit. You shall have the very best that there is on my farm, and if you don't live well it won't be Maria Klegg's fault. She'll jest lay herself out to be good to men who's bin good to her son, and when she lays herself out to git up a dinner the Burnett House in Cincinnati takes a back seat."
Feeling entirely at ease, he climbed into the car, with a copy of the Cincinnati Gazette, which he had bought of a newsboy, lighted his pipe, put on his spectacles, and settled down to a labored, but thorough perusal of the paper, beginning at the head-lines on the upper left-hand corner, and taking in every word, advertisements and all, as systematically as he would weed a garden-bed or milk a cow. The Deacon never did anything slip-shod, especially when he had to pay 10 cents for a copy of the Cincinnati Gazette. He was going to get his full money's worth, and if it was not in the news and editorials, he would take it out of the advertisements and patent medicine testimonials. He was just going through a convincing testimonial to the manifold virtues of Spalding's Prepared Glue, when there was a bump, the sound of coupling, and his car began to move off.
"Glory, we're goin' home!" shouted the Deacon, waving his paper exultingly to the railroad men who had been so helpful. But he exulted prematurely. The engine rattled ahead sharply for a few hundred yards, and then began backing to opposite the spot where it had started from.
"That's all right," said his railroads friends encouragingly. "She's just run back on the other switch to take up a couple more cars. She'll go ahead all right presently."
"I hope it is all right," said the Deacon, a little abashed; "but I never had any use for a hoss that went back more'n he did forrard."
But this was only the first of many similar experiences, which occupied the rest of the day.
"Good gracious, do they want to wear the track and wheels and injines clean out?" grumbled the Deacon. "No wonder they're all out o' order. If I jammed my wagon back and forrard this way it wouldn't last a month. No wonder war-taxes are high, with everybody doin' all they kin to waste and destroy property. I've a great mind to write to Gen. Rosecrans or President Lincoln callin' attention to the way their hired men monkey around, and waste time, and don't accomplish nothin'."
Some time after dark, and after the Deacon's patience had become well-nigh exhausted, the railroad men came around with a lantern, and told him that at last it was settled, and the train would move out very soon. There had been conflicting orders during the day, but now the Chief Quartermaster at Nashville had ordered the train forward. Sure enough, the train pulled out presently, and went rattling up toward Shelbyville. Again the Deacon's heart bounded high, and after watching the phantom-like roadside for awhile, he grew very sleepy, and crawled in alongside of Si. He waked up at daylight, and went at once to the car-door hopefully expecting to recognize the outskirts of Nashville, or at least Murfreesboro. To his dismay, he saw the same sutler's shanty, mule-corral, pile of baled-hay, and the embalmer's sign on a tree which had been opposite them while standing on the track at Bridgeport.
Shorty swore volubly, and for once the Deacon did not check him, but was sinfully conscious in his heart of approving the profanity.
"Swearin's awful wicked and low," he said to himself. "A sensible man can get along without it ordinarily, by the grace o' God and hard tryin', though I've knowed a yoke o' dumbed steers in a stumpy field to purty nigh overcome me. But the army's no common experience, and I s'pose a man's justified in bustin' out in a time like this. Old Job was lucky that he didn't have to ride on an army railroad."
His railroad friend again came up with some hot coffee and broiled meat, and explained that after the train had reached a station some miles out it got orders to run back and clear the track for some trains of troops from the Army of the Potomac which were being rushed through. The Deacon's heart almost sank in despair, but he took the coffee and meat, and helped the boys to it. As they were all eating they heard a voice outside which struck on the chords of their memories:
"Where is that Yard-Boss? Where is that Yard-Boss? Find him and send him to me, immediately."
"That sounds like Levi Rosenbaum," said Shorty.
Si nodded affirmatively.
The Deacon looked out,' and recognized Levi dressed in the hight of fashion. On his jetty curls sat a glossy silk hat, his clothes looked as if just taken from the tailor's shop, and they fitted him to perfection. A large diamond flashed from his scarfpin, and another gleamed in a ring on his right hand as he waved it in giving orders to the men around. Every eye was fixed on him, and when he spoke there was hastening to obey. The Yard-Boss was coming at a run.
"Why are those cotton-cars still standing there this morning, after the orders I gave you yesterday?" asked Levi, in tones of severest reprehension, as that official came up.
"Why, Mr. Rosenbaum," said that official apologetically—he was the same man who had so severely snubbed the Deacon the day before—"you see I had the train made up and all ready to start, when there came orders—"
"Whose orders?" demanded Levi. "Who dares give orders that over-ride mine? You go at once and have an engine—the best one you have—hitched on. Couple on my car, and be ready to start in 15 minutes. Fifteen minutes I give you," continued he, looking at his watch. "Tell the Train Dispatcher to clear everything into switches until we get to Murfreesboro, and have the operator at Murfreesboro lay by everything till we get to Nashville."
The Yard-Boss rushed off to execute the order.
"Great Jehosephat, what's come over Levi?" muttered Shorty. "Has he become the High-muk-a-muk of the whole army? Have they put him in Gen. Rosecrans's place?"
"Will I dare to speak to such a high-flyer?" said the Deacon, doubtfully.
Levi's eyes, flashed from one point to another, rested on the Deacon for a moment, and the latter wreathed his face with a grin of recognition. Then Levi's stern countenance relaxed with a still broader grin.
"Hello, 'Squire," he shouted joyously. "Is that you? Where are the boys?" And he rushed forward with outstretched hand.
"I've got 'em in here, badly hurt," answered the Deacon, jumping to the ground and grasping the outstretched hand in his own horny palm. "I'm very glad to see you, Mr. Rosenbaum."
"Glad ain't no name for it," said Levi. "Did you say you'd got the boys in there? Here, you men, bring me two or three of those cracker-boxes."
By the aid of the cracker-boxes Levi climbed into the car, and shook the boys' hands, and cried and talked mingled gladness and sympathy in his broken English.
"What place have you got, and what are you doin' down here, Mr. Rosenbaum," the Deacon asked in the first lull.
"O, I'm Special Agent of the Treasury in charge of the cotton business. You see, these rascals have been stealing the Treasury blind, in cotton, and they had to have an honest man down here, who was up to all their tricks, and wouldn't stand no nonsense. They sent me, and gave me orders which make me boss of the whole outfit. None of them outrank me about these trains."
"So I see," said the Deacon. "Wisht I'd had a handful of your authority yesterday."
"Here, we're wasting time," said Levi suddenly. "You're tryin' to get these boys back home. I'll see that they get as far as the Ohio River as fast as the train'll go. Here, six or eight of you men pick up these boys and carry them over to my car there. Handle them as if they were eggs, for they're my friends."
There was no lack of willing hands to execute this order. That was long before the days of private cars, even for railway magnates, but Rosenbaum had impressed a caboose for himself, which he had had fitted up with as many of the comforts of a home as were available at that era of car-building. He had a good bed with a spring mattress for himself and another for his friends, table, chairs, washroom and a fairly-equipped kitchen, stored with provisions, for he was as fond of good living as of sumptuous raiment. All this and more he was only too glad to place at the disposal of the Deacon and the boys. The Deacon himself was not more solicitous about their comfort.
The train started as Levi had ordered, and sped along on a clear track to Nashville. Cotton was needed at the North almost as much as rations were needed at the front, and a train loaded with Treasury cotton had superior rights to the track which must not be disregarded. At Nashville a friend of Levi's, a Surgeon of generally recognized skill, and whom Levi had telegraphed for, came aboard with a couple of skilled nurses, who bathed the boys, dressed their wounds, and replaced their soiled, torn clothes with new, clean ones, including fine, soft underwear from Levi's own wardrobe.
"Say, Doc," said Shorty, after this was finished and he had devoured a supper cooked under Levi's special care, "I feel so much better that I don't believe there's any need o' my goin on any further. I'll jest lay by here, and go into Convalescent Camp for a few days, and then go back to the front with a squad, and help clean up our cracker line. I'd like awfully well to have a hand in runnin' them rebels offen Lookout Mountain. They've bin too infernally impudent and sassy for any earthly use."
"Indeed you won't," said the Surgeon decisively. "You'll go straight home, and stay there until you are well. You won't be fit for duty for at least a month yet, if then. If you went out into camp now you would have a relapse, and be dead inside of a week. The country between here and Chattanooga is dotted with the graves of men who have been sent back to the front too soon."
The journey to Louisville was delightful. At Louisville Levi tried hard to get his caboose taken across the river and attached to a train on the other side, so that the boys could go clear home in it. But a Special Treasury Agent had but little of the importance north of the Ohio River that he had south of it. Still, Levi managed to get the crew of an accommodation train interested in the boys, whom he had driven across the river on a light wagon, lying on his spring mattress. They were placed in a comfortable caboose, and soon were speeding on the last stretch of the journey.
The day was bright and sunny, and the boys were propped up, so that they could look out of the windows and enjoy the scenery. That they were nearing home made Si nervous and fidgety. It seemed to him that the train only crawled, and stopped interminably at every station and crossing. The Deacon became alarmed lest this should unfavorably affect him, and resorted to various devices to divert his mind. He bought a Cincinnati Gazette, and began reading it aloud. Si was deeply interested in all the war news, particularly that relating to the situation at Chattanooga, but he would not listen to the merits of Spalding's Prepared Glue.
The day wore away towards evening.
"Ain't we most there, Pap?" Si asked querulously.
"About 25 mile away, I think," answered his father. "I disremember just how fur that last stop is from the Crick, but I think it's betwixt 25 and 30 mile."
Just then the whistle blew for a stop.
"What'n the world are they stoppin' here for?" groaned Si. "Some woman's got a dozen aigs or a pound o' butter that she wants to send to town. I s'pose we'll stop here until she finishes churnin', or gits another aig to make up a dozen. I never did see sich putterin' along."
The Deacon was deeply absorbed in an editorial on "President Lincoln's duty in this Crisis," and paid no attention. Shorty craned his long neck out of the window.
"Some gal's stopped the train to git on," he reported to Si. "She's apparently been payin' a visit to a house up there a little ways, and they've brung her down in a buggy with her trunk. She's dressed up fit to kill, and she's purtier than a peach-blossom. Jehosephat, Si, I believe she's the very same gal that you was castin' sheep's eyes at when you was home. Yes, it is."
"Annabel?" gasped Si.
"What's that?" said the Deacon, rousing to interest, but carefully putting his thumb down to mark the place where he left off.
"Shorty thinks Annabel is out there gittin' on the train."
"Eh," said the Deacon, shoving up his spectacles and taking a good look. "It certainly is. She's been down here to see the Robinses, who live out here somewhere. I'll jest go out and bring her in here."
THE Deacon had been afraid to telegraph directly to his wife that he was bringing the boys home. He knew the deadly alarm that would seize mother and daughters at the very sight of the yellow telegraph envelope directed to them. They would interpret it to mean that Si was dead, and probably in their grief fail to open the envelope and read the message. So at Jeffersonville he sent a message to Sol Pringle, the agent and operator at the station. The Deacon remembered the strain the former message had been on the young operator's intelligence, besides he himself was not used to writing messages, and so, regardless of expense, he conveyed his thoughts to Sol in this wise:
Deer Sol: put yore thinkin' cap on, and understand just what
Ime sayin'. I want you to send word out to the house at once
that Ime comin' home this evenin' on the accommodation
train, and bringing the boys. Be keerful and doant make a
fool of yourself and skeer the wimmin fokes.
Respectfully yores, Josiah Klegg.
Sol had plenty of time to study that dispatch out, and he not only sent word as desired, but he communicated the news to all who came to the station. The result was there was quite a crowd of friends there to greet the home-comers.
The reception of the message had thrown the household into a flurry of joyful expectancy. It was far better news than the Deacon's last letter had led them to anticipate. After a few moments of tearful ejaculation and mutual kissing over it, mother and daughters began to get everything in readiness to give the returning ones the warmest, most cheerful welcome. Abraham Lincoln was summoned in from his rail-splitting, which he had been pursuing quite leisurely during the Deacon's absence, and stirred to spasmodic energy under Maria's driving to cut an additional supply of dry wood, and carry it into every room in the house, where little Sammy Woggles, the orphan whom the Deacon and Mrs. Klegg were bringing up, built cheer-shedding fires. Mrs. Klegg had her choicest young chickens killed, and after she and Amanda had robbed every other room of whatever they thought would add to the comfort of Si's, she set herself to work preparing a supper which would outdo all her previous efforts.
Hours before the train was due Maria had Abraham Lincoln bring out the spring-wagon and hitch the horses to it. Then he had to lay in a bed of clean straw, and upon this was placed a soft feather bed, blankets and pillows. Maria decided that she would drive to the station herself.
"Never do in the world," said she, "to trust them skittish young horses, what hain't done a lick o' work since Pap went away, to that stoopid darky. They'd surely run away and break his neck, which 'd be no great loss, and save lots o' provisions, but they'd smash that new wagon and break their own necks, which are worth more'n $200 apiece."
"Maria, how can you talk so?" said the gentle Mrs. Klegg reprovingly. "It's a sin to speak so lightly o' death o' a feller-creature."
"Well, if he's a feller-creature o' mine," returned the sprightly Maria, "the Lord made a slack-twisted job of him some dark night out o' remnants, and couldn't find no gumption to put in him. He gave him an alligator's appetite instid. And ain't I tryin' to save his life? Besides, I'm nearly dead to see Si. I want to be the first to see him."
This aroused Amanda, but Maria stood on her rights as the elder sister, had her way, as she usually did, and drove away triumphantly fully two hours before train-time.
Upon her arrival at the station she quickly recognized that she was the central figure in the gathering crowd, and she would have been more than a young woman if she had not made the most of her prominence.
Other girls were there with their fathers and mothers who had brothers who had been in the three months' service, or were now in three years regiments, or who had been discharged on account of disability, or who had been in this battle or that, but none of them a brother who had distinguished himself in the terrible battle about which everybody was now talking, who had helped capture a rebel flag, who had been wounded almost to death, who had been reported dead, and who was now coming home, a still living evidence of all this. No boy who had gone from Bean Blossom Creek neighborhood had made the figure in the public eye that Si had, and Maria was not the girl to hide the light of his achievements under a bushel. She was genially fraternal with those girls who had brothers still in the service, affable to those whose brothers had been in, but were now, for any reason, out, but only distantly civil to those whose brothers had not enlisted. Of these last was Arabella Widgeon, whose father had been one of the earliest immigrants to the Wabash, and was somewhat inclined to boast of his Old Virginia family. He owned a larger farm than the Deacon's, and Arabella, who was a large, showy girl, a year or two older than Maria, had been her schoolmate, and, Maria thought, disposed to "put on airs" over her. Arabella's brother Randolph was older than Si, but had chosen to continue his studies at Indianapolis rather than engage in "a war to free the niggers." But Arabella had developed an interest in the war since she had met some engaging young gentlemen who had come through the neighborhood on recruiting duty, and was keeping up a fitful correspondence with two or three of them.
"It must be very nice, Maria," said Arabella, with a show of cordiality, but which Maria interpreted as an attempt to patronize, "to have your brother back home with you again."
"It certainly will be. Miss Widgeon," answered Maria, with strictly "company manners." "One who has never had a brother exposed to the constant dangers of army life can hardly understand how glad we all feel to have Si snatched from the very jaws of death and brung back to us."
"That's a little love-tap that'll settle several scores with Miss Frills," Maria chuckled to herself. "Partickerly the airs she put on over all us girls when she was running around to singing-school and church with that Second Lieutenant, who ain't got across the Ohio River yet, and I don't believe he intends to. Sol Pringle tells me all his letters to her are postmarked Jeffersonville."
Arabella took no seeming notice of the shot, but came back sweetly:
"I am awfully glad that your brother was not hurt so badly as at first reported. He couldn't be, and be able to come home now. These papers do magnify everything so, and make no end of fuss over little things as well as big ones, I was very much alarmed at first, for fear Si might be really badly hurt."
This was too much for Maria. Her company manners slid off like a drop of water from a cabbage leaf, and she answered hotly:
"I'd have you know. Miss Widgeon, the papers don't magnify the matter. They don't make a fuss over nothing. They don't begin to tell all the truth. None o' them can. My brother was nearer dead than any man who ever lived. Nothing but the favor of God and Klegg grit pulled him through. It'd killed a whole house full o' Randy Widgeons or that Second Lieutenant. I remember Randy Widgeon turning pale and a'most fainting when he run a fish-hook in his finger. If it ain't nothing, why don't Randy Widgeon go down there a little while, with the rest o' the boys, and do his share?"
"My brother disbelieves in the constitutionality of this war, and denies that we have any right to take away other people's slaves," said Arabella loftily. "I s'pose he's a right to his opinions."
"A poor excuse's better'n none," retorted Maria. "I noticed that he didn't turn out last Summer to keep John Morgan from stealing our people's horses, and robbing their stores and houses. S'pose he thought it unconstitutional to let a nasty rebel gorilla shoot at him. It's very convenient to have opinions to keep you from doin' things that you're afraid to do."
The dialog was approaching the volcanic stage, when a poorly-dressed, sad-faced woman, with a babe in her arms, edged through the crowd to Maria, and said timidly, for she had never been accounted by the Kleggs as in their set:
"Miss Maria, I don't s'pose you know me, but I do so want to git a chance to speak to your pap as soon as he gets here, and before all these people gits hold of him. Mebbe he's found out something about poor Jim. I can't believe that Jim was killed, and I keep hopin' that he got away somehow, and is in one o' them hospitals. Mebbe your pap knows. I know you think Jim was bad and rough, but he was mighty good to me, and he's all that I had. I'm nearly dead to hear about him, but I can't write, nor kin Jim. I've bin tryin' to make up my mind to come over to your house, and ax you to write for me."
"Of course, you can, you poor, dear woman," said Maria, her mood changing at once from fierceness to loving pity. "You shall be the first one to speak to Pap and Si after me. Why didn't you come over to see us long ago. We'd only bin too glad to see you, and do all we could for you. Yes, I know you.
"You're Polly Blagdon, and live down by the sawmill, where your husband used to work. You look tired and weak carrying that big baby. Let me hold him awhile and rest you. Sit down there on that box. I'll make Sol Pringle clear it off for you."
Arabella curled her nose, at seeing Maria take the unwashed baby in her arms, to the imminent danger of her best gown, but Maria did not notice this, and was all loving attention to the baby and its mother.
It seemed an age until the whistle of the locomotive was heard. The engine had to stop to take water at the creek, several hundred yards from the station, and Maria's impatience to see Si and be the first to speak to him could not brook the delay.
"Come along, Mrs. Blagdon," she called, and with the baby still in her arms, she sped down the cinder track to the pumping station, and then along the line of freight cars until she recognized her father's face looking from the caboose, which was still beyond the bridge. She shouted joyously at him.
"Maria's out there, waitin' for us, and she's got a baby in her arms. What do you suppose she thinks we want a baby for?"
"'Spect she's been practicin' on it, so's to take care o' us, Si," said Shorty. "I believe we've been more trouble to your father than we wuz to our mothers when we wuz teethin'."
"I've bin repaid for all, more'n repaid for all," said the Deacon; "especially since I'm once more back home, and out o' the reach o' the Sheriffs o' Tennessee. I'll stay away from Chattanoogy till after the Grand Jury meets down there. If it does its dooty there'll be several bills with Josiah Klegg's name entirely too conspicuous."
"I want to be able to git out to the next covenant meetin', Pap," said Si with a grin, "and hear you confess to the brethren and sisters all that you've bin up to down at Chattanoogy."
"Well, you won't git there," said the Deacon decisively. "We don't allow nobody in there who hain't arrived at the years o' discreetion, which'll keep you out for a long time yit."
The train pulled over across the bridge, and handing the baby to its mother, Maria sprang in, to recoil in astonishment at the sight of Annabel's blushing face.
"You mean thing," said Maria, "to steal a march on me this way, when I wanted to be the first to see Si. Where in the world did you come from, and how did you find out he was comin' home on this train? Si, you didn't let her know before you did us, did you?"
She was rent by the first spasm of womanly jealousy that any other woman should come between her brother and his mother and sisters.
"Don't be cross, Maria," pleaded Annabel. "I didn't know nothin' of it. You know I've been down to see the Robinses, and intended to stay till tomorrer, but something moved me to come home today, and I just happened to take this train. I really didn't know. Yet," and the instinctive rights of her womanhood and her future relations with Si asserted themselves to her own wonderment, "I had what the preachers call an inward promptin', which I felt it my dooty to obey, and I now think it came from God. You know I ought to be with Si as soon as anybody," and she hid her face in her hands in maidenly confusion.
"Of course you ought, you dear thing," said Maria, her own womanhood overcoming her momentary pique. "It was hateful o' me to speak that way to you."
And she kissed Annabel effusively, though a little deadness still weighed at her heart over being supplanted, even by the girl she liked best in all the world after her own sister.
If the young folks had not been so engaged in their own affairs they would have seen the Deacon furtively undoing his leathern pocket-book and slipping a greenback into the weeping Mrs. Blagdon's hand, as the only consolation he was able to give her.
There were plenty of strong, willing hands to help carry Si from the caboose to the wagon. It was strange how tender and gentle those strong, rough farmers could be in handling a boy who had been stricken down in defense of his country. Annabel's face was as red as a hollyhock over the way that everybody assumed her right to be next to Si, and those who could not get a chance at helping him helped her to a seat in the wagon alongside of him, while the dethroned Maria took her place by her father, as he gathered the reins in his sure hands and started home. Maria had to expend some of the attentions she meant for Si upon Shorty, who received them with awkward confusion.
"Now, don't make no great shakes out o' me, Miss Maria," he pleaded. "I didn't do nothin' partickler, I tell you. I was only along o' Si when he snatched that rebel flag, and I got a little crack on the head, which wouldn't 've amounted to nothin', if I hadn't ketched the fever at Chattanoogy. I'm a'most well, and only come back home to please the Surgeon, who was tired seein' me around."
They found the house a blaze of light, shining kindly from the moment it came in sight, and there was a welcome in Towser's bark which touched Si's heart.
"Even the dogs bark differently up here. Shorty," he said. "It's full and honest, and don't mean no harm. You know that old Towser ain't barkin' to signal some bushwhackers that the Yankees 's comin'. It sounds like real music."
It was Mrs. Klegg's turn to receive a shock when she rushed out to greet her son, and found Annabel by his side. It went deeper to her heart than it had to Maria's; but, then, she had more philosophy, and had foreseen it longer.
After everything had been done, after she had fed them her carefully-prepared dishes, after the boys had been put to bed in the warmed room, and she knew they were sleeping the sound sleep of deep fatigue, she went to her own room to sit down and think it all over. There Maria found her, wiping away her tears, and took her in her arms, and kissed her.
"It's right. It's all right. It's God's ways," said the mother.
"A son's a son till he gets a wife;
But a daughter's a daughter all her life."
WHAT days those were that followed the arrival of the boys home. In Shorty's hard, rough life he had never so much as dreamed of such immaculate housekeeping as Mrs. Klegg's. He had hardly been in speaking distance of such women as Si's mother and sisters. To see these bright, blithe, sweet-speeched women moving about the well-ordered house in busy performance of their duties was a boundless revelation to him. It opened up a world of which he had as little conception as of a fairy realm. For the first time he began to understand things that Si had told him of his home, yet it meant a hundredfold more to him than to Si, for Si had been brought up in that home. Shorty began to regard the Deacon and Si as superior beings, and to stand in such awe of Mrs. Klegg and the girls that he became as tongue-tied as a bashful school-boy in their presence. It amazed him to hear Si, when the girls would teaze him, speak to them as sharply as brothers sometimes will, and just as if they were ordinary mortals.
"Si, you orter to be more careful in talkin' to your sisters," he remonstrated when they were alone.
"You've bin among rough men so long that you don't know how to talk to real ladies."
"O, come off," said Si, petulantly. "What's a-eatin you. You don't know them girls as well as I do. Particularly Maria. She'll run right over you if you let her. She's one o' the best girls that ever breathed, but you've got to keep a tight rein on her. The feller that marries her's got to keep the whip-hand or she'll make him wish that he'd never bin born."
Shorty's heart bounded at the thought of any man having the unspeakable happiness of marrying that peerless creature, and then having the meanness not to let her do precisely as she wanted to.
Both the boys had been long enough in the field to make that plain farm home seem a luxurious palace of rest. The beds were wonders of softness and warmth, from which no unwelcome reveille or cross-grained Orderly-Sergeant aroused them with profane threats of extra duty.
Instead, after peeping cautiously through the door to see that they were awake, the girls would come in with merry greeting, bowls of warm water, and soft, white towels fragrant of the lawn. Maria would devote herself to helping Shorty get ready for breakfast, and Amanda to Si. Shorty trembled like a captured rabbit when Maria first began her ministrations. All his blood rushed to his face, and he tried to mumble something about being able to take care of himself, which that straightforward young woman paid not the slightest attention to. After his first fright was over there was a thrilling delight about the operation which electrified him.
When the boys were properly washed and combed, Mrs. Klegg, her kind, motherly face beaming with consciousness of good and acceptable service, would enter with a large tray, laden with fragrant coffee, delicious cream, golden butter, her own peerless bread and bits of daintily-broiled chicken.
"Si," said Shorty, one morning after he had finished the best breakfast he had ever known, the girls had gone away with the things, and he was leaning back thinking it all over in measureless content, "if the preachers'd preach that a feller'd go to such a place as this when he died if he was real good, how good we'd all be, and we'd be rather anxious to die. How in the world are we ever goin' to git up spunk enough to leave this and go back to the field?"
"You'll git tired o' this soon enough," said Si. "It's awful nice for a change, but I don't want it to last long. I want to be able to git up and git out. I hate awfully to have women-folks putterin' around me."
The boys could not help rapidly recovering under such favorable conditions, and soon they were able to sit up most of the day. In the evening, ensconced in the big Shaker rocking chairs, sitting on pillows, and carefully swathed in blankets, they would sit on either side of the bright fire, with the family and neighbors forming the semi-circle between, and talk over the war interminably. The neighbors all had sons and brothers in the army, either in the 200th Ind. or elsewhere, and were hungry for every detail of army news. They plied Si and Shorty with questions until the boys' heads ached. Then the Deacon would help out with his observations of camp-life.
"I'm not goin' to believe," said one good old brother, who was an exhorter in the Methodist Church, "that the army is sich a pitfall, sich a snare to the feet o' the unwary as many try to make out. There's no need of any man or boy who goes to serve his country and his God, fallin' from grace and servin' the devil. Don't you think so, too. Deacon? There's no reason why he shouldn't be jest as good a man there as he is at home. Don't you think so, too. Deacon Klegg?"
"Um—um-um," hemmed the Deacon, getting red in the face, and avoiding answering the question by a vigorous stirring of the fire, while Si slily winked at Shorty. "I impressed that on son Jed's mind when he enlisted," continued the brother. "Jed was always a good, straight up-and-down boy; never gave me or his mother a minute's uneasiness. I told him to have no more to do with cards than with smallpox; to avoid liquor as he would the bite of a rattlesnake; to take nothin' from other people that he didn't pay full value for; that swearin' was a pollution to the lips and the heart. I know that Jed hearkened to all that I said, and that it sank into his heart, and that he'll come back, if it's God's will that he shall come back, as good a boy as when he went away."
Si and Shorty did not trust themselves to look at one another before the trusting father's eyes, for Jedediah Bennett, who was one of the best soldiers in Co. Q, had developed a skill at poker that put all the other boys on their mettle; and as for foraging—well, neither Si nor Shorty ever looked for anything in a part where Jed Bennett had been.
"Deacon," persisted Mr. Bennett, "you saw a great deal o' the army. You didn't see the wickedness down there that these Copperheads 's chargin', did you? You only found men wicked that'd be wicked any place, and really good men jest as good there as at home?"
"It's jest as you say, Mr. Bennett," answered the Deacon, coughing to gain time for a diplomatic answer, and turning so that the boys could not see his face. "A wicked man's wicked anywhere, and he finds more chance for his wickedness in the army. A good man ought to be good wherever he's placed, but there are positions which are more tryin' than others. By the way, Maria, bring us some apples and hickory nuts. Bring in a basketful o' them Rome Beauties for Mr. Bennett to take home with him. You recollect them trees that I budded with Rome Beauty scions that I got up the river, don't you, Bennett? Well, they bore this year, and I've bin calculatin' to send over some for you and Mrs. Bennett. I tell you, they're beauties indeed. Big as your fist, red as a hollyhock, fragrant as a rose, and firm and juicy. I have sent for scions enough to bud half my orchard. I won't raise nothin' hereafter but Rome Beauties and Russets."
The apples and nuts were brought in, together with some of Mrs. Klegg's famous crullers and a pitcher of sweet cider, and for awhile all were engaged in discussing the delicious apples. To paraphrase Dr. Johnson, God undoubtedly could make a better fruit than a Rome Beauty apple from a young tree, growing in the right kind of soil, but undoubtedly He never did. The very smell of the apple is a mild intoxication, and its firm, juicy flesh has a delicacy of taste that the choicest vintages of the Rhine cannot surpass.
But Mr. Bennett was persistent on the subject of morality in the army. He soon refused the offer of another apple, laid his knife back on the plate, put the plate on the table, wiped his mouth and hands, and said:
"Deacon, these brothers and sisters who have come here with me to-night are, like myself, deeply interested in the moral condition of the army, where we all have sons or kinsmen. Now, can't you sit right there and tell us of your observations and experiences, as a Christian man and father, from day to day, of every day that you were down there? Tell us everything, just as it happened each day, that we may be able to judge for ourselves."
Si trembled a httle, for fear that they had his father cornered. But the Deacon was equal to the emergency.
"It's a'most too late, now, Mr. Bennett," he said, looking at the clock, "for it's a long story. You know I was down there quite a spell. We can't keep these boys out o' bed late now, and by the time we have family worship it'll be high time for them to be tucked in. Won't you read us a chapter o' the Bible and lead us in prayer, Brother Bennett?"
While Shorty was rapidly gaining health and strength, his mind was ill at ease. He had more time than ever to think of Jerusha Briggs, of Bad Ax, Wis., and his surroundings accentuated those thoughts. He began by wondering what sort of a girl she really was, compared to Si's sisters, and whether she was used to such a home as this? Was she as handsome, as fine, as high-spirited as Maria? Then his loyal soul reproached him. If she would have him he would marry her, no matter who she she was. Why should he begin now making comparisons with other girls? Then, she might be far finer than Maria. How would he himself compare with her, when he dared not even raise his eyes to Maria?
He had not written her since the Tullahoma campaign. That seemed an age away, so many things had happened in the meanwhile.
He blamed himself for his neglect, and resolved to write at once, to tell her where he was, what had happened to him, and that he was going to try to visit her before returning to the field. But difficult as writing had always been, it was incomparably more so now. He found that where he thought of Jerusha once, he was thinking of Maria a hundred times. Not that he would admit to himself there was any likeness in his thoughts about the two girls. He did not recognize that there was anything sentimental in those about Maria. She was simply some infinitely bright, superior sort of a being, whose voice was sweeter than a bird's, and whose presence seemed to brighten the room. He found himself uncomfortable when she was out of sight. The company of Si or his father was not as all-sufficient and interesting as it used to be. When Maria went out of the room they became strangely dull and almost tiresome, unless they talked of her.
Worse yet. As he grew stronger and better able to take care of himself Maria dropped the familiarity of the nurse, and began putting him on the footing of a young gentleman and a guest of the house. She came no more into the room with the basin of warm water, and got him ready for his breakfast. She toned down carefully with every improvement in his strength. First, she merely brought him the basin and towel, and then as he grew able to go about she would rap on his door and tell him to come out and get ready for breakfast. Shorty began to feel that he was losing much by getting well, and that his convalescence had been entirely too rapid.
Then he would go off and try to compose his thoughts for a letter to Jerusha Briggs, but before he knew it he would find himself in the kitchen watching, with dumb admiration, Maria knead bread, with her sleeves rolled to her shoulders, and her white, plump arms and bright face streaked with flour. There would be little conversation, for Maria would sing with a lark's voice, as she worked, some of the sweet old hymns, chording with Amanda, busy in another part of the house. Shorty did not want to talk. It was enough for him to feast his eyes and ears.
They were sitting down to supper one evening when little Sammy Woggles came in from the station.
"There's your Cincinnati Gazette," he said, handing the paper to the Deacon, "and there's a letter for Si."
"Open it and read it, Maria," said Si, to whom reading of letters meant labor, and he was yet too weak for work.
"It's postmarked Chattanooga, Tenn.," said she, scanning the envelope carefully, "and addressed to Sergeant Josiah Klegg, 200th Indiana Volunteer Infantry, Bean Blossom Creek, Ind."
"Sergeant!" ejaculated Si, Shorty and the Deacon, in the same breath. "Are you sure it's Sergeant?"
"Yes, it's Sergeant," said Maria, spelling the title out. "Who in the world do you s'pose it's from, Si?"
"It don't seem to occur to you that you could find out by openin' it," said the Deacon, sarcastically.
"Open it and see who it's from," said Si.
"The man writes a mighty nice hand," said Maria, scanning the superscription. "Just like that man that taught writing-school here last Winter. It can't be from him, can it? Didn't s'pose there was anybody in your company that could write as well as that. Look, Si, and see if you can tell whose handwritin' it is."
"O, open it, Maria," groaned Si, "and you'll likely find his name writ somewhere inside."
"Don't be so impatient. Si," said Maria, feeling around for a hair-pin with which to rip open the envelope. "You're gittin' crosser'n two sticks since you're gittin' well."
"He certainly does write a nice hand," said Maria, scanning the inclosure deliberately. "Just see how he makes his d's and s's. All his up-strokes are light, and all his down ones are heavy, just as the writing-master used to teach. And his curves are just lovely. And what a funny name he has signed. J. T. No; I. T. No; that's a J, because it comes down below the line. M-c-G-i-l-l—I can't make out the rest."
"McGillicuddy; ain't that it?" said Si eagerly. "It's from Capt. McGillicuddy. Read it, Maria."
"McGillicuddy. Well, of all the names!" said that deliberate young woman. "Do you really mean to say that any man has really such a name as that?"
"'Mandy, take that letter away from her and read it," commanded Si.
"Well, I'm goin' to read your old letter for you, if you'll just gi' me time," remonstrated Maria. "What are you in such a hurry for, old cross-patch? Le' me see:
"Headquarters, Co. Q, 200th Indiana Volunteer Infantry.
"Chattanooga, Tenn., Nov. 20, 1863.
"Sergeant Josiah Klegg.
"Dear Klegg: I have not heard from you since you left, but I
am going to hope that you are getting well right along. All
the boys think of you and Shorty, and send their love and
their hopes that you will soon be back with us. We all miss
you very much.
"I have some good news for you and Shorty. On my
recommendation the Colonel has issued a special order
promoting you Sergeant and Shorty Corporal, for gallant and
meritorious services at the battle of Chickamauga, in which
you captured a rebel flag. The order was read on parade this
evening. So it is Sergeant Klegg and Corporal Elliott
hereafter, and they will be obeyed and respected
accordingly. You will take poor Pettibone's place, and
Elliott will take Harney's.
"I do not know where Elliott is, but expect that he is with
you. If so, give him the news, and also the inclosed letter,
which came to me. If not, and you know where he is, write
him.
"Write me as soon as you can. We are all getting along very
well, especially since Grant came up and opened our cracker
line. My little hurt is healing nicely, so that I can go
about with a cane. We are all getting ready to jump old
Bragg on Mission Ridge, and I am going to do my best to go
along at the head of Co. Q, though I have been Acting Major
and Lieutenant-Colonel since I got up.
"Regards to your father, and believe me, sincerely your
friend,
"J. T. MCGILLICUDDY,
"Captain, Co. Q, 200th Ind. Inf. Vols."
Maria passed the letter over to Si to read again, and without more ado opened the inclosure. As she did so, a glance of recognition of the handwriting flashed upon Shorty, and he started to take the letter from her, but felt ashamed to do so.
"Why, this is from a woman," said Maria, "and she writes an awful bad, scratchy hand." Being a woman's letter she was bound to read it without loss of time, and she did so:
"Bad Ax, Wis., Nov. 10.
"Capt. McGillicuddy.
"Dear Sir: I believe you command the company, as they call
it, in which there was a gentleman named Mr. Elliott. The
papers reports that he was kild at thfe battle of
Chickamaugy. I had some correspondence with him, and I sent
him my picture.
Would you kindly write me the particklers of his death, and
also what was done with sich letters and other things that
he had? I would very much like to have you return me my
letters and picture if you have them. Send them by express
to Miss Jerusha Briggs, at this plais, and I will pay the
charges. I will explain to you why I want them sent to a
difrunt naim than that which I sign. Upon learnin' of Mr.
Elliott's deth I excepted the addresses of Mr. Adams, whose
wife passed away last summer. You may think I was in a
hurry, but widowers always mene bizniss when they go
a-courtin', as you will know if ever you was a widower, and he
had two little girls who needed a mother's care. My husband
is inclined to be jelous, as widowers usually are, and I
don't want him to ever know nothin' about my letters to Mr.
Elliott, and him havin' my picture. I am goin' to ask you to
help me, as a gentleman and a Christian, and to keep this
confidential.
"Very respectfully,
"Mrs. Benj. F. Adams."
They all listened eagerly to the reading of the letter, and when it was finished looked for Shorty. But he had gone outside, where there was more air.
ANNABEL came in just as the reading of the letter was finished and her arrival caused a commotion in the family, as it always did, which momentarily distracted attention from the missive and Shorty's absence. She and the mother and daughters had to exchange kisses and news about the health of both families. Then she had to give a filial kiss to the Deacon, who had already begun to assume paternal airs toward her, and finally she got around to Si. Neither of them had yet got to the point of "kissing before folks," and had to be content with furtive squeezing of hands. Si's heart was aching to have Annabel read Capt. McGillicuddy's letter, yet such was his shame-faced modesty that not for the world would he have alluded to it before the family. If he had been alone with her, he might have slipped the letter unopened into her hand, with a shy request for her to read it, but so sternly was the Deacon and his family set against anything like "vainglory" and "self-praise" that he could not bring himself to mention that such a letter had been received. At last, when full particulars had been given about the spread of measles and whooping-cough, who was to preach and who to be baptized at the coming quarterly meeting, Maria's active mind turned to things nearer Si's heart, and she said:
"O, Si's got sich a nice letter from his officer-boss, his Corporal, or Colonel, or General, or whatever they call him—Mister—"
"My Captain—Capt. McGillicuddy, Maria," said Si, reddening at Maria's indifference to and ignorance of military titles.
"Yes, Mr. McMillifuddy. Did you ever hear of such a ridiculous name?"
"McGillicuddy—Capt. McGillicuddy, Maria. Why can't you get his name right?"
"Well, if I had sich a name as that I wouldn't expect people to git it right. There's no sense in havin' a Dutch name that makes your tongue crack like a whip. Well, this Mr. McFillemgoody is Si's boss, and he writes a nice letter, and says Si done so well at Chickamaugy that some other boss—a Colonel or Corporal—"
"The Colonel, Maria. The Colonel commands the whole regiment. Won't you never know the difference? A Colonel's much higher than a Corporal. You girls never will learn nothin'."
"Well, I never kin tell t'other from which," replied Maria, petulantly. "And I don't have to. I don't care a hill o' beans whether a Corporal bosses or a Colonel, or t'other way. Anyhow, Si's no longer a Corporal. He's a Sargint."
"O, Si," said Annabel, her big blue eyes filling with grief; "I'm so sorry."
"Why, Annabel," said Si, considerably abashed; "what's the matter? Don't you understand. I'm promoted. Sergeant's higher than a Corporal."
"Is it really?" said Annabel, whose tears were beginning to come. "It don't sound like it. Sargint don't sound near so big as Corporal. I always thought that Corporal was the very purtiest title in the whole army. None o' the rest o' them big names sounded half so nice. Whenever I saw Corporal in the papers I always thought of you."
"Well, you must learn to like Sergeant just as well," said Si, fondly squeezing her hand. "Maria, let her read the letter."
"Well, Mr. Gillmacfuddy does seem like a real nice, sociable sort of a man, in spite of his name," she commented, as she finished. "And I like him, because he seems to be such a good friend o' yours. I s'pose him and you board together, and eat at the same table when you are in the army, don't you?"
"O, no, we don't," said Si patiently, for her ignorance seemed beautifully feminine, where Maria's was provoking. "You see, dear, he's my Captain—commands about a hundred sich as me, and wears a sword and shoulder-straps and other fine clothes, and orders me and the rest around, and has his own tent, all by himself, and his servant to cook for him, and we have to salute him, and do jest what he says, and not talk back—at least, so he kin hear it, and jest lots o' things."
"Then I don't like him a bit," pouted Annabel. "He's a horrid, stuck-up thing, and puts on airs. And he hain't got no business to put on airs over you. Nobody's got any right to put on airs over you, for you're as good as anybody alive."
Si saw that this task of making Annabel under stand the reason for military rank was going to take some time, and could be better done when they were by themselves, and he took her out by the kitchen-fire to make the explanation.
For the very first time in his whole life Shorty had run away from a crisis. With his genuine love of fighting, he rather welcomed any awkward situation in which men were concerned. It was a challenge to him, and he would carry himself through with a mixture of brass, bravado and downright hard fighting. But he would have much more willingly faced the concentrated fire of all the batteries in Bragg's army than Maria's eyes as she raised them from that letter; and as for the comments of her sharp tongue—well, far rather give him Longstreet's demons charging out of the woods onto Snodgrass Hill. He walked out into the barn, and leaned against the fanning-mill to think it all over. His ears burned with the imagination of what Maria was saying. He was very uncomfortable over what the rest of the family were thinking and saying, particularly the view that dear old Mrs. Klegg might take. With the Deacon and Si it was wholly different. He knew that, manlike, they averaged him up, one day with another, and gave him the proper balance to his credit. But Maria—there everything turned to gall, and he hated the very name of Bad Ax, the whole State of Wisconsin and everybody in it. He would never dare go back into the house and face the family. What could he do? There was only one thing—get back to his own home, the army, as soon as possible.
Little Sammy Woggles came out presently to get some wood. Shorty called him to him. There was something fascinatingly mysterious in his tones and actions to that youth, who devoured dime novels on the sly.
"Sammy," said Shorty, "I'm goin' away, right off, and I don't want the people in the house to know nothin' of it. I want you to help me."
"You bet I will," responded the boy, with his eyes dancing. "Goin' to run away? I'm goin to run away myself some day. I'm awful tired o' havin' to git up in the mornin', wash my face and comb my hair, and do the chores, and kneel down at family prayers, and go to Sunday, school, and stay through church, and then have to spell out a chapter in the Bible in the afternoon. I'm goin' to run away, and be a soldier, or go out on the plains and kill Injuns. I'm layin' away things now for it. See here?"
And he conducted Shorty with much mystery to a place behind the haymow, where he had secreted an old single-barreled pistol and a falseface.
"You little brat," said Shorty, "git all them fool notions out o' your head. This 's the best home you'll ever see, and you stay here just as long as the Lord'll let you. You're playin' in high luck to be here. Don't you ever leave, on no account."
"Then why're you goin' to run away," asked the boy wonderingly.
"That's my business. Something you can't understand, nohow. Now, I want you to slip around there and git my overcoat and things and bring 'em out to me, without nobody seein' you. Do it at once."
While Sammy was gone for the things Shorty laboriously wrote out a note to Si upon a sheet of brown paper. It read:
"Deer Si; ive jest red in the papers that the army's goin' 2
move rite off. i no tha need me bad in the kumpany, for tha
are short on Korprils, & tha can't do nothin' without
Korprils. ive jest time 2 ketch the nekst traine, & ime
goin' thare ez fast ez steme kin carry me. Good-by & luv 2
all the folks.
"Yours, Shorty."
"There, Sammy," he said, as he folded it up and gave it to the boy; "keep that quiet until about bed time, when they begin to inquire about me. By that time I'll 've ketched the train goin' east, and be skippin' out for the army. By the way, Sammy, can't you sneak into Miss Maria's room, and steal a piece o' ribbon, or something that belongs to her?"
"I've got a big piece o' that new red Sunday dress o' her's," said Sammy, going to his storehouse and producing it. "I cribbed it once, to make me a flag or something, when I'd be out fightin' the Injuns. Will that do you?"
"Bully," said Shorty, with the first joyous emotion since the reception of the letter. "It's jest the thing. Here's a half-dollar for you. Now, Sammy, kin you write?"
"They're makin' me learn, and that's one reason why I want to run away," with a doleful remembrance of his own grievances. "What's the use of it, I'd like to know? It cramps my fingers and makes my head ache. Simon Kenton couldn't write his own name, but he killed more Injuns than ary other man in the country. I guess you'd want to run away, too, if they made you learn to write."
"You little brat," said Shorty reprovingly; "you don't know what's good for you. You do as they say, and learn to write as quick as you kin." Then, in a softer tone: "Now, Sammy, I want you to promise to write me a long letter—two sheets o' foolscap."
"Why, I never writ so much in all my life," protested the boy. "It'd take me a year."
"Well, you've got to, now, and it mustn't take you two weeks. Here's a dollar for you, and when I git the letter I'll send you home a real rebel gun. Now, you're to cross your heart and promise on your sacred word and honor that you'll keep this secret from everybody, not to tell a word to nobody. You must tell me all about what they say about me, and partickerlerly what Miss Maria says. Tell me everything you kin about Miss Maria, and who goes with her."
"What makes you like Maria better'n you do 'Mandy?" inquired the boy. "I like 'Mandy lots the best. She's heap purtier, and lots more fun, and don't boss me around like Maria does."
"That's all you know about it, you little skeezics. She don't boss you around half as much as she ought to." Then gentler: "Now, Sammy, do jest as I say, and I'll send you home a real rebel gun jest as soon as I get your letter."
"A real gun, that'll be all my own, and will shoot and kick, and crack loud?"
"Yes, a genuine rebel gun, that you kin shoot crows with and celebrate Christmas, and kill a dog."
"Well, I'll write you a letter if it twists my fingers off," said the boy joyously.
"And you hope to be struck dead if you tell a word to anybody?"
"Yes, indeedy," said the boy, crossing his heart earnestly. Shorty folded up the piece of dress goods tenderly, placed it securely in the breast-pocket of his blouse, and trudged over to the station, stopping on the summit of the hill to take a last look at the house. It was a long, hard walk for him, for he was yet far from strong, but he got their before train time.
It was the through train to St. Louis that he boarded, and the only vacant seat that he could find was one partially filled with the belongings of a couple sitting facing it, and very close together. They had hold of one another's hands, and quite clearly were dressed better than they were accustomed to. The man was approaching middle age, and wore a shiny silk hat, a suit of broadcloth, with a satin vest, and a heavy silver watch chain. His face was rather strong and hard, and showed exposure to rough weather. The woman was not so much younger, was tall and angular, rather uncomfortably conscious of her good clothes, and had a firm, settled look about her mouth and eyes, which only partially disappeared in response to the man's persistent endearments. Still, she seemed more annoyed than he did at the seating of another party in front of them, whose eyes would be upon them. The man lifted the things to make room for Shorty, who commented to himself:
"Should think they was bride and groom, if they wasn't so old."
There was a vague hint that he had seen the face somewhere, but he dismissed it, then settled himself, and, busy with his own thoughts, pressed his face against the window, and tried to recognize through the darkness the objects by which they were rushing. They were all deeply interesting to him, for they were part of Maria's home and surroundings. After awhile the man appeared temporarily tired of billing and cooing, and thought conversation with some one else would give variety to the trip. He opened their lunch-basket, took out something for himself and his companion to eat, nudged Shorty, and offered him a generous handful. Shorty promptly accepted, for he had the perennial hunger of convalescence, and his supper had been interrupted.
"Going back to the army?" inquired the man, with his mouth full of chicken, and by way of opening up the conversation.
"Um—huh," said Shorty, nodding assent.
"Where do you belong?"
"200th Injianny Volunteer Infantry."
If Shorty had been noticing the woman he would have seen her start, but would have attributed it to the lurching of the cars. She lost interest in the chicken leg she was picking, and listened to the continuance of the conversation.
"I mean, what army do you belong to?"
"Army o' the Cumberland, down at Chattanoogy."
"Indeed; I might say that I belong to that army myself. I'm going down that way, too. You see, my Congressman helped me get a contract for furnishing the Army o' the Cumberland with bridge timber, and I'm going down to Looeyville, and mebbe further, to see about it. We've just come from St. Louis, where I've bin deliverin' some timber in rafts."
"Where are you from?'
"Bad Ax, Wisconsin, a little ways from La Crosse."
It was Shorty's turn to start, and it flashed upon him just where he had seen that squarish face. It was in an ambrotype that he carried in his breastpocket. He almost choked on the merrythought of the chicken, but recovered himself, and said quickly:
"I have heard o' the place. Lived there long?"
"Always, you might say. Father took me there as a child during the mine excitement, growed up there, went into business, married, lost my wife, and married again. We're now on what you might call our bridal tower. I had to come down here on business, so I brung my wife along, and worked it off on her as our bridal tower. Purty cute, don't you think?"
And he reached over and tried to squeeze his wife's hand, but she repulsed it.
The bridegroom plied Shorty with questions as to the army for awhile after they had finished eating, and then arose and remarked:
"I'm goin' into the smokin'-car for a smoke. Won't you come along with me, soldier, and have a cigar?"
"No, thankee," answered Shorty. "I'd like to, awfully, but the doctor's shut down on my smokin' till I git well."
As soon as he was well on his way the woman leaned forward and asked Shorty in an earnest tone:
"Did you say that you belonged to the 200th Ind.?"
"Yes'm," said Shorty very meekly. "To Co. Q."
"The very same company," gasped the woman.
"Did you happen to know a Mr. Daniel Elliott in that company?"
"Very well, mum. Knowed him almost as well as if he was my own brother."
"What sort of a man was he?"
"Awful nice feller. I thought a heap of him. Thought more of him than any other man in the company. A nicer man you never knowed. Didn't drink, nor swear, nor play cards, nor chaw terbacker. Used to go to church every Sunday. Chaplain thought a heap of him. Used to call him his right bower—I mean his strong suit—I mean his two pair—ace high. No, neither o' them's just the word the Chaplain used, but it was something just as good, but more Bible-like."
"I'm so glad to hear it," murmured the woman.
"O, he was an ornament to the army," continued the unblushing Shorty, who hadn't had a good opportunity to lie in all the weeks that the Deacon had been with him, and wanted to exercise his old talent, to see whether he had lost it. "And the handsomest man! There wasn't a finer-looking man in the whole army. The Colonel used to get awfully jealous o' him, because everybody that'd come into camp 'd mistake him for the Colonel. He'd 'a' bin Colonel, too, if he'd only lived. But the poor fellow broke his heart. He fell in love with a girl somewhere up North—Pewter Hatchet, or some place like that. I never saw her, and don't know nothin' about her, but I heard that the boys from her place said that she was no match for him. She was only plain, ordinary-lookin'."
"That wasn't true," said the woman, under her breath.
"All the same, Elliott was dead-stuck on her. Bimeby he heard some way that some stay-at-home widower was settin' up to her, and she was encouragin' him, and finally married him. When Elliott heard that he was completely beside himself. He lost all appetite for everything but whisky and the blood of widowers. Whenever he found a man who was a widower he wanted to kill him. At Chickamauga, he'd pick out the men that looked old enough to be widowers, and shoot at them, and no others. In the last charge he got separated, and was by himself with a tall rebel with a gray beard. 'I surrender,' said the rebel. 'Are you a widower?' asked Elliott. 'I'm sorry to say that my wife's dead,' said the rebel. 'Then you can't surrender. I'm goin' to kill you,' said Elliott. But he'd bin throwed off his guard by too much talkin'. The rebel got the drop on him, and killed him."
"It ain't true that his girl went back on him before she heard he was killed," said the woman angrily, forgetting herself. "She only married after the report of his death in the papers."
"Jerusha," said Shorty, pulling out the letters and picture, rising to his feet, and assuming as well as he could in the rocking car the pose and manner of the indignant lovers he had seen in melodramas, "I'm Dan Elliott, and your own true love, whose heart you've broke. When I learned of your faithlessness I sought death, but death went back on me. I've come back from the grave to reproach you. You preferred the love of a second-hand husband, with a silver watch-chain and a raft o' logs, to that of an honest soldier who had no fortune but his patriotic heart and his Springfield rifle. But I'll not be cruel to you. There are the evidences of your faithlessness, that you was so anxious to git hold of. Your secret's safe in this true heart. Take 'em and be happy with your bridge-timber contractor. Be a lovin' wife to your warmed-over husband. Be proud of his speculations on the needs o' his country. As for me, I'll go agin to seek a soldier's grave, for I cannot forgit you."
As he handed her the letters and picture he was dismayed to notice that the piece of Maria's dress was mixed in with them. He snatched it away, shoved it back in his pocket, pulled his hat down over his eyes, and, with a melodramatic air, rushed forward into the smoking-car, where he seated himself and at once fell asleep.
He was awakened in the morning at Jeffersonville, by the provost-guard shaking him and demanding his pass.
"I AINT got no pass," said Shorty, in response to the demand of the Provost-Guard. "Bin home on sick-furlough. Goin' back to the front now. Left my papers at home. Forgot 'em."
"Heard all about lost and missing papers before," said the Sergeant drily. "Fall in there, under guard." And he motioned Shorty to join the gang of stragglers and runaways which had already been gathered up.
"Look here. Sergeant," remonstrated Shorty, "I don't belong in that pack o' shell-fever invalids, and I won't fall in with 'em. There's no yaller or cotton in me. I'm straight goods, all wool, and indigodyed. I've bin promoted Corpril in my company for good conduct at Chickamauga. I'm goin' back to my regiment o' my own accord, before my time's up, and I propose to go my own way. I won't go under guard."
"You'll have to, if you can't show a pass," said the Sergeant decisively. "If you're a soldier you know what orders are. Our orders are to arrest every man that can't show a pass, and bring him up to Provost Headquarters. Fall in there without any more words."
"I tell you I'm not goin' back to the regiment under guard," said Shorty resolutely. "I've no business to go back at all, now. My furlough ain't up for two weeks more. I'm goin' back now of my own free will, and in my own way. Go along with your old guard, and pick up them deadbeats and sneaks, that don't want to go back at all. You'll have plenty o' work with them, without pesterin' me."
"And I tell you you must go," said the Sergeant, irritably, and turning away, as if to end the discussion. "Williams, you and Young bring him along."
"I'll not go a step under guard, and you can't make me," answered Shorty furiously, snatching up the heavy poker from the stove. "You lunkheaded, feather-bed soldiers jest keep your distance, if you know what's good for you. I didn't come back here from the front to be monkeyed with by a passel o' fellers that wear white gloves and dresscoats, and eat soft bread. Go off, and 'tend your own bizniss, and I'll 'tend to mine."
The Sergeant turned back and looked at him attentively.
"See here," he said, after a moment's pause.
"Don't you belong to the 200th Ind.?"
"You bet I do. Best regiment in the Army o' the Cumberland."
"You're the feller they call Shorty, of Co. Q?"
Shorty nodded assent.
"I thought I'd seen you somewhere, the moment I laid eyes on you," said the Sergeant in a friendly tone. "But I couldn't place you. You've changed a good deal. You're thinner'n a fishing-rod."
"Never had no meat to spare," acquiesced Shorty, "but I'm an Alderman now to what I was six weeks ago. Got a welt on my head at Chickamaugy, and then the camp fever at Chattanoogy, which run me down till I could've crawled through a greased flute."
"Well, I'm Jim Elkins. Used to belong to Co. A," replied the Sergeant. "I recollect your stealing the caboose door down there at Murfreesboro. Say, that was great. How that conductor ripped and swore when he found his door was gone. I got an ax from you. You never knew who took it, did you? Well, it was me. I wanted the ax, but I wanted still more to show you that there was somebody in the camp just as slick on the forage as you were. But I got paid for it. The blamed old ax glanced one day, while I was chopping, and whacked me on the knee."
"A thief always gits fetched up with," said Shorty, in a tone of profound moralizing. "But since it had to go I'm glad one o' our own boys got it. I snatched another and a better one that night from the Ohio boys. I'm awful sorry you got hurt. Was it bad?"
"Yes. The doctors thought I'd lose my leg, and discharged me. But I got well, and as soon as they'd take me I re-enlisted. Wish I was back in the old regiment, though. Say, you'll have to go to Headquarters with me, because that's orders, but you just walk alongside o' me. I want to talk to you about the boys."
As they walked along, the Sergeant found an opportunity to say in low tone, so that the rest could not hear:
"Old Billings, who used to be Lieutenant-Colonel, is Provost-Marshal. He's Lieutenant-Colonel of our regiment. He'll be likely to give you a great song and dance, especially if he finds out that you belonged to the old regiment. But don't let it sink too deep on you. I'll stand by you, if there's anything I can do."
"Much obliged," said Shorty, "but I'm all right, and I oughtn't to need any standing by from anybody. That old fly-up-the-crick ought to be ashamed to even speak to a man who's bin fightin' at the front, while he was playin' off around home."
"He'll have plenty to say all the same," returned the Sergeant. "He's got one o' these self-acting mouths, with a perpetual-motion attachment. He don't do anything but talk, and mostly bad. Blame him, it's his fault that we're kept here, instead of being sent to the front, as we ought to be. Wish somebody'd shoot him."
The Provost-Marshal was found in his office, dealing out sentences like a shoulder-strapped Rhadamanthes. It was a place that just suited Billings's tastes. There he could bully to his heart's content, with no chance for his victims getting back at him, and could make it very uncomfortable for those who were disposed to sneer at his military career. With a scowl on his brow, and a big chew of tobacco in his mouth, he sat in his chair, and disposed of the cases brought before him with abusive comments, and in the ways that he thought would give the men the most pain and trouble. It was a manifestation of his power that he gloated over.
"Take the position of soldiers, you slouching clodhoppers," he said, with an assortment of oaths, as the squad entered the office. "One'd think you a passel o' hawbucks half-drunk at a log-rollin', instead o' soldiers in the presence o' your superior officer. Shut them gapin' mouths, lift up them shock-heads, button up your blouses, put your hands down to your sides, and don't no man speak to me without salootin'. And mind what you say, or I'll give you a spell on bread and water, and send you back in irons. I want you to understand that I'll have no foolishness. You can't monkey with me as you can with some officers.
"Had your pocket picked, and your furlough as well as your money taken," he sneered to the first statement. "You expect me to believe that, you sickly-faced yallerhammer. I'll just give you five days' hard labor before sending you back, for lying to me. Go over there to the left, and take your place in that police squad."
"No," he said to the second, "that sick mother racket won't work. Every man we ketch now skulking home is goin' to see his sick and dying mother. There wouldn't be no army if we allowed every man who has a sick mother to go and visit her. None o' your back talk, or I'll put the irons on you."
"No," to a third, "you can't go back to your boarding place for your things, not even with a guard. I know you. You'd give the guard the slip before you went 10 rods. Let your things go. Probably you stole 'em, anyway."
Lieut.-Col. Billings's eye lighted on Shorty, with an expression of having seen him somewhere.
"Where do you belong?" he asked crossly.
"Co. Q, 200th Injianny Volunteer Infantry," replied Shorty proudly.
"Yes. I remember you now," said the Provost-Marshal savagely. "You're one o' them infernal nigger-thieves that brung disgrace on the regiment. You're one o' them that made it so notorious that decent men who had a respect for other people's property was glad to get out of it."
"You're a liar," said Shorty hotly. "You didn't git out o' the regiment because it stole niggers. That's only a pretend. The rear is full o' fellers like you who pretend to be sore on the nigger question, as an excuse for not going to the front. You sneaked out o' every fight the regiment went into. You got out of the regiment because it was too fond of doin' its duty."
"Shut up, you scoundrel! Buck-and-gag him, men," roared Billings, rising and shaking his fist at him.
"Stop that! You musn't talk that way," said the Sergeant, going over to Shorty, and shaking him roughly, while he whispered, "Don't make a blamed fool o' yourself. Keep quiet."
"I won't stop," said Shorty angrily; "I won't let no man talk that way about the 200th Ind., no matter if he wears as many leaves on his shoulders as there is on a beech tree. I'd tell the Major-General that he lied if he slandered the regiment, if I died for it the next minute."
"I order you to take him out and buck-and-gag him," shouted the Provost-Marshal.
The Sergeant caught Shorty by the shoulder, and pushed him out of the room, with much apparent roughness, but really using no more force than would make a show, while muttering his adjurations to cool down.
"I s'pose I've got to obey orders, and buck-and-gag you," said the Sergeant ruefully, as they were alone together in the room. "It goes against my grain, like the toothache. I'd rather you'd buck-and-gag me. But you are to blame for it yourself. You ought to have more sense than lay it into a Lieutenant-Colonel and Provost-Marshal that way. But you did give it to him fine, the old blow-hard and whisky-sucker. He's no more fit for shoulderstraps than a hog is for a paper-collar. Haven't heard anything for a long time that tickled me so, even while I was mad enough to pound you for having no more sense. I've bin aching to talk that way to him myself."
"Go ahead and obey your orders," said Shorty. "Don't mind me. I'm willin' to take it. I've had my say, which was worth a whole week o' buckin'. It 'll be something to tell the boys when I git back, that I saw old Billings swellin' around, and told him right before his own men just what we think of him. Lord, how it 'll tickle 'em. I'll forgit all about the buckin', but they won't forgit that."
"Blamed if I'll do it," said the Sergeant. "He can take off my stripes, and be blest to him. You said just what I think, and what we all think, and I ought to stand by you. I've a notion to go right back in the room and tell him I won't do it, and pull off my stripes and hand 'em to him, and tell him to take 'em and go to Halifax."
"Now, don't be a fool, Jim," remonstrated Shorty. "You won't help me, and you'll git yourself into trouble. Somebody's got to do it, and I'd rather it'd be you than somebody else. Go ahead and obey your orders. Git your rope and your stick and your bayonet."
"They're all here," said the Sergeant, producing them, with a regretful air. "We've plenty of use for them as long as old Billings is on deck. Say," said he, stopping, as a brighter look came into his face, "I've got an idea."
"Hold on to it till you kin mark its ears, so's you'll know it again for your property," said Shorty sarcastically. "Good idees are skeerce and valuable."
"Jeff Wilson, the General's Chief Clerk, who belongs to my company," said the Sergeant, "told me yesterday that they wanted another Orderly, and to pick out one for him. I'll send a note for him to detail you right off."
He hastily scratched off the following note on a piece of wrapping paper, folded it up, and sent secretly one of his boys on a run with it:
"Dear Jeff: Found you a first-class Orderly. It's Shorty,
of my old regiment. He's in Billings's clutches, and in
trouble. Send down a detail at once for Shorty Elliott, Co.
Q, 200th Ind. Rush. Yours, Jim."
"Here, Sergeant," called out the Provost-Marshal from the other room, "what are you fooling around in there so long for?"
"Somebody's been monkeying with my things," called back the Sergeant. "If they don't let 'em alone I'll scalp somebody."
"Well, get through, and come out here, for there's some more work for you. Make a good job with that scoundrel. I'll be in presently and see it."
Shorty squatted down, and the Sergeant made as easy going an imitation as he could of the punishment.
The messenger encountered the young General near by, limping along on a conscientious morning inspection of things about his post. He had been but recently assigned to the position, to employ him while he was getting well of his wound received at Chickamauga, and was making a characteristic effort to know all about his command. He had sent his staff on various errands, but had his Chief Clerk with him to make notes.
"What's that?" he inquired, as the messenger handed the latter the note.
"Just a note from the Sergeant of the Guard about an Orderly," answered the clerk.
"Let me see it," said the General, who had an inveterate disposition for looking into the smallest details. "What's this? One of the 200th Ind.? Why, that was in my brigade. The 200th Ind. was cut all to pieces, but it stuck to that Snodgrass Hill tighter than a real-estate mortgage. One of the boys in trouble? We'll just go over to the Provost-Marshal's and see about him. It may be that I know him."
The sharp call of the Sergeant on duty outside to "Turn out the Guard for the General," the clatter of muskets, as he was obeyed, the sudden stiffening up of the men lounging about the entrance into the position of the soldier, and their respectful salutes as the General limped in, conveyed to Lieut.-Col. Billings intelligence as to his visitor, and his whole demeanor changed to one of obsequious welcome.
"Very unexpected, General, but very kind in you to visit me," he said, bowing, and washing his hands with invisible soap.
"No kindness at all. Colonel," said the General with official curtness. "Merely my duty, to personally acquaint myself with all portions of my command. I should have visited you before. By the way, I understand you have picked up here a man belonging to my brigade—to the 200th Ind. Where is he?"
Billings's face clouded.
"Yes, we have a man who claimed to belong to that regiment—a straggler, who hadn't any papers to show. I had no idea whether he was telling the truth. He was outrageously sassy, and I had to give him a lesson to keep a civil tongue in his head. Take a seat. I'll send for him."
"No; I'll go and see him," said the General. "Where is he?"
With a foreboding that the scene was going to be made unpleasant for him, Billings led the General into the guard-room.
"Why, it's Shorty," said the General, recognizing him at once, "who ran back at Stone River, in a heavy fire, and helped me from under my horse."
Shorty winked and nodded affirmatively.
"What was the matter, Colonel?" inquired the General.
"Well," said Billings, defensively, "the feller is a straggler, without papers to show where he belonged, and he was very sassy to me—called me a liar, and said other mean things, right before my men, and I had to order him bucked-and-gagged to shut him up."
"Strange," said General; "I always found him very respectful and obedient. I thought I hadn't a better soldier in my brigade."
Shorty winked appreciatively at Serg't Elkins.
"Take out the gag, let him up, and let me hear what he has to say," said the General.
Shorty was undone and helped to his feet, when he respectfully saluted. His weakness was so apparent that the General ordered him to sit down, and then asked him questions which brought out his story. "You were promoted Corporal, if I recollect," said he, "for gallantry in capturing one of the rebel flags taken by my brigade."
"Yes, sir," answered Shorty.
Billings was feeling very uncomfortable.
"He called me a liar, and a stay-at-home sneak, and other insultin' things," protested he.
"General, he slandered the 200 Ind., which I won't allow no man to do, no matter what he has on his shoulders. I told him that he'd bin fired out o' the regiment, and was a-bummin' in the rear, and hadn't no business abusin' men who was doin' and respectful."
"Hum—very insubordinate, very unsoldierly," said the General. "Very unlike you. Corporal. I'm surprised at you. You were always very obedient and respectful."
"Always to real officers," said Shorty; "but—"
"Silence," said the General, sternly. "Don't aggravate the offense. You were properly punished."
"I ain't kickin' about it," said Shorty stubbornly. "I've got the worth of it."
"I think," continued the General, after having properly vindicated discipline, "that that blow you received on your head may affect your brain at times, and make you unduly irritable. I think I'll have the Surgeon examine you. Put him in an ambulance, Wilson, and take him over to the Surgeon. Then bring him to Headquarters with the report."
Turning to the Lieutenant-Colonel the General said:
"I had another object in visiting you this morning. Colonel. I've got some good news for you. I've found your officers and men very weary of their long tour of provost duty here, and anxious to go to the front. Of course, I know that you feel the same way."
Billings tried to look as if he did, but the attempt was not a success.
"I have represented to Headquarters, therefore," continued the General, "that it would be to the advantage of the service to have this fine full regiment sent to the front, and its place taken by one that has been run down by hard service, and so get a chance for it to rest and recruit. The General has accepted my views, and orders me to have you get ready to move at once."
"I have tried to do my dooty here, and I thought," murmured Billings, "that it was to the advantage of the Government to have as Provost-Marshal a man who knowed all these fellers and their tricks. It'd take a new man a long time to learn 'em."
"I appreciate that," said the General. "But it's not just to you or your men to make you do so much of this work. I'm expecting every minute notice of a regiment being sent to relieve yours, and therefore you will be ready to start as soon as it arrives. Good morning, sir."
The only relief that Billings could find to his feelings after the General's departure was to kick one of the men's dog out of his office with a great deal of vindictiveness.
"WELL," said the General, after he had listened to Shorty's story, and questioned him a little, "you are all right now. I'll take care of you. The Surgeon says that you are not fit to go back to the front, and will not be for some time. They have got more sick and convalescents down there now than they can take good care of. The army's gone into Winter quarters, and will probably stay there until Spring opens, so that they don't need either of us. I'll detail you as Orderly at these Headquarters, and you can go back with me when I do."
"I s'pose that's all right and satisfactory," said Shorty, saluting. "It's got to be, anyway. In the army a man with a star on his shoulder's got the last say, and kin move the previous question whenever he wants to. I never had no hankerin' for a job around Headquarters, and now that I'm a Korpril I ought to be with my company. But they need you worse'n they do me, and I've noticed that you was always as near the front as anybody, so I don't think I'll lose no chances by stayin' with you."
"I promise you that we shall both go as soon as there's any prospect of something worth going for," said the General, smiling. "Report there to Wilson. He will instruct you as to your duties."
Wilson's first instructions were as to Shorty's personal appearance. He must get a clean shave and a hair-cut, a necktie, box of paper collars, a pair of white gloves, have blouse neatly brushed and buttoned to his throat and his shoes polished.
"Dress parade every day?" asked Shorty, despairingly.
"Just the same as dress parade every day," answered the Chief Clerk. "Don't want any scarecrows around these Headquarters. We're on dress parade all the time before the people and other soldiers, and must show them how soldiers ought to appear. You'll find a barber-shop and a bootblack around the corner. Make for them at once, and get yourself in shape to represent Headquarters properly."
"Don't know but I'd ruther go to the front and dig rifle-pits than to wear paper collars and white gloves every day in the week," soliloquized Shorty, as he walked out on the street. "Don't mind 'em on Sunday, when you kin take 'em off agin when the company's dismissed from parade; but to put 'em on in the mornin' when you git up, and wear 'em till you go to bed at night—O, Jehosephat! Don't think I've got the constitution to stand that sort o' thing. But it's orders, and I'll do it, even if it gives me softenin' o' the brain. Here, you—(beckoning to a bootblack), put a 250-pounder Monitor coat o' polish on them Tennessee River gunboats. Fall in promptly, now."
The little darky gave an estimating glance at the capacious cowhides, which had not had a touch of the brush since being drawn from the Quarter master, and then yelled to a companion on the other side of the street:
"Hey, Taters, come lend me a spit. I'se got a' army contrack."
"Vhat golor off a gravat do you vant?" asked the Jewish vender of haberdashery, who was rapidly amassing a fortune from the soldiers. "Dere's plack, red, kreen, plue—all lofely golors, unt de vinest kint off silk. Yoost de same as Cheneral Krant vears. He puys lods off me. Von't puy off nopody else vhen he gan ket to me. Now, dere's vun dat'll yoost suit your light gomplexion. You gan vear dat on St. Batrick's day."
And he picked out one of bright green that would have made Shorty's throat seem in wild revolt against his hair.
"Well, I don't know," said Shorty meditatively, pulling over the lot. Then a thought struck him. Taking out the bit of Maria's dress, he said:
"Give me something as near as possible the color of that."
"Veil, I've kot rid off datt off-golored negdie, dat I fought I nefer vould sell," meditated the Jew, as Shorty left. "I'm ahet yoost a tollar-unt-a-haluf on aggount off dat vild Irishman's kirl. Veil, de kirls ket some fellers into sgrapes, unt helps udders oud."
With this philosophical observation the Jew resumed his pleasant work of marking up his prices to better accord with his enlarged views as to the profits he could get off the soldiers.
When Shorty returned to Headquarters, neatly shaven and brushed, and took the position of a soldier before the Chief Clerk, that functionary remarked approvingly:
"Very good, very good, indeed. You'll be an ornament to Headquarters."
And the General, entering the room at that time, added:
"Yes, you are as fine a looking soldier as one would wish to see, and an examaple to others. But you have not your Corporal's chevrons on. Allow me to present you with a pair. It gives me pleasure, for you have well earned them."
Stepping back into his office he returned with the chevrons in his hand.
"There, find a tailor outside somewhere to sew them on. You are now a non-commissioned officer on my staff, and I expect you to do all you can to maintain its character and dignity."
Shorty's face flushed with pride as he saluted, and thought, without saying:
"You jest bet I will. Any loafer that don't pay proper respect to this here staff'll git his blamed neck broke."
"Here," said the Chief Clerk, handing Shorty an official envelope, when the latter returned from having his chevrons sewed on. "Take this down to Col. Billings. Mind you do it in proper style. Don't get to sassing old Billings. Stick the envelope in your belt, walk into the office, take the position of a soldier, salute, and hand him the envelope, saying, 'With the compliments of the General,' salute again, about-face, and walk out."
"I'll want to punch his rotten old head off the minute I set eyes on him," remarked Shorty, sotto voce; "but the character and dignity of the staff must be maintained."
Lieut.-Col. Billings started, and his face flushed, when he saw Shorty stalk in, severely erect and soldierly. Billings was too little of a soldier to comprehend the situation. His first thought was that Shorty, having been taken under the General's wing, had come back to triumph over him, and he prepared himself with a volley of abuse to meet that of his visitor. But Shorty, with stern eyes straight to the front, marched up to him, saluted in one-two-three time, drew the envelope from his belt, and thrusting it at him as he would his gun to the inspecting officer on parade, announced in curtly official tones, "With General's compliments, sir," saluted again, about-faced as if touched with a spring, and marched stiffly toward the door.
Billings hurriedly glanced at the papers, and saw that instead of some unpleasant order from the General, which he had feared, they were merely some routine matters. His bullying instinct at once reasserted itself:
"Puttin' on a lot o' scollops, since, just because you're detailed at Headquarters," he called out after Shorty. "More style than a blue-ribbon horse at a county fair, just because the General took a little notice of you. But you'll not last long. I know you."
"Sir," said Shorty, facing about and stiffly saluting, "if you've got any message for the General, I'll deliver it. If you hain't, keep your head shet."
"O, go on; go on, now, you two-for-a-cent Corporal. Don't you give me any more o' your slack, or I'll report you for your impudence, and have them stripes jerked offen you."
Hot words sprang to Shorty's lips, but he remembered the General's injunction about the character and dignity of the staff, and restrained himself to merely saying:
"Col. Billings, some day I won't belong to the staff, and you won't have no shoulder-straps. Then I'll invite you to a little discussion, without no moderator in the chair."
"Go on, now. Don't you dare threaten me," shouted Billings.
"How'd you get along with Billings?" inquired the Chief Clerk, when Shorty returned.
"About as well as the monkey and the parrot did," answered Shorty, and he described the interview, ending with:
"I never saw a man who was achin' for a good lickin' like that old bluffer. And he'll git it jest as soon as he's out o' the service, if I have to walk a hundred miles to give it to him."
"I'm afraid you'll have to wait a good while," answered Wilson. "He'll stay in the service as long as he can keep a good soft berth like this. He's now bombarding everybody that's got any influence with telegrams to use it to keep him here in the public interest. He claims that on account of his familiarity with things here he is much more valuable to the Government here than he would be in the field."
"No doubt o' that," said Shorty. "He ain't worth a groan in the infernal regions at the front. He only takes the place and eats the rations of some man that might be of value."
"See here," said Wilson, pointing to a pile of letters and telegrams on his desk. "These are protests against Billings being superseded and sent away. More are coming in all the time. They are worrying the General like everything, for he wants to do the right thing. But I know that they all come from a ring of fellows around here who sell whisky and slop-shop goods to the soldiers, and skin them alive, and are protected by Billings. They're whacking up with him, and they want him to stay. I'm sure of it, but I haven't any proof, and there's no use saying anything to the General unless I've got the proof to back it."
"Wonder if I couldn't help git the proof," suggested Shorty, with his sleuth instincts reviving.
"Just the man," said the Chief Clerk eagerly, "if you go about it right. You're a stranger here, and scarcely anybody knows that you belong to Headquarters. Get yourself back in the shape you were this morning, and go out and try your luck. It'll just be bully if we can down this old blowhard."
Shorty took off his belt and white gloves, unbuttoned his blouse, and lounged down the street to the quarter where the soldiers most congregated to be fleeced by the harpies gathered there as the best place to catch men going to or returning from the front. Shorty soon recognized running evil-looking shops, various kinds of games and drinking dens several men who had infested the camps about Nashville and Murfreesboro until the Provost-Marshal had driven them away.
"Billings has gathered all his old friends about him," said he to himself. "I guess I'll find somebody here that I kin use."
"Hello, Injianny; what are you doin' here?" inquired a man in civilian clothes, but unmistakably a gambler.
Shorty remembered him at once as the man with whom he had had the adventure with the loaded dice at Murfreesboro. With the fraternity of the class, neither remembered that little misadventure against the other. They had matched their wits for a wrestle, and when the grapple was over it was over.
Shorty therefore replied pleasantly:
"O, jest loafin' back here, gittin' well o' a crack on the head and the camp fever."
"Into anything to put in the time?"
"Naah," said Shorty weariedly. "Nearly dead for something. Awful stoopid layin' around up there among them hayseeds, doin' nothin'. Jest run down to Jeffersonville to see if I couldn't strike something that'd some life in it."
"Well, I kin let you into a good thing. I've bin runnin' that shebang over there, with another man, and doin' well, but he let his temper git away with him, and shpped a knife into a sucker, and they've got him in jail, where he'll stay awhile. I must have another partner. Got any money?"
"A hundred or so," answered Shorty.
"Well, that's enough. I don't want money so much as the right kind of a man. Put up your stuff, and I'll let you in cahoots with me, and we'll make a bar'l o' money out o' these new troops that'll begin coming down this week."
"I like the idee. But how do you know you kin run your game. This Provost-Marshall—"
"O, the Provost's all right. He's an old friend o' mine. I have him dead to rights. Only whack up fair with him, and you're all right. Only pinches them that want to hog on him and won't share. I've bin runnin' right along here for weeks, and 've had no trouble. I give up my little divvy whenever he asks for it."
"If I was only certain o' that," said Shorty meditatively, "I'd—"
"Certain? Come right over here to that ranch, and have a drink, and I'll show you, so's you can't be mistaken. I tell you, I'm solid as a rock with him."
When seated at a quiet table, with their glasses in front of them, the gambler pulled some papers from his breast pocket, and selecting one shoved it at Shorty with the inquiry: "There, what do you think o' that?"
Shorty read over laboriously:
"Deer Bat: Send me 50 please. I set behind two small pair
last night, while the other feller had a full, & Ime strapt
this morning. Yores,
"Billings."
"That seems convincing," said Shorty.
"Then look at this," said the gambler, producing another paper. It read:
"Deer Bat: Got yore $100 all right, but doant send by that
man again. He's shaky, and talks too much. Bring it
yourself, or put it in an envelope directed to me, & drop it
in my box. Yores,
"Billings."
"That's enough," said Shorty, with his mind in a tumult, as to how he was to get these papers into his possession. "I'll go in with you, if you'll take me. Here's my fist."
He reached out and shook hands with Bat Meacham over the bargain, and called to the waiter, "Here, fill 'em up agin."
Shorty pulled some papers out of his pocket to search for his money, and fumbled them over. There were two pieces among them resembling the scraps on which Billings had written his notes. They contained some army doggerel which the poet of Co. Q had written and Shorty was carrying about as literary treasures.
The waiter wiped off the table as he replaced the glasses, and Shorty lifted up the gambler's papers to permit him to do so. He laid down his own papers instead, and with them a $10 bill.
"There," he said; "I find that's all the money I have with me, but it's enough to bind the bargain. I left a couple hundred with the clerk at the tavern. I'll go right up and git it, and we'll settle the thing right here."
"Very good," replied Bat Meacham; "git back as quick as you kin. You'll find me either here or hangin' around near. Let's fix the thing up and git ready. I think a new regiment'll be down here tomorrow, and all the men'll have their first installment o' bounty and a month's pay."
Shorty hurried back to Headquarters and laid his precious papers before the Chief Clerk, who could not contain his exultation.
"Won't there be a tornado when the General sees these in the morning," he exclaimed. "He's gone out to camp, now, or I'd take them right to him. But he shall have them first thing in the morning."
The next morning Shorty waited with eager impatience while the General was closeted with his Chief Clerk. Presently the General stepped to the door and said sternly:
"Corporal."
"Yes, sir," said Shorty, springing to his feet and saluting.
"Go down at once to the Provost-Marshal's office and tell Col. Billings to come to Headquarters at once. To come at once, without a moment's delay."
"Yes, sir," said Shorty saluting, with a furtive wink at the Chief Clerk, which said as plainly as words, "No presenting compliments this time."
He found Billings, all unconscious of the impending storm, dealing out wrath on those who were hauled before him.
"Col. Billings," said Shorty, standing stiff as a ramrod and curtly saluting, "the General wants you to come to Headquarters at once."
"Very well," replied Billings; "report to the General that I'll come as soon as I dispose of this business."
"That'll not do," said Shorty with stern imperiousness. "The General orders (with a gloating emphasis on 'orders') you to drop everything else, and come instantly. You're to go right back with me."
Shorty enjoyed the manifest consternation in Billings's face as he heard this summons. The men of the office pricked up their ears, and looked meaningly at one another. Shorty saw it all, and stood as straight and stern as if about to lead Billings to execution.
Billings, with scowling face, picked up his hat, buttoned his coat, and walked out.
"Do you know what the General wants with me. Shorty?" he asked in a conciliatory way, when they were alone together on the sidewalk.
"My name's Corporal Elliott. You will address me as such," answered Shorty.
"Go to the devil," said Billings.
Billings tried to assume a cheerfully-genial air as he entered the General's office, but the grin faded at the sight of the General's stern countenance.
"Col. Billings," said the General, handing him the two pieces of paper, "do you recognize these?"
"Can't say that I do," answered Billings, pretending to examine them while he could recover his wits sufficiently for a fine of defense.
"Don't attempt to lie to me," said the General wrathfully, "or I'll forget myself sufficiently to tear the straps from your disgraced shoulders. I have compared these with other specimens of your handwriting, until I have no doubt. I have sent for you not to hear your defense, or to listen to any words from you. I want you to merely sit down there and sign this resignation, and then get out of my office as quickly as you can. I don't want to breathe the same air with you. I ought to courtmartial you, and set you to hard work on the fortifications, but I hate the scandal. I have already telegraphed to Army Headquarters to accept your resignation by wire, and I shall send it by telegraph.
"I cannot get you out of the army too quickly. Sign this, and leave my office, and take off your person every sign of your connection with the army. I shall give orders that if you appear on the street with so much as a military button on, it shall be torn off you."
As the crushed Lieutenant-Colonel was leaving the office, Shorty lounged up, and said:
"See here. Mister Billings—you're Mister Billings now, and a mighty ornery Mister, too, I'm going to lay for you, and settle several little p'ints with you. You've bin breedin' a busted head, and I'm detailed to give it to you. Git out, you hound."
THE disturbance in the Deacon's family when Shorty's note was delivered by little Sammy Woggles quite came up to that romance-loving youth's fond anticipations. If he could only hope that his own disappearance would create a fraction of the sensation he would have run away the next day. It would be such a glorious retribution on those who subjected him to the daily tyranny of rising early in the morning, washing his face, combing his hair, and going to school. For the first time in his life the boy found himself the center of interest in the family. He knew something that all the rest were intensely eager to know, and they plied him with questions until his young brain whirled. He told them all that he knew, except that which Shorty had enjoined upon him not to tell, and repeated his story without variation when separately examined by different members of the family. All his leisure for the next few days was put in laboriously constructing, on large sheets of foolscap, the following letter, in which the thumb-marks and blots were more conspicuous than the "pot-hook" letters:
dEER shoRty:
doNt 4git thAt REblE guN u promist mE.
thAir wAs An oRful time wheN i giv um yorE lEttEr.
missis klEgg shE cride.
mAriAr shE sEd did u EvEr No Ennything so Ridiklus.
si hE sed thAt shorty kood be morE Kinds ov fool in A minnit
thAn Ary uthEr boy hE Ever node, Not bArrin Tompsons colt.
thE deAcon hE wAntid 2 go 2 the tranE & stop u. When hE
found hE kooddEnt do that, hE wAntid 2 tElEgrAf 2 Arrest u &
bring u bAk.
But si hE sEd bEttEr let u run till u got tirEd. Ude fEtch
up sum whAir soon. Then thEy wood sHp a bridlE ovEr yore
hEAd & brink u bAk.
i hAint told mAriA nothin but u hAd bEtEr sEnd thAt gun rite
off.
ile look 4 it EvEry dAy til i git it.
mi pen iz bAd, mi ink iz pAle, send thAt gun & NEVEr f ALE.
YorEs, SAM.
As soon as he saw that he was likely to remain at Headquarters for some time. Shorty became anxious about that letter from Sammy, and after much scheming and planning, he at last bethought himself of the expedient of having the Chief Clerk write an official letter to Sam Elkins, the postmaster and operator at Bean Blossom Creek Station, directing him to forward to Headquarters any communications addressed to Corp'l Elliott, 200th Ind. Vols., and keep this matter a military secret.
In spite of his prepossessions against it, Shorty took naturally to Headquarters duty, as he did to everything else in the army. He even took a pride in his personal appearance, and appeared every morning as spick and span as the barber-shop around the corner could make him. This was because the General saw and approved it, and—because of the influence Maria had projected into his life. The Deacon's well-ordered home had been a revelation to him of another world, of which he wanted to be a part. The gentle quiet and the constant consideration for others that reigned there smoothed off his rough corners and checked the rasping of his ready tongue.
"I'm goin' to try to be half-white," he mentally resolved; "at least, as long's I'm north o' the Ohio River. When I'm back agin at the front, I kin take a rest from being respectable."
He was alert, prompt, and observant, and before he was himself aware of it began running things about the ante-rooms to Headquarters. More and more the General and Chief Clerk kept putting the entire disposal of certain matters in his hands, and it was not surprising that he acted at times as if he were the Headquarters himself, and the General and others merely attaches. Shorty always had that way about him.
"No, you can't see the General today," he would say to a man as to whom he had heard the General or the Chief Clerk hint was a bore, and wasted their time. "The General's very busy. The President's layin' down on him for his advice about a campaign to take Richmond by a new way, and the General's got to think at the rate of a mile a minute in order to git it off by telegraph."
"Here," to a couple of soldiers who came up to get their furloughs extended, "don't you know better than to come to Headquarters looking as if your clothes had been blowed on to you? How long've you bin in the army? Hain't you learned yit that you must come to Headquarters in full dress? Go back and git your shoes blacked, put on collars, button up your coats, and come up here lookin' like soldiers, not teamsters on the Tullyhomy mud march."
"No," very decisively, to a big-waisted, dark-bearded man; "you can't git no permit here to open no shebang in camp or anywheres near. Too many like you out there now. We're goin' to root 'em all out soon. They're all sellin' whisky on the sly, and every last one of 'em orter be in jail."
"Certainly, madam," tenderly to a poor woman who had come to see if she could learn something of her son, last heard from as sick in hospital at Chattanooga. "Sit down. Take that chair—no, that one; it's more comfortable. Give me your son's name and regiment. I'll see if we kin find out anything about him. No use seein' the General. I'll do jest as well, and 'll tend to it quicker."
"No," to a raw Captain, who strolled in, smoking a cheap cheroot. "The General's not in to an officer who comes in here like as if Headquarters was a ward caucus. He'll be in to you when you put on your sword and button up your coat."
It amused and pleased the General to see Shorty take into his hands the administration of military etiquette; but one day, when he was accompanying the General on a tour of inspection, and walking stiffly at the regulation distance behind, a soldier drunk enough to be ugly lurched past, muttering some sneers about "big shoulder-straps."
Shorty instantly snatched him by the collar and straightened him up.
"Take the position of a soldier," he commanded.
The astonished man tried to obey.
"Throw your chest out," commanded Shorty, punching him in the ribs. "Little fingers down to the seams of your pants," with a cuff at his ears. "Put your heels together, and turn out your toes," kicking him on the shin. "Hold up your head," jabbing him under the chin. "'Now respectfully salute."
The cowed man clumsily obeyed.
"Now, take that to learn you how to behave after this in the presence of a General officer," concluded Shorty, giving him a blow in the face that sent him over.
The General had walked on, apparently without seeing what was going on. But after they had passed out of the sight of the group which the affair had gathered, he turned and said to Shorty:
"Corporal, discipline must be enforced in the army, but don't you think you were a little too summary and condign with that man?"
"Hardly know what you mean by summary and condign. General, But if you mean warm by summary, I'll say that he didn't git it half hot enough. If I'd had my strength back I'd a' condigned his head off. But he got his lesson jest when he needed it, and he'll be condigned sure to behave decently hereafter."
Just then ex-Lieut.-Col. Billings came by. He was dressed in citizen's clothes, and he glared at Shorty and the General, but there was something in the latter's face and carriage which dominated him in spite of himself, his camp associations asserted themselves, and instinctively his hand went to his hat in a salute.
This was enough excuse for Shorty. He fell back until the General was around the corner, out of sight, and then went up to Billings.
"Mister Billings," said he, sternly, "what was the General's orders about wearin' anything military?"
"Outrageously tyrannical and despotic," answered Billings hotly. "But jest what you might expect from these Abolition satraps, who're throttlin' our liberties. A white man's no longer got any rights in this country that these military upstarts is bound to respect. But I'm obeyin' the order till I kin git an appeal from it."
"You're a liar. You're not," said Shorty, savagely.
"Why, what in the world have I got on that's military?" asked Billings, looking himself over.
"You're wearin' a military saloot, which you have no business to. You've got no right to show that you ever was in the army, or so much as seen a regiment. You salooted the General jest now. Don't you ever let me see you do it to him agin, or to no other officer. You musn't do nothin' but take off your hat and bow. You hear me?"
Shorty was rubbing it in on his old tormentor in hopes to provoke him to a fight. But the cowed man was too fearful of publicity just then. He did not know what might be held in reserve to spring upon him. He shambled away, muttering:
"O, go on! Grind down upon me. You'll be wantin' to send me to a Lincoln bastile next. But a day will come when white men'll have their rights agin."
Unfortunately for Shorty, however, he was having things too much his own way. There were complaints that he was acting as if he owned Headquarters.
Even the General noticed it, and would occasionally say in tones of gentle remonstrance:
"See here, Corporal, you are carrying too big a load. Leave something for the rest of us to do. We are getting bigger pay than you are, and should have a chance to earn our money."
But Shorty would not take the hint. With his rapidly-returning strength there had come what Si termed "one of his bull-headed spells," which inevitably led to a cataclysm, unless it could be worked off legitimately, as it usually was at the front by a toilsome march, a tour of hard fatigue duty, or a battle or skirmish. But the routine of Headquarters duties left him too much chance to get "fat and sassy."
One day the General and his staff had to go over to Louisville to attend some great military function, and Shorty was left alone in charge of Headquarters. There was nothing for him to do but hold a chair down, and keep anybody from carrying off the Headquarters. This was a dangerous condition, in his frame of mind. He began meditating how he could put in the idle hours until the General should return in the evening. He thought of hunting up Billngs, and giving him that promised thrashing, but his recent experience did not promise hopefully that he could nag that worthy into a fight that would be sufficiently interesting.
"I'd probably hit him a welt and he'd go off bawlin' like a calf," he communed with himself. "No; Billings is too tame, now, until he finds out whether we've got anything on him to send him to the penitentiary, where he orter go."
Looking across the street he noticed Eph Click, whom he had known as a camp-follower down in Tennessee, and was now running a "place" in the unsavory part of the town. Shorty had the poorest opinion of Eph, but the latter was a cunning rascal, who kept on the windy side of the law, and had so far managed to escape the active notice of the Provost-Marshal. He was now accompanied by a couple of men in brand-new uniforms, so fresh that they still had the folds of the Quartermaster's boxes.
"There goes that unhung rascal, Eph Glick," he said to himself, "that orter be wearin' a striped suit, and breakin' stone in the penitentiary. He's runnin' a reg'lar dead-fall down the street, there, and he's got a couple o' green recruits in tow, steerin' them to where he kin rob 'em of their pay and bounty. They won't have a cent left in two hours. I've bin achin' to bust him up for a long time, but I've never bin able to git the p'ints on him that'd satisfy the General or the Provo. I'll jest go down and clean out his shebang and run him out o' town, and finish the job up while the General and the Provo's over in Louisville. It'll all be cleaned up before they git back, and they needn't know a word of it. Eph's got no friends around here to complain. He's a yaller hound, that nobody cares what's done to him. It'll be good riddance o' bad rubbish."
He stalked out of the Headquarters, and beckoned imperiously to a squad that he saw coming down the street under the command of a Sergeant. Seeing him come out of Headquarters there was no question of his right to order, and the Sergeant and squad followed.
They arrived in front of Eph's place about the same time he did.
"Take that man," said Shorty, pointing to Eph, "and put him aboard the next train that goes out. Think yourself lucky, sir, that you git off so easily. If you ever show your face back here agin you'll be put at hard labor on the fortifications for the rest o' your natural life. Hustle him off to the depot, a couple of you, and see that he goes off when the train does. The rest o' you bring out all the liquor in that place, and pour it into the gutter. Sergeant, see that nobody's allowed to drink or carry any away."
Nothing more was needed for the crowd that had followed up the squad, anticipating a raid. Bottles, demijohns and kegs were smashed, the cigars and tobacco snatched up, and the place thoroughly wrecked in a few minutes.
Shorty contemplated the ruin from across the street, and strolled back to Headquarters, serenely conscious of having put in a part of the day to good advantage.
That evening the Provost-Marshal came into Headquarters, and said:
"I'm sorry, General, that you felt that Click place so bad that you were compelled to take personal action. I have known for some time that something ought to be done, but I've been trying to collect evidence that would hold Glick on a criminal charge, so that I could turn him over to the civil authorities."
"I do not understand what you mean, Colonel," answered the General.
"I mean that Glick place that was raided by your orders today."
"I gave no orders to raid any place. I have left all those matters in your hands, Colonel, with entire confidence that you would do the right thing."
"Why, one of my Sergeants reported that a Corporal came from your Headquarters, and directed the raid to be made."
"A Corporal from my Headquarters?" repeated the General, beginning to understand. "That's another development of that irrepressible Shorty." And he called:
"Corp'l Elliott."
"Yes, sir," responded Shorty, appearing at the door and saluting.
"Did you raid the establishment of a person named"
"Eph Glick," supplied the Provost-Marshal.
"Yes, Ephraim Glick. Did you direct it; and, if so, what authority had you for doing so?"
"Yes, sir," said Shorty promptly. "I done it on my own motion. It was a little matter that needed tending to, and I didn't think it worth while to trouble either you or the Provo about it. The feller's bin dead-ripe for killin' a long time. I hadn't nothin' else to do, so I thought I'd jest git that job offen my hands, and not to have to think about it any more."
"Corporal," said the General sternly, "I have not objected to your running my office, for I probably need all the help in brains and activity that I can get. But I must draw the line at your assuming the duties of the Provost-Marshal in addition. He is quite capable of taking care of his own office. You have too much talent for this narrow sphere. Gen. Thomas needs you to help him run the army. Tell Wilson to make out your transportation, so that you can start for your regiment tomorrow. The Provost-Marshal and I will have to try to run this town without your help. It will be hard work, I know; but, then, that is what we came into the service for."
Shorty grumbled to another Orderly as he returned to his place in the next room:
"There, you see all the thanks you git for bein' a hustler in the way of doin' your dooty. I done a job for 'em that they should've 'tended to long ago, and now they sit down on me for it."
THAT evening, as Shorty was gathering his things together, preparatory for starting to the front the next morning, Lieut. Bigelow, one of the General's young Aids, thrust his head through the doorway and said gleefully:
"Here, Corporal; I want you. I've got a great lark. Our Secret Service people report a bad lodge of the Knights of the Golden Circle out here in the country that threatens to make trouble. It is made up of local scalawags and runaway rebels from Kentucky and Tennessee. They have a regular lodge-room in a log house out in the woods, which they have fixed up into a regular fort, and they hold their meetings at nights, with pickets thrown out, and no end of secrecy and mystery. The General thinks that they are some of the old counterfeiting, horse-stealing gang that infested the country, and are up to their old tricks. But it may be that they are planning wrecking a train, burning bridges and the like. They've got so bold that the Sheriff and civil officials are afraid of them, and don't dare go near them. I've persuaded the General to let me take out a squad and jump them. Want to go along?"
"I'm your huckleberry," said Shorty.
"I knew you'd be," answered the Lieutenant; "so I got the General to let me have you. We'll get some 10 or 12 other good boys. That will be enough. I understand that there are about 100 regular attendants at the lodge, but they'll not all be there at any time, and a dozen of us can easily handle what we find there at home."
"A dozen'll be a great plenty," assented Shorty. "More'd be in the way."
"Well, go out and pick up that many of the right kind of boys, bring them here, and have them all ready by 10 o'clock. You can find guns and ammunition for them in that room upstairs."
Shorty's first thought was of his old friend, Bob Ramsey, Sergeant of the Provost-Guard. He found him, and said:
"See here, Bob, I've got something on hand better'n roundin' up stragglers and squelchin' whisky rows. I've got to pick out some men for a little raid, where there'll be a chance for a red-hot shindy. Want to go along?"
"You bet," answered the Sergeant. "How many men do you want? I'll get 'em and go right along."
"No, you don't," answered Shorty. "I'm to be the non-commish of this crowd. A Lieutenant'll go along for style, but I'll run the thing."
"But you're only a Corporal, while I'm a Sergeant," protested Bob. "'Taint natural that you should go ahead of me. Why can't you and I run it together, you next to me? That's the correct thing."
"Well, then," said Shorty, turning away, "you stay and run your old Provo-Guard. This is my show, and I aint goin' to let nobody in it ahead o' me."
"Come, now, be reasonable," pleaded Bob. "Why can't you and I go along together and run the thing? We'll pull together all right. You know I've been a Sergeant for a long time, and know all about the handling of men."
"Well, stay here and handle 'em. I'll handle the men that I take, all right. You kin gamble on that. And what I say to them has to go. Won't have nobody along that outranks me."
"Well," answered Bob, with a gulp, "let me go along, then, as a Corporal—I'll change my blouse and borrow a Corporal's—"
"Rankin' after me?" inquired Shorty.
"Yes; we had a Corporal promoted day before yesterday. I'll borrow his blouse."
"Promoted day before yesterday," communed Shorty; "and you won't presume to boss or command no more'n he would?"
"Not a mite," asserted Bob.
"Well, then, you kin come along, and I'll be mighty glad to have you, for I know you're a standup feller and a good friend o' mine, and I always want to oblige a friend by lettin' him have a share in any good fight I have on hand."
Jeff Wilson, the Chief Clerk, got wind of the expedition, and he too begged to be taken along, to which Shorty consented.
When Lieut. Bigelow came in at 10 o'clock he found Shorty at the head of 12 good men, all armed and equipped, and eager for the service.
"In talking with the Secret Service men," explained the Lieutenant, "they suggested that it would be well to have one good man, a stranger, dressed in citizen's clothes—butternut jeans, if possible—to go ahead at times and reconnoiter. He ought to be able to play off refugee rebel, if possible."
"I'll do it. I'm just the man," said Shorty eagerly.
"Well, just come in here," said the Lieutenant. "Now, there's a lot of butternut jeans. I guess there's a pair of pantaloons long enough for you."
When Shorty emerged from the room again there was a complete transformation. Except that his hair was cut close, he was a perfect reproduction of the tall, gaunt, slouching Tennesseean.
"Perfect," said the Lieutenant, handing him a couple of heavy Remington revolvers. "Stow these somewhere about your clothes, and get that blacking off your shoes as soon as you can, and you'll do."
It was planned that they should sleep until near morning, when the spies of the Knights of the Golden Circle were not alert, enter a freight-car, which they would keep tightly shut, to escape observation, while the train ran all day toward a point within easy reach of their quarry. It would arrive there after dark, and so they hoped to catch the Knights entirely unawares, and in the full bloom of their audacity and pride.
The car which the squad entered was locked and sealed, and labeled, "Perishable freight. Do not delay." Their presence was kept secret from all the train hands but the conductor, a man of known loyalty and discretion.
Shorty being in disguise, it was decided that he should saunter down apart from the rest and take his place in the caboose. He lay down on the long seat, drew his slouch-hat over his eyes, and seemed to go to sleep. The train pulled out to the edge of the yard, went onto a switch and waited for the early morning accommodation to pass out and get the right-of-way.
A heavily-built, middle-aged man, whose coarse face had evidently been closely shaved a few days before, entered, carrying a large carpet-sack, which was well-filled and seemingly quite heavy. He set this carefully down on the seat, in the corner, walked up to the stove, warmed his hands, glanced sharply at Shorty, said "Good morning," to which Shorty replied with a snore, took a plug of tobacco from his pocket, from which he cut a liberal chew with a long dirk that he opened by giving a skillful flip with his wrist, put the chew in his mouth, released the spring which held the blade in place, put both knife and tobacco in his pocket, and turning around spread the tails of his seedy black frock coat, and seemed lost in meditation as he warmed.
"Not a farmer, storekeeper or stock-buyer," Shorty mentally sized him up, "Looks more like a hickory lawyer, herb-doctor or tin-horn gambler. What's he doin' in this caboose? Up to some devilment, no doubt. He'll bear watchin'."
And Shorty gave another snore. The man, having completed his warming, sat down by his carpetsack, laid his arm across it to secure possession, pulled his battered silk hat down over his eyes, and tried to go to sleep.
The train rumbled out, and presently stopped at another station. Another man got on, also carrying a large, heavy carpet-sack. He was younger than the other, looked like a farm-hand, was dressed partly in homespun, partly in "store-clothes," wore a weather-stained wool hat, and his sullen face terminated in a goatee. The first-comer looked him over an instant, and then said:
"Were you out late last night?"
"I was," replied the second-comer, scanning his interrogator.
"Did you see a star?"
"I did."
"What star was it?"
"It was the Star of Bethlehem."
"Right, my brother," responded the other, putting out his hand in a peculiar way for the grip of the order.
Shorty, still feigning deep sleep, pricked up his ears and drank in every word. He had heard before of the greeting formula by which Knights of the Golden Circle recognized one another, and he tried, with only partial success, to see the grip.
He saw the two men whisper together and tap their carpet-sacks significantly. They seemed to come to a familiar understanding at once, but they talked so low that Shorty could not catch their words, except once when the first-comer raised his voice to penetrate the din as they crossed a bridge, and did not lower it quickly enough after passing, and Shorty heard;
"They'll all be certain to be there tonight."
And the other asked: "And the raid'll be made ter-morrer?"
The first-comer replied with a nod. At the next bridge the same thing occurred, and Shorty caught the words:
"They've no idee. We'll ketch 'em clean offen their guard."
"And the others'll come out?" asked the second-comer.
"Certainly," said the first, lowering his voice again, but the look on his face and the way he pointed indicated to Shorty that he was saying that other lodges scattered through the neighborhood were only waiting the striking of the first blow to rise in force and march on Indianapolis, release the rebel prisoners there and carry havoc generally.
"I see through it all," Shorty communed with himself. "They're goin' to the same place that we are, and've got them carpet-bags filled with revolvers and cartridges. Somebody's goin' to have a little surprise party before he's a day older."
The sun had now gotten so high that Shorty could hardly pretend to sleep longer. He gave a tremendous yawn and sat up. The older man regarded him attentively, the other sullenly.
"You must've bin out late last night, stranger," said the first.
"I was," answered Shorty, giving him a meaning look.
"Did you see a star?" inquired the older man.
"I did," answered Shorty.
"What star was it?"
"The Star of Bethlehem," answered Shorty boldly.
"'You're right, my brother," said the man, putting out his hand for the grip. Shorty did the same, trying to imitate what he had seen. The car was lurching, and the grasp was imperfect. The man seemed only half satisfied. Shorty saw this, and with his customary impudence determined to put the onus of recognition on the other side. He drew his hand back as if disappointed, and turned a severe look upon the other man.
"Where are you from?" asked the first-comer. Shorty curtly indicated the other side of the Ohio by a nod.
"Where are you goin'?"
Shorty's face put on a severe look, as if his questioner was too inquisitive. "Jest up here to 'tend to some bizness," he answered briefly, and turned away as if to close the conversation.
"Say, I've got a right to know something about you," said the first new-comer. "I'm Captain of this District, and have general charge o' things here, and men passin' through."
"All right," answered Shorty. "Have general charge. I don't know you, and I have bizness with men who roost a good deal higher'n you do."
He put his hands to his breast, as if assuring himself of the presence of important papers, and pulled out a little ways the official-looking envelope which contained his transportation and passes. This had its effect. The "Captain" weakened. "Are you from the Southern army?" he asked in a tone of respect.
"Before I answer any o' your questions," said Shorty authoritatively, "prove to me who you are." "O, I kin do that quick enough," said the "Captain" eagerly, displaying on his vest the silver star, which was the badge of his rank, and his floridly printed commission and a badly-thumb-marked copy of the ritual of the Knights of the Golden Circle.
"So far, so good," said Shorty. "Now give me the grip."
Shorty, by watching the motions of the other's hand, was skillful enough to catch on to the grip this time, and get it exactly. He expressed himself satisfied, and as the car lay on the siding waiting for another train to arrive and pass he favored his two companions with one of his finest fictions about his home in Tennessee, his service in the rebel army, the number of Yankee Abolitionists he had slain with his own hand, and his present mission with important communications to those "friends of the South in Illinois" who were organizing a movement to stop the bloody and brutal war upon his beloved Southland.
His volubility excited that of the "Captain," who related how he had been doing a prosperous business running a bar on a Lower Mississippi River boat, until Abolition fanaticism brought on the war; that he had then started a "grocery" in Jeffersonville, which the Provost-Marshal had wickedly suppressed, and now he was joining with others of his oppressed and patriotic fellow-citizens to stop the cruel and unnatural struggle against their brethren of the South.
"And we shall do it," he said warmly, bringing out the savage-looking dirk, throwing it open with a deft movement of his wrist, and shaving off a huge chew of tobacco. "We have a hundred thousand drilled and armed men here in the State of Injianny, jest waitin' the word, to throw off the shackles of tyranny and destroy the tyrants.
"There's another hundred thousand in Illinois and like numbers in other States. And they'll fight, too. They'll fight to the death, and every one of them is good for' at least three of the usurper Lincoln's minions. I'd like nothing better than to get a good opportunity at three or four o' 'em, armed with nothin' more'n this knife. I'd like nothin' better than the chance to sock it into their black hearts. 'Twouldn't be the first time, nuther. The catfish around Jeffersonville could tell some stories if they could talk, about the Lincoln hounds I've fed to 'em. I only want a good chance at 'em agin. I may go, but I'll take several of 'em with me. I'll die in my tracks afore I'll stand this any longer. I hate everything that wears blue worse'n I do a mad-dog."
"And I promise you," said Shorty solemnly, "that you shall have all the chance you want sooner'n you think for. I know a great deal more'n I dare tell you now, but things is workin' to a head mighty fast, and you'll hear something drop before the next change o' the moon. You kin jest bet your shirt on that."
The day was passing, and as the evening approached the train was running through a wilder, heavily-wooded country. Shorty's companions took their seats on the opposite side of the car and peered anxiously out of the window to recognize features of the darkening landscape. They were evidently getting near their destination.
Shorty overheard the "Captain" say to his partner:
"The train'll stop for water in the middle of a big beech woods. We'll get off there and take a path that leads right to the lodge."
"How far'll we have to tote these heavy carpetbags?" grumbled the other.
Shorty slipped his hand into his pocket, grasped his revolvers and eased them around so that he could be certain to draw them when he wanted to. He was determined that those men should not leave the train before the stopping place arranged for his fellow-soldiers. He felt confident of being able to handle the two, but did not know how many confederates might be in waiting for them.
"I'll go it if there's a million of 'em," said he to himself. "I'll save these two fellers anyway, if there's any good in 45-caliber bullets in their carcasses. I'm jest achin' to put a half-ounce o' lead jest where that old scoundrel hatches his devilment."
The engine whistled long and shrilly.
"That's the pumpin'-station," said the "Captain," rising and laying hold of the handles of the carpetbag.
"Drop that. You can't leave this car till I give the word," said Shorty, rising as the train stopped, and putting himself in the door.
"Can't, eh?" said the "Captain," with a look of rage as he comprehended the situation. His dirk came out and opened with a wicked snap. "I'll cut your black heart out, you infernal spy."
"You will, eh?" sneered Shorty, covering him with a heavy Remington. "How'd you like the looks o' that, old butternut? Your murderin' dirk aint deuce high. Move a step, and you'll know how it feels to have daylight through you."
The "Captain" smashed the window with a backward blow of his fist, thrust his head out and yelled the rallying-cry of the Knights:
"Asa! Asa!"
The sound of rushing feet was heard, and a man armed with a shot-gun came into the plane of light from the open caboose door. Shorty was on the lookout for him, and as he appeared, shouted;
"Halt, there! Drop that gun. If you move I'll kill this whelp here and then you."
"Do as he says, Stallins," groaned the frightened "Captain." "He's got the drop on me. Drop your gun, but holler to the boys in the front car to come out."
To Shorty's amazement a score of men came rushing back from the car next ahead of the caboose. They had, by a preconcerted arrangement, been jumping on the train ever since it grew dark, and collected in that car. Some of them had guns, but the most appeared unarmed.
"Well, I have stirred up a yaller-jacket's nest for sure," thought Shorty, rather tickled at the odds which were arrayed against him. "But I believe I kin handle 'em until either the train pulls out or the boys hear the ruction and come to my help."
Then he called out sternly as he raised the revolver in his left hand:
"I'll shoot the first man that attempts to come on this car, and I'll kill your Captain, that I've got covered, dead. You man with that shot-gun, p'int it straight up in the air or I'll drop you in your tracks. Now fire off both barrels."
It seemed to every man in the gang that Shorty's left-hand revolver was pointing straight at him. The man with the shot-gun was more than certain of this, and he at once complied with the order.
There was a whistle, followed by a rush of men from a line further out, and every man of those around Shorty was either knocked down or rudely punched with a musket-barrel in the hands of Lieut. Bigelow's squad.
"What in the world made you so long comin'?" asked Shorty, after all the prisoners had been secured. "Was you asleep?"
"No," answered the Lieutenant. "This is the place where we intended to get off. We were quietly getting out so as to attract no notice when you started your circus. I saw you were doing well, hiving those fellows together, so I let you go ahead, while I slipped the boys around to gather them all in. Pretty neat job for a starter, wasn't it?"
"COME, hustle these prisoners back into the car in which we were," commanded the Lieutenant. "We'll leave it on the switch with a guard. Lock it up carefully, and one man'll be enough to guard it until we get back. Make haste, for we've no time to lose. Shorty."
"Corpril Elliott," Shorty corrected him, mindful of the presence of Sergeant Bob Ramsey.
"Yes; excuse me. Corporal Elliott, while we are attending to the prisoners you go on ahead and reconnoiter. You need not stop unless you see fit until you are clear into the lodge. Give one low whistle if you want us to stop, two to come ahead and three to go back."
It was a moonless night, and the broom-like tops of the close-growing beeches made a dense darkness, into which Shorty plunged, but he could readily make out a well-beaten path, which he followed. Occasionally he could make out dark figures moving just ahead of him or crossing the path.
"Goin' to be a full attendance at the services this evenin'," he muttered to himself. "But the more the merrier. It'll insure a goodly number at the mourner's bench when we make the call for the unconverted."
Big and lumbering as Shorty sometimes seemed in his careless hours, no wildcat gliding through the brush was more noiseless-footed than he now. He kept on the darker side of the path, but not a twig seemed to crack or a leaf rustle under his heavy brogans. Twice he heard lumbering steps in his rear, and he slipped behind the big trunk of a tree, and saw the men pass almost within arm's length, but without a suspicion of his presence.
"Well, for men workin' a dark-lantern job this is about the logiest crowd I ever struck," he said rather disgustedly. "An elephant'd have to step on 'em before they'd know he was around. They ain't hardly good fun."
Presently he heard some rustling over to his right and caught the low murmur of a voice. He cautiously made his way in that direction until he made an opening, with a number of men sitting on a log, while others were standing, leaning on their guns.
"Probably a caucus outside to set up the pins before goin' into the full meetin'," he said to himself. "As I always like to be with the winnin' side, I guess I'll jest jine 'em."
He advanced boldly into the opening. At the sound of his approach the men looked up, and one of those leaning on his gun picked it up and came toward him.
"You are out late," he whispered, when within speaking distance.
"Yes," answered Shorty. "And I was out late last night."
"Did you see a star?"
"I did."
"What star was it?"
"It was the Star of Bethlehem."
The first speaker had seemed to start at the sound of Shorty's voice, but he recovered himself, and saying, "You're right, my brother," put out his hand for the grip.
"'Taint right, neither," hissed Shorty. "Si Klegg, what are you doin' here?"
"Shorty!" ejaculated Si, joyfully, but still in a whisper. "I thought I knowed your voice. Where in the world did you come from?"
"I'm here on business," answered Shorty. "I came up from Headquarters at Jeffersonville. What brung you here?"
"O," said Si, "we've bin hearin' about this Copperhead lodge for some time, and some of us boys who's home on furlough thought that we'd come down here with the Deputy Provo and bust it up. We've bin plannin' it a week or two. All these that you see, there are soldiers. I've 15, includin' myself."
The boys hastily conferred together as to the plan of operations, and one man was hurried back to inform Lieut. Bigelow of the presence of the other squad.
"You seem to know most about this affair. Shorty," said Si. "You take command and make arrangements."
"Not for a minute. Si," protested Shorty. "You rank me and you must command, and I want you to hold your own over Bob Ramsey, who will try to rank you. Bob's a good boy, but he's rather too much stuck on his stripes."
It was finally arranged that Si should move his squad out to near the edge of the path and wait for Lieut. Bigelow to come up, while Shorty should go forward and reconnoiter.
Shorty walked along the path toward the lodge. Suddenly the large figure of a man loomed up before him, standing motionless, on guard, in the road.
"You are out late, my friend," said he.
"Yes," answered Shorty.
"Did you see a star?"
"Yes."
"What was it?"
"The Star of Bethlehem."
"You are right, my brother," said the man, extending his hand for the grip.
"This rotten star-and-brother rigmarole's making me sick," muttered Shorty, with a hasty glance to see that the man was alone, and grasping his hand with a grip of iron, while with his left he clutched the sentry's throat. Before the man could utter a groan he wrenched him around and started him back for Si. Arriving there he flung him under the trees, saying in a loud whisper:
"First sucker o' this Spring's run. String him. Si."
Lieut. Bigelow had come up in the meanwhile with the other squad, and they all moved cautiously forward to where they could get a dim sight of the lodge through the intervals between the trees. For a log house it was quite a large building, and stood in the center of a small clearing which had been made to furnish logs for its erection. Faint gleams of light came through the badly-chinked walls, and the hum of voices showed that there was a large crowd gathered inside.
"There's likely to be from 100 to 150 in there," said the Lieutenant, after a moment's consideration. "We've got 27 or 28. We'll jump them, though, if they're a thousand. Corporal Elliott, you go forward and make your way inside, if you can, and see what they are doing. If you can get inside, stay 10 or 15 minutes, and come out and report. If you can't get out, or you think they are ripe for jumping, whistle, and we'll pile in. Sergeant Klegg, you hold your squad together and move down as near the door as you can without being seen and be ready for a rush. Find a rail or a log to smash the door in if they try to hold it against us. Sergeant Ramsey, deploy your men quietly around to the rear there to cut off retreat, but be ready to rally again and help Sergeant Klegg out if he strikes a big snag. You make the circuit of the house and post yourself where you can see what's going on, and signal your men. Everybody keep under the shadow of the trees and make no noise. Go on to the house, Corporal."
Shorty left the cover of the trees and walked directly toward the front door. No one appeared or halted him until he pushed the front door open. Then a man who seemed more intent on what was going on inside than the new arrival, bent his head over to catch the farrago about the star, and put out his hand for the grip.
"Come on in, but don't make a noise," he whispered. "They're givin' the obligation, and I want to hear it."
Shorty stood beside him for a moment, and then watched his opportunity, and pressed by him, to where he could see into the room. It was entirely dark except for the light of a single candle, shaded so that its rays fell upon a rude altar in the center of the room, draped with a rebel flag. Upon this lay a naked sword, skull and cross-bones. Behind the altar stood a masked man, draped in a long shroud, who was mouthing in a sepulchral tone the obligation to several men kneeling in front of the altar. The dim light faintly revealed other masked and shrouded figures stationed at various places about the room and looming above the seated audience.
"You solemnly swear," droned the chief actor, "to resist to the death every attempt to place the nigger above the white man and destroy the Government of our fathers."
"We do," responded those kneeling at the altar.
"Let it be so recorded," said a sepulchral voice from the other extremity of the room. A gong sounded dismally and a glare of lurid red light filled the room.
"Regler Sons o' Malty biziniss, like I seen in St. Looyey," commented Shorty to himself. "Masks, shrouds, red fire and gong, all the same. But where've I heard that croakin' voice before?"
"You solemnly promise and swear," resumed the sepulchral tones of the chief actor, "to do all in your power to restore the Constitution and laws of this country to what were established by the fathers and resist the efforts of nigger-loving Abolitionists and evil-minded fanatics to subvert them."
"We do," responded the kneeling men.
Again the grewsome gong sounded, the red fire glared forth and the hollow voice announced that it was so recorded.
"I'll bet six bits to a picayune," said Shorty to himself, "that I know the rooster who's doin' them high priest antics. Where'd I hear his voice before?"
"And, finally, brethren," resumed the chief actor, "do you solemnly promise and swear to cheerfully obey all orders given you by officers regularly appointed over you according to the rules and regulations of this great order and military discipline?"
There was a little hesitation about this, but the kneeling ones were nudged and whispered to, and finally responded:
"We do."
Again it was funereally announced to the accompaniment of flashes of red fire and the gong that it was duly recorded.
"Great Jehosephat, if it ain't old Billings himself that's doin' that heavy tragedy act," said Shorty, slapping himself on the thigh. "The old dregs o' the bottomless pit! Is there any deviltry that he won't git into?"
His decision was confirmed a minute or two later, when, after some more fanfarronade the initiation ended, the officers removed their masks and shrouds, and the candles in the sconces around the room were relighted. Billings took his seat on the platform at the end of the room farthest from the door, picked up the gavel and rapped for order.
"Now, brethren," said he, "having witnessed the solemn initiation of several brave, true men into our rapidly-swelling ranks and welcomed them as real patriots who have united with us to resist to the bitter end the cruel tyrannies of the Abolition despot at Washington—the vulgar railsplitter of the Sangamon, who is filling this once happy land with the graves of his victims, we will proceed to the regular business for which we have assembled. I regret that our gallant Captain has not yet arrived with the supply of arms and ammunition that he went to Jeffersonville to secure. I thought I heard the whistle of the train some time ago, and have been expecting him every minute. He may be here yet."
"Not if that guard at the switch 'tends to his little business, he won't," Shorty chuckled to himself.
"When he gets here," continued Billings, "we shall have enough weapons to finish our outfit, and give every member, including them initiated tonight, a good, serviceable arm, as effective as any in the hands of our enemies. We shall then be in shape to carry out the several projects which we have before discussed and planned. We shall be ready to strike at any moment. When we do strike success is sure. The Southern armies, which have so long bravely battled for the Constitution and the laws and white men's rights, are again advancing from every point. Every mail brings me glad good news of the organization of our brave friends throughout this State and Illinois. They're impatient to begin. The first shot fired will be the signal for an uprising that'll sweep over the land like a prairie fire and—"
He stopped abruptly, contracted his brows, and gazed fixedly at Shorty.
"Brother Walker," said Billings, "there's a tall man settin' close by the door that I seem to've seen before, and yit I don't exactly recognize. Please hold that candle nigh his face till I can see it more plainly."
Shorty happened to be looking at another man that minute, and did not at first catch the drift of Billings's remarks. When he did, he hesitated an instant whether to whistle or try to get out. Before he could decide, Eph Glick, whom he had raided at Jeffersonville, struck him a heavy blow on the side of his head and yelled:
"He's a traitor! He's a spy! Kill the infernal, egg-suckin' hound!"
There was a rush of infuriated men, which carried Shorty over and made him the object of a storm of blows and kicks. So many piled on him at once that they struck and kicked one another in their confusion. The door was torn out, and its pieces fell with the tumble of cursing, striking, kicking men that rolled outside.
Si rushed forward with his squad, and in an instant they were knocking right and left with their gun-barrels. So many fell on top of Shorty that he was unable to rise and extricate himself.
Not exactly comprehending what was going on, but thinking that the time for them to act had come, the four boys to whom Si had given the duty of making the rush with the log to break down the door, came bolting up, shouting to their comrades:
"Open out, there, for us."
Their battering-ram cleaned off the rest of those still pommeling Shorty, and drove back those who were swarming in the door.
Shorty sprang up and gave a rib-breaking kick to the prostrate Eph Glick.
The crowd inside at first recoiled at the sight of the soldiers, but, frightened for his own safety, Billings shouted, as he sheltered himself behind the altar:
"Don't give way, men. There's only a few o' them. Draw your revolvers and shoot down the scum. Drive 'em away."
A score of shots were fired in obedience, but Si, making his voice ring above the noise, called out:
"Stop that firing, or I'll kill every man in the house. If there's another shot fired we'll open on you and keep it up till you're every one dead. Surrender at once!"
"Go at 'em with the bayonet, Si," yelled Shorty. "I'm goin' around to ketch old Billings. He's in there, and'll try to sneak out the back way."
As Shorty ran around the corner he came face-to-face with a stalwart Irishman, one of the pluckiest of the squad brought from Jeffersonville. His face was drawn and white with fright, and he fumbled at his beads.
"O, Corpril," he said, with chattering teeth, "Oi've jist sane the very divil himself, so Oi have. Oi started to run up t' the house whin the ruction begun, when suddintly the ground opened up at me very fate, an' out kim a ghost, tin fate hoigh, wid oyes av foire, and brathing flames, an' he shtarted for me, an' oi—"
"What damned nonsense is this, O'Brien?" asked Shorty angrily. "Are you drunk, or jest naturally addled? Come along with me and we'll—"
"Not for a thousand loives," groaned the Irishman. "Howly saints, fwhat is old Clootie after me for? Is it for atin' that little taste o' ham last Friday? Holy Mary, save me; there he is again!"
"Where, you flannel-mouthed Mick?" asked Shorty savagely. "Where do you see the devil?"
"There! There! That white thing. Don't you say it yersilf?" groaned the Irishman, dropping on his knees, and calling on all the saints.
"That white thing. That's only a sycamore stump, you superstitious bog-trotter," said Shorty, with angry contempt, as he bent his eyes on the white object. Then he added in the next breath:
"But blamed if that stump ain't walkin' off. Funny stump."
He gave a leap forward for closer investigation. At the crash of his footsteps the stump actually turned around and gave a sepulchral groan. Then, seeing that it was not a soldier pursuing, a very natural human voice proceeded from it.
"Is that you, Brother Welch? I thought at first it was a soldier. I motioned you when the trouble first begun to follow me through the underground passage. There was enough others there to make the fight, and it'd never do for us to be taken by the Lincolnites. We're too valuable to the cause just now, and, then, if the Lincolnites get hold of me they'll certainly make me a martyr. Come right over this way. We kin strike a path near here that'll take us right out."
"Great Jehosephat," said Shorty, "if it ain't old Billings, masqueradin' in his Sons o' Malty rig."
He made another leap or two, clapped his hand on Billings's shoulder, and shoved the muzzle of his revolver against the mask and demanded:
"Halt and surrender, you barrel-headed, splayfooted son of a sardine. Come along with me, or I'll blow that whole earthquake rig offen you."
Shorty marched his prisoner back to the house, and as he neared it saw by the light of a fire O'Brien, who had apparently recovered from his fright, for he was having a lively bout with a large young fellow who was trying to make his escape. It seemed an even thing for a minute or two, but the Irishman finally downed his antagonist by a heavy blow with his massive fist.
"Here, O'Brien," said Shorty, "I've ketched your devil and brung him back to you. When a boss shies at anything the best way's to lead him square up to it and let him smell it. So I want you to take charge o' this prisoner and hold him safe till the scrimmage is over."
O'Brien looked at the figure with rage and disgust. He gave Billings a savage clout with his open hand, saying:
"Ye imp o' the divil—ye unblest scab of an odmahoun. Oi'll brake ivery bone av yer body for goin' around by noights in thim wake-duds, scaring daysint folks out av their siven sinses."
The fighting had been quite a severe tussle for the soldiers. There had not been much shooting, but a great deal of clubbing with gun-barrels and sticks, which left a good many bloody heads and aching arms and shoulders. About half of those in the meeting had succeeded in getting away, but this still left some 75 prisoners in the hands of Lieut. Bigelow, and he was delighted with his success.
It was decided to hold all the prisoners in the lodge until morning, and two of the boys who had gotten pretty badly banged about the head were sent back to the railroad to relieve and assist the guard left there.
"I find about 10 or 15 birds in the flock," said the Deputy Provost, who was also Deputy Sheriff, when they looked over the prisoners in the morning, "that we have warrants and complaints for, for everything from plain assault and battery to horse-stealing. It would save the military much trouble and serve the ends of justice better if we could send them over to the County seat and put them in jail, where the civil authorities could get a whack at them. I'd go there myself if I could walk, but this bullet in my shin disables me."
"I'd like to do it," answered Lieut. Bigelow, "but I haven't the guard to spare. So many of my men got disabled that I won't have more than enough to guard the cars on the way back and keep these whelps from jumping the train or being rescued by their friends when we stop at the stations. The news of this affair is all over the country by this time, and their friends will all be out."
"How fur is it to the County seat?" asked Shorty.
"About 15 miles," answered the Deputy Provost.
"Me and Si Klegg'll march 'em over there, and obligate ourselves not to lose a rooster of 'em," said Shorty.
"That'll be a pretty big contract," said the Lieutenant doubtfully.
"All right. We're big enough for it. We'll take every one of 'em in if we have to haul some of 'em feet foremost in a wagon."
"It'll be a great help in many ways," considered Lieut. Bigelow. "The crowd'll be looking for us at the stations and not think of these others. Those are two very solid men, and will do just what they promise. I think I'll let them try it. It would be well for you to tell those men that any monkey business with them will be unhealthy. They'd better trust to getting away from the grand jury than from them."
But as the Deputy Provost went over them more carefully he found more that were "wanted" by the civil authorities, and presently had selected 25 very evil-looking fellows, whose arrest would have been justified on general appearances.
"Haint we bit off more'n we kin chaw. Shorty?" asked Si, as he looked over the increasing gang. "Hadn't we better ask for some help?"
"Not a bit of it," answered Shorty, confidently. "That'll look like weakenin' to the Lieutenant and the Provo. We kin manage this gang, or we'll leave 'em dead in the brush."
"All right," assented Si, who had as little taste as his partner for seeming to weaken. "Here goes for a fight or a foot-race."
While the Deputy was making out a list of the men and writing a note to the Sheriff, Shorty went through the gang and searched each man for arms. Then he took out his knife and carefully cut the suspender buttons from every one of their pantaloons.
"Now we've got 'em, Si," he said gleefully, as he returned to his partner's side, with his hand full of buttons. "They'll have to use both hands to hold their britches on, so they kin neither run nor fight. They'll be as peaceable as lambs."
"Shorty," said Si, in tones of fervent admiration, "I wuz afeared that crack you got on your head softened your brains. But now I see it made you brighter'n ever. You'll be wearin' a General's stars before this war is over."
"Bob Ramsey was a-blowin' about knowin' how to handle men," answered Shorty. "I'm just goin' to bring him over here and show him this trick that he never dreamed of."
After he had gloated over Sergeant Ramsey, Shorty got his men into the road ready to start. Si placed himself in front of the squad and deliberately loaded his musket in their sight. Shorty took his place in the rear, and gave out:
"Now, you roosters, you see I've two revolvers, and I'm a dead shot with either hand. I'm good for 12 of you at the first jump and my partner kin 'tend to the rest. Now, if I see a man so much as make a motion toward the side o' the road I'll drop him. Give the command. Sergeant Klegg."
"Forward—march!" ordered Si.
It was as Shorty predicted. The prisoners had entirely too much solicitude about their garments to think of anything else, and the march was made without incident. Late in the afternoon they reached the County seat, and marched directly for the public square, in which the jail was situated. There were a few people on the streets, who gathered on the sidewalks to watch the queer procession. Shorty, with both hands on his revolvers, had his eyes fixed on the squad, apprehensive of an attempt to bolt and mix with the crowd. He looked neither to the right nor the left, but was conscious that they were passing a corner on which stood some ladies. Then he heard a voice which set his heart to throbbing call out:
"Hello, Si Klegg! Si Klegg! Look this way. Where'd you come from?"
"Great Jehosephat! Maria!" said Shorty to himself. But he dared not take his eyes a moment from the squad to look toward her.
HAVING seen their prisoners safely behind the bars, Si and Shorty breathed more freely than they had since starting out in the morning, and Si remarked, as he folded up the receipt for them and placed it in his pocket-book:
"That drove's safely marketed, without the loss of a runaway or a played-out. Purty good job o' drovin', that. Pap couldn't do better'n that with his hogs. I'm hungrier'n a wolf. So must you be, Shorty. Le's hunt up Maria, and she'll take us where we kin git a square meal. Then we kin talk. I've got a hundred questions I want to ask you, but ain't goin' to do it on an empty gizzard. Come on."
Shorty had dropped on to a bench, and fixed his eyes on the stone wall opposite, as if desperately striving to read there some hint of extrication from his perplexities. The thought of encountering Maria's bright eyes, and seeing there even more than her sharp tongue would express, numbed his heart.
"Yit, how kin I git away from Si, now?" he murmured to himself. "And yit I'm so dead hungry to see her again that I'd be willin' to be a'most skinned alive to do it. Was ever anybody else so big a fool about a girl? I've plagued other fellers, and now I've got it worse'n anybody else. It's a judgment on me. But, then, nobody else ever seen such a girl as that. There's some sense in bein' a fool about her."
"Come on, Shorty," called Si from the door. "What are you dreamin' on? Are you too tired to move? Come on. We'll have a good wash, that'll take away some of the tiredness, then a big dinner, and a good bed tonight. Tomorrer mornin' we'll be as good as new."
"I think I'd better git right on the next train and go back to Jeffersonvillie," murmured Shorty, faintly struggling with himself. "They may need me there."
"Nonsense!" answered Si. "We've done enough for one day. I've bin up for two nights now, and am goin' to have a rest. Let some o' the other fellers have a show for their money. We haint got to fight this whole war all by ourselves."
"No, Si," said Shorty, summoning all his resolution; "I'm goin' back on the next train. I must git back to the company. They'll—"
"You'll do nothin' o' the kind," said Si impatiently. "What's eatin' you? What'd you skip out from our house for? What'd you mean—"
He was broken in upon by Maria's voice as she came in at the head of a bevy of other girls:
"Si Klegg, ain't you ever comin' out? What's akeepin' you? We're tired waitin' for you, and w're comin' right in. What're you doin' to them ragamuffins that you've bin gatherin' up? Tryin' to patch 'em up into decent-lookin' men? Think it'll be like mendin' a brush-fence—makin' bad worse. Where on earth did you gather up sich a gang o' scare-crows? I wouldn't waste my days and nights pickin' up sich runts as them. When I go manhuntin' I'll gether something that's worth while."
Every bright sally of Maria was punctuated with shrieks of laughter from the girls accompanying her. Led by her, they swarmed into the dull, bare room, filling it with the brightness of their youthful presence, their laughter, and their chirruping comments on everything they saw. The jail was a place of deep mystery to them, and it was a daring lark for them to venture in even to the outside rooms.
"The girls dared me to bring 'em in," Maria explained to Si, "and I never won't take no dare from anyone. Si, ain't you goin' to kiss your sister? You don't act a bit glad to see me. Now, if it was Annabel—"
"Why, Maria," said Si, kissing her to stop her mouth, "I wasn't expectin' to see you. What in the world are you doin' over here?"
"Why, your Cousin Marthy, here, is goin' to be married Thursday to her beau, who's got 10 days' leave to come home for that purpose. The thing's bin hurried up, because he got afeared. He heard that Marthy was flyin' around to singin' school and sociables with some other fellers that's home on furlough. So he just brung things to a head, and I rushed over here to help Marthy git ready, and stand by her in the tryin' hour. Why, here's Mr. Corporil Elliott, that I hain't spoken to yit. Well, Mr. Skip-and-away, how d' you do? Girls, come up here and see a man who thought mother's cookin' was not good enough for him. He got homesick for army rations, and run off without so much as sayin' good-by, to git somethin' to eat that he'd really enjoy."
Her merry laugh filled the room, and rang even into the dark cells inside. Shorty shambled to his feet, pulled off his hat, and stood with downcast eyes and burning face. He had never encountered anything so beautiful and so terrifying.
Maria was certainly fair to look upon. A buxom, rosy-cheeked lass, something above the average hight of girls, and showing the Klegg blood in her broad chest and heavy, full curves. She was dressed in the hollyhock fashion of country girls of those days, with an exuberance of bright colors, but which Shorty thought the hight of refined fashion. He actually trembled at what the next words would be from those full, red lips, that never seemed to open except in raillery and mocking.
"Well, ain't you goin' to shake hands with me? What are you mad about?"
"Mad? Me mad? What in the world've I to be mad about?" thought Shorty, as he changed his hat to his left hand, and put forth shamedly a huge paw, garnished with red hair and the dust of the march. It seemed so unfit to be touched by her white, plump hand. She gave him a hearty grasp, which reassured him a little, for there was nothing in it, at least, of the derision which seemed to ring in every note of her voice and laughter.
"Girls," she called, "come up and be introduced. This is Mr. Corpril Elliott, Si's best friend and partner. I call him Mr. Fly-by-night, because he got his dander up about something or nothin', and skipped out one night without so much's sayin'—"
"O, Maria, come off. Cheese it. Dry up," said Si impatiently. "Take us somewhere where we kin git somethin' to eat. Your tongue's hung in the middle, and when you start to talkin' you forgit everything else. I'm hungrier'n a bear, and so's Shorty."
An impulse of anger flamed up in Shorty's heart. How dared Si speak that way to such a peerless creature? How could he talk to her as if she were some ordinary girl?
"O, of course, you're hungry," Maria answered. "Never knowed you when you wasn't. You're worse'n a Shanghai chicken—eat all day and be hungry at night. But I expect you are really hungry this time. Come on. We'll go right up to Cousin Marthy's. I sent word that you was in town, and they're gittin' ready for you. I seen a dray-load o' provisions start up that way. Come on, girls. Cousin Marthy, bein's you're engaged and Si's engaged, you kin walk with him. The rest o' you fall in behind, and I'll bring up the rear, as Si'd say, with Mr. Fly-by-night, and hold on to him so that he sha'n't skip again."
"Me run away," thought Shorty, as they walked along. "Hosses couldn't drag me away. I only hope that house is 10 miles off."
Unfortunately for his cause he could not say nor hint any such a thing, but walked along in dogged silence. The sky was overcast and cheerless, and a chill wind blew, but Shorty never knew such a radiant hour.
"Well, why don't you say something? What's become o' your tongue?" began Maria banteringly.
"Have you bit it off, or did some girl, that you bolted off in such a hurry to see, drain you so dry o' talk that you haint got a word left? Who is she? What does she look like? What made you in sich a dreadful hurry to see her? You didn't go clear up to Bad Ax, did you, and kill that old widower?"
"Maria," called out Si, "if you don't stop plaguin' Shorty I'll come back there and wring your neck. You kin make the worst nuisance o' yourself o' any girl that ever lived. Here, you go up there and walk with Cousin Marthy. I'll walk with Shorty. I've got something I want to say to him."
With that he crowded in between Maria and Shorty and gave his sister a shove to send her forward. Shorty flared up at the interference. Acute as his suffering was under Maria's tongue, he would rather endure it than not have her with him. Anyhow, it was a matter between him and her, with which Si had no business.
"You oughtn't to jaw your sister that way, Si," he remonstrated energetically. "I think it's shameful. I wouldn't talk that way to any woman, especially sich a one as your sister."
"Whose sister is she, anyway?" snapped Si, who was as irritable as a hungry and tired man gets. "You 'tend to your sisters and I'll 'tend to mine. I'm helpin' you. You don't know Maria. She's one o' the best girls in the world, but she's got a doublegeared, self-actin' tongue that's sharper'n a briar. She winds it up Sundays and lets it run all week. I've got to comb her down every little while. She's a filly you can't manage with a snaffle. Let her git the start and you'd better be dead. The boys in our neighborhood's afeared to say their soul's their own when she gits a-goin'. You 'tend to the other girls and leave me to 'tend to her. She's my sister—nobody else's."
Shorty fell back a little and walked sullenly along. The people at the house were expecting them, and had a bountiful supper prepared. A good, sousing wash in the family lavatory in the entry, plentifully supplied with clear water, soap, tin basins and clean roller towels, helped much to restore the boys' self-respect and good humor. When they were seated at the table Maria, as the particular friend of the family, assisted as hostess, and paid especial attention to supplying Shorty's extensive wants, and by her assiduous thoughtfulness strengthened her chains upon him and soothed the hurts her tongue had made. Yet he could not see her whisper to one of the other girls, and hear the responsive giggle, but he thought with flushed face that it concerned the Bad Ax incident. But Maria was not doing any such covert work. She was, above everything, bold and outspoken.
"You girls that want a soldier-beau," she took opportunity to remark at a little pause in the feast, "kin jest set your caps for Mr. Corpril Elliott there. He's in the market. He had a girl up in Bad Ax, Wis., but she went back on him, and married a stay-at-home widower, who's in the lumber business."
There was a general giggle, and a chorus of exclamations at such unpatriotic and unwomanly perfidy. Shorty's appetite fled.
"Maria," thundered Si, "I'll make you pay for this when I git you alone."
"Yes," continued the incorrigible tease; "and they say the best time to ketch a widder is while her eyes is wet. Transplantin's best in wet weather, and the best time to ketch a feller's jest when he's bin jilted."
Si sprang from the table, as if he would catch Maria and slap her. She laughingly threatened him with a big fork in her hand. They happened to look toward Shorty. He had risen from the table, with the sweat pouring from his burning face. He fumbled in his breast for his silk handkerchief. As he pulled it out there came with it the piece of Maria's dress, which Shorty had carefully treasured. It fell to the floor. Shorty saw it, and forgetful of all else, stooped over, picked it up, carefully brushed the dust from it, refolded it and put if back in his pocket. Maria's face changed instantly from laughing raillery, and she made a quick movement to place herself where she would hide from the rest what he was doing.
There was a rap at the door and the Sheriff of the County entered.
"Sorry to disturb you at supper," he said. "But there's some hint of trouble, and I'd like to have you stand by to help me if it comes. The news has gone all over the country of the haul you brung into the' jail this afternoon, and they say their friends are gatherin' for a rescue. So many o' the right kind o' the boys is away in the army that I hardly know where to look for help. I'm sending word around to all I kin reach. There's several o' the boys that're home gittin' well o' wounds that'll be glad to help. I'm sendin' buggies for 'em. They can't walk, but they kin stand up and shoot. I'd like to have you come down to the jail as soon's you git through your supper. And, Serg't Klegg, will you take command? I ain't much on the military, but I'll stay with you and obey orders."
"All right. Sheriff; we'll be right down," responded Si with alacrity. "Git together a few of the boys, and we'll stand off the Knights. There won't be much trouble, I think."
The prospect of a fight transformed Shorty. His shamefacedness vanished instantly, and he straightened up to his full hight with his eyes shining.
"I don't think there's need o' disturbin' the other boys. Sheriff," he said. "I guess me and Si'll be able to stand off any crowd that they're likely to run up aginst us."
"Don't know about that," said the Sheriff doubtfully. "They've bin gittin' sassier and sassier lately, and've showed more willingness to fight. They've put up several very nasty little shindies at one place or another. Out at Charleston, Ill., they killed the Sheriff and a lot o' soldiers right in the Courthouse yard in broad daylight. I believe they've got rebels for officers. We mustn't take no chances."
"Let 'em come on," said Si. "We've run up aginst rebels before. We'll be down to the jail in a few minutes. Sheriff."
The Sheriff's words had banished the ready laughter from the girls' lips, and taken away their appetites, but seemed to have sharpened those of Si and Shorty.
"Here, Maria," called out Si, as he resumed his place at the table with Shorty, while the girls grouped together and whispered anxiously, "bring us in some more o' them slapjacks. We may have to be up all night, and want somethin' that'll stay by us."
"Yes," echoed Shorty, speaking for the first time since he had come into the house; "I feel as if I'd like to begin all over agin."
"I wish you could begin all over agin," said Maria in a tone very different from her former one. "I'd like to cook another supper for you. I wish I could do something to help. Can't I go with you and do something—load guns, or something? I've read about women doin' somethin' o' that kind in the Injun fightin'."
"If you could git 'em within range o' your tongue, Maria," said Si merrily, "you'd scatter, 'em in short order. No; you stay here, and say your prayers, and go to bed like a good girl, and don't worry about us. We'll come out all right. It's the other fellers' womenfolks that've cause to worry. Let them stay up and walk the floor."
As the boys walked down to the jail they saw in the darkness squads of men moving around in a portentious way. At the jail were the Sheriff, wearing an anxious look, two or three citizens, and several soldiers, some with their arms in slings, others on crutches.
"I'm so glad you've come," said the Sheriff. "Things is beginnin' to look very ugly outside. They've got the whole country stirred up, and men are coming in on every road. You take command, Sergeant Klegg. I've bin waitin' for you, so's I could drive over to the station and send a dispatch to the Governor. The station's about a mile from here, but I'll be back as soon as my horse'll bring me. I didn't want to send the dispatch till I was sure there was need of it, for I don't want to bring soldiers here for nothin'."
The wheels of the Sheriff's buggy rattled over the graveled road, and a minute later there was a knock at the outside door. Si opened it and saw there a young man with a smoothly-shaven face, a shock of rumpled hair and wearing a silk hat, a black frockcoat and seedy vest and pantaloons. Si at once recognized him as a lawyer of the place.
"Who's in charge here?" he asked.
"I am, for the present," said Si.
"There it is," said he, in a loud voice, that others might hear; "a military guard over citizens arrested without warrant of law. I have come, sir, in the name of the people of Indiana, to demand the immediate release of those men."
"You kin go, sir, and report to them people that it won't be did," answered Si firmly.
"But they've been arrested without due process of law. They've been arrested in violation of the Constitution and laws of the State of Indiana, which provide—"
"I ain't here to run no debatin' society," Si interrupted, "but to obey my orders, which is to hold these men safe and secure till otherwise ordered."
"I give you fair warning that you will save bloodshed by releasing the men peaceably. We don't want to shed blood, but—"
"We'll take care o' the bloodshed," said Si, nonchalantly. "We're in that business. We git $13 a month for it."
"Do you defy the sovereign people of Indiana, you military autocrat?" said the lawyer.
"Look here, mister," said Shorty, striding forward. "Don't you call my pardner no names, especially none like that. If you want a fight we're here to accommodate you till you git plum-full of it. But you musn't call no sich names as that, or I'll knock your head off."
"Whose head'll you knock off?" said a burly man, thrusting himself in front of the lawyer, with his fist doubled.
"Yours, for example," promptly responded Shorty, sending out his mighty right against the man's head.
"Don't be a fool, Markham," said the lawyer, catching the man and pushing him back into the crowd behind. "Now, sir, Sergeant, or Captain, or Colonel, whatever you may call yourself, for I despise military titles, and don't pretend to know them, I again demand the release of those men. You'll be foolish to attempt to resist, for we've men enough to tear you limb from limb, and jerk down the jail over your heads. Look out for yourself. You can see that the courtyard is full of men. They are determined—desperate, for they have groaned under the iron heel of tyranny."
"O, cheese that stump-speech," said Si, weariedly. "'Taint in our enlistment papers to have to listen to 'em. You've bin warnin', now I'll do a little. I'll shoot the first man that attempts to enter this jail till the Sheriff gits back. If you begin any shootin' we'll begin right into your crowd, and we'll make you sick. There's some warnin' that means somethin'."
"Your blood be on your own heads, then, you brass-button despots," said the lawyer, retiring into the darkness and the crowd. He seemed to give a signal, for a rocket shot up into the air, followed by wild yells from the mob. The large wooden stable in the Courthouse yard burst into flames, and the prisoners inside yelled viciously in response. There was a fusillade of shots, apparently excited and aimless, for none of them struck near.
"Don't fire, boys," said Si, walking around among his guards, "until there is some reason for it. They'll probably try to make a rush and batter down the jail door. We'll watch for that."
The glare of the burning building showed them preparing for that move. A gang had torn off the heavy rail from the hitching-post on the outside of the square, and were going to use it as a battering-ram. Then came another kind of yell from farther away, and suddenly the mob began running in wild confusion, while into the glare swept a line of soldiers, charging with fixed bayonets.
"A train came in while I was at the depot," the Sheriff explained, as he entered the office. "It had on it a regiment going home on veteran furlough. I asked the Major in command to come over and help us. He and his boys was only too glad for a chance to have some fun and stretch their legs. They came off the cars with a whoop as soon's they knowed what was wanted. Now, you boys kin go home and git a good night's sleep. I'll take these prisoners along with the regiment over to the next County seat, and keep 'em there till things cool down here. I'm awfully obliged to you."
"Don't mention it. Glad to do a little thing like that for you any time," responded Si, as he and Shorty shook hands with the Sheriff.
At the next corner, after leaving the Courthouse square, they met Maria and Martha.
"I just couldn't stay in the house while this was goin' on," Maria explained. "I had to come out and see. O, I'm so glad it's all over and you're not hurt."
She caught Shorty's arm with a fervor that made him thrill all over.
WHEN the boys came to breakfast the next morning, they found Maria with the hollyhock effulgence of garb of the day before changed to the usual prim simplicity of her housedress. This meant admiration striking Shorty still dumber. He was in that state of mind when every change in the young woman's appearance seemed a marvelous transformation and made her more captivating than before. He had thought her queenly dazzling in her highly-colored "go-to-meeting" plumage of the day before. She was now simply overpowering in her plain, close-fitting calico, that outlined her superb bust and curves, with her hair combed smoothly back from her bright, animated face. Shorty devoured her with his eyes—that is, when she was not looking in his direction. He would rather watch her than eat his breakfast, but when her glance turned toward him he would drop his eyes to his plate. This became plain to everybody, even Maria, but did not prevent her beginning to tease.
"What's the matter with you? Where's your appetite?" asked she. "You're clean off your feed. You must be in love. Nothin' else'd make a man go back on these slapjacks that Cousin Marthy made with her own hands, and she kin beat the County on slapjacks. Mebbe you're thinkin' o' your Bad Ax girl and her widower. Perk up. He may fall offen a saw-log and git drowned, and you git her yit. Never kin tell. Life's mighty uncertain, especially around saw-mills. When I marry a man he's got to give bonds not to have anything to do, in no way or shape, with saw-mills. I don't want to be a widder, or take care o' half a man for the rest o' my days. You've got a chance to git your girl yit. Mebbe she'll git tired o' him after he's bin run through the mill two or three times, and there's more o' him in the graveyard than there is walkin' to church with her. Cheer up."
Shorty tried to disprove the charge as to the subject of his thoughts by falling to furiously and with such precipitation that he spilt his coffee, upset the molasses-jug, and then collapsed in dismay at his clumsiness.
Maria did not go free herself. The other girls had not been blind to Shorty's condition of mind, and rather suspected that Maria was not wholly indifferent to him. When she came into the kitchen for another supply. Cousin Susie, younger sister of Martha, remarked:
"Maria, I've a notion to take your advice, and set my cap for Corpril Shorty. Do you know, I think he's very good lookin'. He's a little rough and clumsy, but a girl could take that out o' him. I believe I'll begin right away. You stay in here and bake and I'll wait on the table."
"Don't be a little goose, Susie," said Maria severely. "You're too young yit to think about beaux. You hain't got used to long dresses yit. You go practice on boys in roundabouts awhile. This is a full-grown man and a soldier. He hain't got no time to waste on schoolgirls."
"Ha, how you talk, Miss Jealousy," responded Susie. "How scared you are lest I cut you out. I've a great mind to do it, just to show you I kin. I'd like awfully to have a sweetheart down at the front, just to crow over the rest o' the girls. Here, you take the turner and let me carry that plate in."
"I'll do nothin' o' the kind," said Maria, decisively. "You look out for your cakes there. They're burnin' while you're gossipin'. That's my brother and his friend, and I hain't got but a short time to be with 'em. I may never see 'em agin, and I want to do all I kin for 'em while they're with me."
"Too bad about your brother," laughed Susie. "How lovin' and attentive all at once. I remember how you used to wig him without mercy at school, and try to make him go off and take me home, instid o' taggin' along after you, when that big-eyed school teacher that sung tenor'd be makin' sheep's eyes at you in school, and wantin' to walk home with you in the evenin'. I remember your slappin' Si for tellin' the folks at home about the teacher and you takin' long walks at noon out to the honeysuckle patch. I've a great mind to go in and tell it all to Si right before that feller. Then your cake'll all be dough. Don't git too uppish with me, young lady. Gi' me that plate and let me take it in."
The cakes on the griddles burned while Maria watched through the door what she mentally described as the "arts and manuvers o' that sassy little piece." She was gratified to see that Shorty's eyes kept glancing at the door for her own reappearance. She carried in the next plate of cakes herself, and though they were a little scorched, Shorty ate them with more zest than any of their predecessors.
Si announced, as he shoved back from the table:
"Well, we've got to go right off. We must ketch that accommodation and git back to Bean Blossom Crick. I want to say good-by to the folks, and then strike out for Jeffersonville. I've reported that I'm able for dooty agin, and there's orders at home for me and Shorty to go to Jeffersonville and git a gang o' recruits that's bin gethered there, and bring 'em to the rijimint."
Shorty had been in hopes that Si would dally for a day or so in these pleasant pastures, but then he reflected that where Annabel was was likely to be much more attractive to Si than where she was not.
"No need o' my goin' back with you," he ventured to suggest, speaking for the first time. "I might take the train goin' East, and git things in shape at Jeffersonville by the time you come."
Then his face grew hot with the thought that everyone saw through his transparent scheme to get an hour or two more with Maria.
"No," said Si, decisively. "You'll go back with me. Father and mother and 'Mandy are all anxious to see you, and they'll never forgive me if I don't bring you back with me. Le's start."
If, at parting. Shorty had mustered up courage enough to look Maria squarely in the eyes, he might have read something there to encourage him, but no deeply-smitten man ever can do this. There is where the "light o' loves" have the great advantage. He could only grip her hand convulsively for an instant, and then turn and follow Si.
At the Deacon's home Shorty found the same quiet, warm welcome, with too much tact on the part of anyone except little Sammy Woggles to make any comment on the circumstances of his disappearance. Sammy was clearly of the opinion that Si had run down Shorty and brought him back, and this had the beneficial effect of dampening Sammy's runaway schemes. He was also incensed at Shorty's perfidy in not sending him the rebel gun, and thought that his being brought back was righteous retribution.
"Served you right, you black-hearted promise-breaker," he hissed at Shorty when they found themselves momentarily alone. "I writ you that letter, and it nearly killed me—brung me down with the measles, and you never sent me that gun. But I'll foller yer trail till you do."
"Don't be a little fool, Sammy. You stay right here. You've got the best home in the world here. If you do I'll send you your gun inside of a month, with some real rebel catridges and a bayonet that's killed a man, and a catridge-box with a belt that you kin carry your ammunition in—that is, if you'll write me another letter, all about Maria."
"I won't write you a word about Maria," said the youth, seeing his advantage, "onless you promise to send me a whole lot o' catridges—a hatful. Powder and lead costs a heap o' money. And so do caps."
"You shall have 'em. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll send you a catridge and cap for every word you write about Maria."
"It's a go," said the delighted boy. "I'm goin' to learn someway to write without bitin' my tongue, an' I'll write you as many words every day as I want catridges to shoot off, so that I'll have enough for the next Fourth o' July, and kill all old Pete Walker's snappin' dogs besides."
The boys were to leave on the midnight train. The bigger part of Si's leave-taking seemed to be outside of his family, for he quit the house immediately after supper and did not leave Annabel's side until he had just barely time to get back home, take leave of his weeping mother and help store in the spring wagon more than he and Shorty could carry of the good things she had provided for them.
"What's this?" said Si to Shorty the next day at Jeffersonville, when they had reported to the Provost-Marshal, and had mustered before them the squad of recruits that they were to conduct to their regiment. "Have they bin roundin' up some country school-houses, and enlisted all the boys that was in the fourth reader and Ray's arithmetic?"
"Seems like it," said Shorty, looking down the line of bright, beardless, callow faces. "Some o' them don't look as if they'd got as fur as the fourth reader. Ain't old enough to spell words o' more than two syllables. What do they want with so many drummer-boys?"
"We aint no drummer-boys," said a bright-faced five-footer, who overhead the question. "Nary drum for us. We haint got no ear for music. We're regular soldiers, we are, and don't you forget it."
"But you ain't nigh 18," said Si, looking him over, pleased with the boy's spirit.
"You bet I'm over 18," answered the boy. "I told the Mustering Officer I was, and stuck to it in spite of him. There, you can see for yourself that I am," and he turned up his foot so as to show a large 18 marked on the sole of his shoe. "There, if that don't make me over 18, I'd like to know what does," he added triumphantly, to the chorus of laughter from his companions.
In the entire squad of 65 there were not more than half a dozen bearded men. The rest were boys, all clearly under their majority, and many seeming not over 15. There were tall, lathy boys, with tallowy faces; there were short, stocky boys, with big legs and arms and fat faces as red as ripe apples, and there were boys neither very fat nor very lean, but active and sprightly as cats. They were in the majority. Long and short, fat and lean, they were all bubbling over with animal spirits and activity, and eager to get where they could see "real war."
"Say, mister," said the irrepressible five-footer, who had first spoken to Si; "we've bin awful anxious for you to come and take us to our regiment. We want to begin to be real soldiers."
"Well, my boy," said Si, with as much paternalism as if he had been a grandfather, "you must begin right now, by actin' like a real soldier. First, you mustn't call me mister. Mustn't call nobody mister in the army. My name's Sergeant Klegg. This other man is Corporal Elliott, You must always call us by those names, When you speak to either of us you must take the position of a soldier—stand up straight, put your heels together, turn your toes out, and salute, this way."
"Is this right?" asked the boy, carefully imitating Si.
"Yes, that's purty near right—very good for first attempt. Now, when I speak to you, you salute and answer me. What is your name?"
"Henry Joslyn, sir."
"Well, Henry, you are now Private Joslyn, of the 200th Injianny Volunteer Infantry. I can't tell what company you'll belong to till we git to the rigimint, but I'll try to have you in Co. Q, my company."
"But when are we going to get our guns and knapsacks and things, and start for the regiment?" persisted the eager boy, and the others joined in the impatient inquiry.
"You won't git your guns and accourterments till you git to the rigimint. As soon's I kin go over this roll and identify each one o' you, I'll see what the orders is for starting."
"There goes some men for the ferry now. Why can't we go with them?" persisted the boy.
"Private Joslyn," said Si, with some official sternness, "the first thing a soldier's got to learn is to keep quiet and wait for orders. You understand?"
"'Pears to me that there's a lot o' first things to learn," grumbled the boy to the others, "and it's nothin' but wait, wait forever. The army'll go off and leave us if we don't get down there purty soon."
"Don't worry, my boy, about the army goin' off and leavin' you," said Shorty in a kindly way. "It'll wait. It kin be depended on for that. Besides, it's got to wait for me and Sargint Klegg."
"That's so. Didn't think o' that," chorused the boys, to whose eyes the two veterans seemed as important as Gens. Grant or Thomas.
"That's purty light material for serious bizniss, I'm afeared," said Shorty to Si, as they stood a little apart for a moment and surveyed the coltish boys, frisking around in their new blouses and pantaloons, which fitted about like the traditional shirt on a bean-pole.
"I think they're just splendid," said Si, enthusiastically. "They'll fill in the holes o' the old rigimint in great shape. They're as tough as little wildcats; they'll obey orders and go wherever you send 'em, and four out o' every five o' them kin knock over a crow at a hundred yards with a squirrel rifle. But, Shorty," he added with a sudden assumption of paternal dignity, "me and you's got to be fathers to them. We've got a great responsibility for them. We must do the very best we kin by 'em."
"That's so," said Shorty, catching at once the fatherly feeling. "I'll punch the head off en the first sneezer that I ketch tryin' to impose on 'em."
THE bright, active minds of the 65 boys that Si and Shorty were put in charge of were aflame with curiosity regarding everything connected with the war. For two years they had been fed on stories and incidents of the mighty conflict then convulsing the land. Every breath they had drawn had some taste of battle in it. Wherever they went or were they heard incessantly of the storm-swept "front"—of terrific battles, perilous adventures, heroic achievements, death, wounds and marvelous escapes. The older boys were all at the front, or going there, or coming back with heroic marks of shot and shell. The one burning aspiration in every well-constructed boy's heart was to get big enough to crowd past the recruiting officer, and go where he could see with his own eyes the thunderous drama. There was concentrated all that fills a healthy boy's imagination and stirs his blood—something greater than Indian-fighting, or hunting lions and tigers. They looked on Si and Shorty with little short of reverence. Here were two men who had captured a rebel flag in a hand-to-hand fight, both of whom had been left for dead, and both promoted for gallantry. What higher pinnacle of greatness could any boy hope to reach?
They began at once seriously imitating the walk and manners of their heroes. The tall, lank boys modeled themselves on Shorty, and the short, chubby ones on Si. And there at once rose contention between them as to which was the greater hero.
"I heard," said Henry Joslyn, "that Corpril Elliott was the first to reach the rebel flag, he havin' much the longest legs, but jest as he grabbed it a big rebel knocked him, and then they all piled on to him, and about had him finished when Serg't Klegg reached there at a charge bayonets, and he bayoneted everybody in sight, until a sharpshooter in a tree shot him with an explosive bullet that tore his breast all to pieces, but he kept right on bayonetin' 'em till he dropped from loss o' blood. Then they fired a cannon at the sharpshooter and blowed him to pieces just as you'd blow a chippy to pieces with a bullet from a bear-gun."
"'Twan't that way at all," said tall, lathy Gid Mackall. "A whole lot of 'em made for the flag together. A charge o' grapeshot come along and blowed the rest away, but Serg't Klegg and Corpril Elliott kep' right on. Then Corpril Elliott he lit into the crowd o' rebels and laid a swath right around him, while Sergint Klegg grabbed the flag. A rebel Colonel shot him, but they couldn't stop Corpril Elliott till they shot a brass six-pounder at him."
The boys stood on the banks of the Ohio River and gazed eagerly at the other side. There was the enemy's country—there the theater in which the great drama was being enacted. Everything there had a weird fascination for them, as a part of, or accessory to, the stupendous play. It was like peeping under the circus tent, when they were smaller, and catching glimpses of the flying horses' feet.
And the questions they asked. Si had in a manner repelled them by his curt treatment of Harry Joslyn, and his preoccupied air as he went back and forth getting his orders and making preparations for starting. But Shorty was in an affable mood, and by pleasantly answering a few of their inquiries brought the whole fire of their questioning upon him.
"Are any o' them men you see over there guerrillas?" they asked.
"Mebbe," Shorty answered. "Kentucky's full of 'em. Mebbe they're peaceable citizens, though."
"How kin you tell the guerrillas from the citizens?"
"By the way they shoot at you. The peaceable citizens don't shoot—at least, in day time and out in the open. They lay for you with sole-leather pies, and chuck-a-luck boards and 40-rod whisky, and aid. and abet the Southern Confedrisy that way. They get away with more Union soldiers than the guerrillas do. But you can never tell what an able-bodied man in Kentucky'll do. He may lay for you all day with wildcat whisky, at $5 a canteenful, to git money to buy ammunition to shoot at you at night. He's surer o' gittin' you with a canteen o' never-miss whisky, but there's more healthy excitement about shootin' at you from behind a bank. And his pies is deadlier'n his apple-jack. A man kin git over an apple-jack drunk, but Kentucky pies 's wuss'n nux vomica on fish."
"Mustn't we eat none o' their pies?" asked the boys, with longing remembrance of the fragrant products of their mothers' ovens.
"Nary a pie. If I ketch a boy eatin' a pie after we cross the river I'll buck-and-gag him. Stick to plain hardtack and pork. You'll git to like it better'n cake by and by. I eat it right along in preference to the finest cake ever baked."
Shorty did not think it necessary to mention that this preference was somewhat compulsory.
"Why don't you hunt down the guerrillas and kill 'em off and be done with 'em?"
"You can't, very well. You see, guerrilain' is peculiar. There's somethin' in the air and water down in Kentucky and Tennessee that brings it on a man. You'll see a plain farmer man, jest like them around your home, and he'll be all right, goin' about his place plowin' and grubbin' sprouts and tendin' to his stock, and tellin' you all the time how much he loves the Union and how he and his folks always bin for the Union. Next thing you know he'll be out behind a cedar bush with a shotgun loaded with slugs, waitin' to make a lead mine o' some feller wearin' blue clothes. You see him before he does you, and he'll swear that he was out after the crows that's bin pullin' up his corn. He'll take' the oath of allegiance like it was a dram of old apple-jack, and tears'll come into his eyes at the sight o' the Old Flag, which he and his'n has always loved. He'll go ahead plowin' and grubbin' sprouts and tendin' his cattle till the fit comes on him agin to go gunnin' for bluecoats, and off he is, to go through the whole performance agin. You kin never tell how long his loosid interval will last, nor when the fit's comin' on him. Mebbe the changes o' the moon's somethin' to do with it. Mebbe it's somethin' that they eat, like what the cattle eat out West that makes 'em go crazy."
"Will the guerrillas begin shootin' at us as soon's we cross the river?"
"Can't tell. Guerrillas's like the nose-bleed—likely to come on you at any time. They're jest where you find 'em—that's when they're jumpin' you.. When they aint jumpin' you, they're lawabiding Union citizens, entitled to the protection o' the laws and to draw rations from the Commissary. To make no mistake, you want to play every man in citizen's clothes south of the Ohio River for a rebel. And when you don't see him, you want to be surer than ever, for then he's layin' for you."
Si came up at this moment with orders for them to pick up and go down to the ferry, and the lively hustle shut off Shorty's stream of information for the time being. The boys swarmed on to the bow of the ferry-boat, where they could scrutinize and devour with eager eyes the fateful shore of Kentucky.
"Don't look so very different from the Indiana side," said Harry Joslyn, as they neared the wharf. "Same kind o' wharf-boats and same kind o' men on 'em."
"That's because we've taken 'em and have our own men there," replied Gid Mackall. "It'll all be different when we git ashore and further into the State."
"Wasn't expecting nothing else," said Albert Grimes. "I've been watchin' the Sargint and Corpril, and they're acting just as if it was every day bizniss. I'm not going to expect anything till I see them lookin' serious."
They landed and walked to the depot through the streets of Louisville, which were also disappointingly like those they had seen elsewhere, with the stores open and people going about their business, as if no shadow of war brooded over the land. There were some more soldiers on the streets, and a considerable portion of the vehicles were army wagons, but this was all.
"When'll we see some rebels?" the boys asked.
"Don't be impatient," said a soldier on the sidewalk; "you'll see 'em soon enough, and more'n you want to. You'll have to go a little further, but you'll find the woods full of 'em. You'll be wishin' you was back home in your little trundle-beds, where they ought've kept you."
"Shut up, you coffee-boiler," shouted Shorty, striding toward him. "These boys 's goin' to the front, where you ought to be, and I won't have you sayin' a word to discourage 'em."
"Too bad about discouraging 'em," laughed another, who had a juster appreciation of the situation. "You couldn't discourage that drove of kids with a hickory club."
After the train left Louisville it passed between two strong forts bristling with heavy guns. Here was a reality of war, and the boys' tide of questions became a torrent that for once overslaughed Shorty's fine talent for fiction and misinformation.
"How many battles had been fought there?"
"How many Union soldiers had been killed?"
"How many rebels?"
"Where were they buried?"
"How big a ball did the guns shoot?"
"How far would it carry?"
"How many men would it kill if they were put one behind another?"
"How near would the guns come to hitting a man a mile off?"
"Could the gunner knock a man's head off, or one of his legs, just as he pleased?"
"Were the guns rifled or smooth-bore?"
"How much powder did it take to load them?"
"How hard did they kick when they were fired?"
"Did they have flint-locks or caps?"
"Did they ever fire chain-shot, which would cut down trees and sweep away companies of men?"
"If all the rest of the men were killed wouldn't the powder-monkey get a chance to fire the gun?"
"Look here, boys," gasped Shorty, when he got a chance to answer, "I'd like to answer your questions and fill you so plumb full o' information that your hides'd crack to hold it. But I aint no complete history o' the war with heavy artillery tactics bound up in one volume. All I know is that the worst dose them forts ever give was to the fellers that had to build 'em. After you've dug and shoveled and wheeled on one of 'em for about a month you'll hate the very sight of 'em and never ask no questions about 'em. All you'll want'll be to find and kill the feller that invented them brick-red eruptions on the face o' the earth."
This was a prosaic side of the war that had not occurred to the boys.
As the train ran out into the country there were plentiful signs of war to rivet the attention of the youngsters—hospitals, with the emaciated patients strolling feebly about; corrals of mules and horses, the waste and wreckage where camps had been, and bridges which had been burned and rebuilt.
"But we haint seen no guerrillas yit," said Harry Joslyn and Gid Mackall, whose minds seemed more fascinated with that species of an enemy than any other, and they apparently voiced the minds of the rest. "When're we likely to see some guerrillas?"
"O, the guerrillas are layin' purty low now, betwixt here and Nashville," Si carelessly explained. "After we pass Nashville you kin begin to look out for 'em."
"Why," Gid Mackall complained to the rest of them, "Corpril Elliott said that we could begin to look out for guerrillas jest as soon's we crossed the Ohio—that the whole o' Kentucky was full of 'em. I believe Corpril Elliott knows more about his business than Sargint Klegg. Sargint Klegg seems careless like. I see lots o' fellers along the road in butternut clothes that seemed savage and sneaky like. They looked at us in a way that made me certain they wuz spying us, and had their guns hid away somewhere, ready to jump us whenever there wuz a good chanst."
"So did I," chorused the others.
The train made a long stop on a switch and manuvered around a while, taking on some cars found there, and Si and Shorty seeing nothing to do went forward to another car, where they found some returning veterans, and were soon absorbed in a game of seven-up. Shorty had just successfully turned a jack from the bottom, and was snickering to himself that his fingers had not lost their cunning by long idleness, when the game was interrupted by a train-hand rushing up with the information:
"Here, you fellers, you want to git out there and 'tend to them kids o' your'n. They've got a couple o' citizens down there in the brush and I believe are goin' to hang 'em."
Si and Shorty ran down in the direction indicated. They found the boys, stern-eyed and resolute, surrounding two weak-eyed, trembling "crackers," who had apparently come to the train with baskets of leathery-crusted dried-apple pies for sale. The men were specimens of the weak-minded, weak-bodied, lank-haired "po' white trash," but the boys had sized them up on sight as dangerous spies and guerrillas, had laid hands on them and dragged them down into the brush, where Gid Mackall and Harry Joslyn were doing a fair reproduction of Williams, Paulding and Van Wert searching Maj. Andre's clothes for incriminating documents. They had the prisoners' hands tied behind them and their ankles bound. So far they had discovered a clumsy brass-barreled pistol and an ugly-looking spring dirk, which were sufficient to confirm the dangerous character of the men. Two of the boys had secured ropes from the train, which they were trying to fashion into hangman's nooses. Gid and Harry finished a painstaking examination of the men's ragged jeans vests, with a look of disappointment at finding nothing more inculpating that some fishhooks, chunks of twist tobacco and cob-pipes.
"They must have 'em in their boots, boys. Pull 'em off," said Harry. "There's where spies usually carry their most important papers."
"Here, you young brats, what are you up to?" demanded Si, striding in among them.
"Why, Sargint," said Harry Joslyn, speaking as if confident of being engaged in a praisworthy work, which should receive the commendation of his superiors, "these're two spies and guerrillas that we ketched right in the act, and we're searchin' 'em for evidence to hang 'em."
"Spies nothin'!" said Si. "Why, them fellers hain't brains enough to tell a battery from a regiment, nor pluck enough to take a settin' hen offen her nest. Let them go at once."
"Why, Corpril Elliott told us that every man in Kentucky, particularly them what sold pies, wuz dangerous, and liable to go guerrillying at any minute," said Harry in an aggrieved tone. "These fellers seemed to be sneakin' down to find that we hadn't no guns and then jump us."
"Well, what I said wuz true on jineral principles," laughed Shorty. "But there's occasionally exceptions to even what I tell you. These fellers are as harmless as garter-snakes. Why didn't you come and speak to us?"
"Why, you shoved our car out there into the brush and went off and left us. We thought we had to look out for ourselves," explained Harry. "Can't we hang 'em, anyway?" he added in an appealing tone, and the rest of the boys looked wistfully at Si for permission to proceed.
"No, you can't, I tell you. Turn 'em loose this minute, and give 'em back their things, and go yourselves to your car. We're goin' to start now. Here," he continued to the two men, "is a dollar. Take your pies and dig out. Don't attempt to sell any o' them pies to these boys, or I'll hang you myself, and there won't be no foolishness about it. Git back to your car, boys."
"There won't be no hangin', and we won't git none o' the pies," complained the boys among themselves. "Sargint Klegg's gittin' overbearin'. What'd he interfere for? Them fellers was guerrillas, as sure as you're born, just as Corpril Elliott described 'em before we crossed the river."
MUCH to their amazement, the boys waked up the next morning in Nashville, and found that they had passed through the "dark and bloody ground" of Kentucky absolutely without adventure.
"How in the world'd we ever git clean through the State without the least bit o' trouble?" asked Harry Joslyn, as they stood together on the platform awaiting the return of Si and Shorty, who had gone to see about their breakfast. "It was fight from the word go with the other men from the minute they struck Kentucky."
"Probably it was Corpril Elliott's good management," suggested Gid Mackall, whose hero-worship of Shorty grew apace. "I tell you there aint a trick o' soldierin' that he aint up to."
"Corpril Elliott's?" sneered Harry Joslyn. "You're just stuck on Corpril Elliott. If it was anybody's good management it was Sargint Klegg's. I tell you, he's the boss. He got shot through the breast, while Corpril Elliott only got a crack over the head. That settles it as to who's the best soldier. I'm kind o' sorry that we didn't have no trouble. Mebbe the folks at home'll git the idea that we skulked and dodged."
"That's so," accorded the others, with a troubled look.
"But we are now in Tennessee," chirped in Gid Mackall hopefully. "That's ever so much worse'n Kentucky. We must come to rebels purty soon now. They won't let so many reinforcements git to Gen. Thomas if they kin help it." And Gid looked around on his companions, as if he thought their arrival would turn the scale and settle the fate of the Confederacy. "They'll probably jump us just as soon as we leave town. Them big forts on the hills mebbe keeps them outside now, but they're layin' for us just beyond. Wonder if we'll git our guns here? Mebbe that's what the Sargint and Corpril's gone for."
"They said they were going for our breakfast," said Harry. "And I hope it's true, for I'm hungrier'n a rip-saw. But I could put off breakfast for awhile, if they'd only bring us our guns. I hope they'll be nice Springfield rifles that'll kill a man at a mile."
"'Tention!" commanded Si. "Fall in single rank 'cordin' to your size. Tall boys on the right, short ones on the left, medium in the center. Gid Mackall, you're the tallest. You can go there to the corner o' the platform and let the others form on you."
Si stepped back into the shed to look after some matters.
Harry Joslyn whipped around and took his stand on the right of Gid Mackall.
"Here," protested Gid; "Sargint Klegg told me to stand on the right. You're smaller'n me. Git on the other side."
"I won't do it," answered Harry. "I've always stood ahead o' you in school, ever since we were in the primer class, and I aint goin' to stand behind you in the army. You needn't try to gouge me out o' my rights because you're half-a-head taller. I'm two months older'n you, and I can throw you in a wrastle every time."
"I tell you," said Gid, giving Harry an angry shove toward the left, "that this is my place, and I'm goin' to stand here. The Sargint told me to. Go down where you belong, you little rat."
The hot-headed Harry mixed up with him immediately, school-boy fashion. Shorty rushed up and separated the two, giving Harry a sharp shake. "Stop that, and go down to your place in the center," said he.
"Yes; you side with him," whimpered Harry, "because he praises you and says you're a better soldier'n Sargint Klegg. I'm goin' to tell Sargint Klegg that."
"Here," said Si, sternly, as he came back again. "What's all this row? Why don't you boys fall in 'cordin' to size, as I told you?"
"Sargint," protested Harry, "Gid Mackall wants to stand at the head o' the class. I'm older'n him, I can spell him down, and I can throw him in—"
Si interrupted the appeal by taking Harry by the ear and marching him to his place.
"Look here," he said, "when you git an order from anyone, don't give 'em no back talk. That's the first thing you've got to learn, and the earlier you learn it the less trouble you'll have. If you don't like it, take it out in swearin' under your breath, but obey."
"But, Sargint, he said that Corpril Elliott was a better soldier'n"
"Silence in ranks," said Si, giving him a shake. "Right dress. Come out in the center. Mackall, stand up straight there. Take that hump out o' your shoulders. Put your heels together, all of you. Turn your toes out. Put your little fingers down to the seams o' your pantaloons. Draw your stomachs in. Throw your chests out. Hold your heads up. Keep your faces straight to the front, and cast your eyes to the right until you kin see the buttons on the breast o' the third man to your right. Come forward until they're in line.
"Goodness," moaned some of the boys, as they were trying to obey what seemed a' hopeless mass of directions, "do we have to do this every mornin' before we kin have breakfast? We'll starve to death before we git anything to eat. No use tellin' us to draw our stomachs in. They're clean in to our backbones now."
"Mustn't talk in ranks, boys," Shorty kindly admonished. "It's strictly agin' regulations. Straighten up, there, like soldiers, all o' you, and git into a line. Looks like a ram's horn now. If the rebels'd shoot down that line they wouldn't hit one o' you."
Jim Humphries, one of the medium-sized boys, suddenly turned as white as a sheet and fell on the planks. One after another of those around him did the same, until a half-dozen were lying there in a heap.
"What in the world's the matter?" asked Si, rushing up to them in dismay.
"They're pizened, that's what they are," shouted Harry Joslyn. "That guerrilla goin' over there pizened 'em. I saw him a-givin' 'em something. He's tryin' to git away. Le's ketch him."
At the word the boys made a rush for the man who was quietly walking off. As they ran they threw stones, which went with astonishing precision and force. One of them struck the man on the head and felled him. Then the boys jumped on him and began pounding and kicking him. Si and Shorty came up, pushed off the boys and pulled the man to his feet. He was terrified at the onset which had been made upon him, and could not understand its reason.
"What've I done?" he gasped. "What're all yo'uns weltin' me for? I haint no rebel. I've done tuk the oath of allegiance long ago."
"Now there'll be a hangin' sure," said Harry, in eager expectancy.
"What'd you do to them boys back there?" demanded Si.
"Didn't do nothin' to 'em. Sw'ar to God A'mighty I didn't."
"That telegraph pole will be just the thing to hang him on," suggested Harry to Gid. "We could put him on a flat car and push the car out from under him. I'll look around for a rope, Gid, and you git ready to climb the pole."
"He did do something to 'em, Sargint," said Gid Mackall. "I seen him givin' 'em something."
"'Twas only a little mite o' terbacker," the man explained. "They'uns said they'uns was mouty hongry, and wanted t' know if I'd anything t' eat. I hadn't nothing, but I done had a little terbacker, which I tole 'em'd take away the hongry feelin', and I gin each o' they'uns a lettle chaw."
"I shouldn't wonder but he's tellin' the truth," Shorty whispered to Si. "Le's take him back there and see."
Coming back to the platform they found the boys there recovering but still very weak and pale. They confirmed the story about the tobacco. Shorty examined the rest of the tobacco in the man's possession with the practiced taste of a connoisseur, found it strong black plug, just the thing to upset a green boy who took it on an empty stomach, cut off a liberal chew for himself and dismissed the man with a kick.
"Now, le's form agin and march to breakfast. Great Scott, how hungry I am," said Si. "'Tention. Fall in 'cordin' to size. Single rank."
"What's size got to do with gittin' breakfast?" complained Harry Joslyn, who had another grievance, now that he had again been disappointed in hanging a guerrilla. "Biggest boys'll git there first and get the most to eat. The rest of us need just as much as they do."
"Silence in the ranks," commanded Shorty, snappishly. "Don't fool around. Git into your place and stay there. We want breakfast some time today."
Shorty lined up the boys in a hurry and Si commanded.
"Right dress! Come out a little there on the left! Steady! Without doublin', right face!"
A squad of Provost-Guards came up at a double-quick, deployed, surrounded the squad and began bunching the boys together rather roughly, using the butts of their muskets.
"What does this mean?" Si asked angrily of the Lieutenant in command.
"It means that you and your precious gang have to go down to Provo' Headquarters at once," answered the Lieutenant. "And no words about it. Forward, march, now."
"But you've got no business to interfere with me," protested Si. "I've got my orders to take this squad o' recruits to my regiment, and I'm doin' it. I'm goin' to put 'em on the cars as soon's I kin git breakfast for 'em, and start for Chattanoogy."
"Well, why didn't you get breakfast for them and put them on the cars peaceably and quietly, without letting them riot around and kill citizens and do all manner of devilment. You have a fine account to settle."
"But they haint killed no citizen. They haint bin riotin' around, and I ain't a-goin' with you. You've no right, I tell you, to interfere with me."
"Well, you just will go with me, and no more chinning."
A Major, attracted by the altercation, rode up and asked what was the matter.
"Word came to Headquarters," explained the Lieutenant, "that a squad of recruits were rioting, and had killed a citizen, and I was sent down here on the run to stop it and arrest the men. This Sergeant, who seems to be in command, refuses to go with me."
"I tell you, Major," said Si, who recognized the officer as belonging to his brigade, "there was nobody killed, or even badly hurt. These little roosters got up a school-yard scrap all about a mistake; it was all over in a minute. There's the man they say was killed, settin' over there on that pile o' lumber smokin' his pipe."
"You're Si Klegg, aren't you, of the 200th Ind.?" asked the Major.
"Yes, Major," answered Si, saluting. "And you're Maj. Tomlinson, of the 1st Oshkosh. This is my pardner. Shorty."
"Glad to see you with Sergeant's stripes on," said the Major, shaking hands with him. "I congratulate you on your promotion. You deserved it, I know."
"So did Shorty," added Si, determined that his partner should not lack full measure of recognition.
"Yes, I congratulate Shorty, too. Lieutenant, I know these men, and they are all right. There has been a mistake. You can take your men back to Headquarters."
"'Tention," commanded the Lieutenant. "Get into line! Right dress! Front! Right face! Forward, file left—march!"
"'Tention," commanded Si. "Fall in in single ranks, 'cordin' to size. Be mighty spry about it. Right dress! Count off in whole numbers."
Another Provost squad came double-quicking up, followed by some ambulances. Again the boys were hurriedly bunched up. The Provost squad, however, did not seem to want to come to as close quarters as the other had. They held back noticeably.
"Now, what in thunder does this mean?" asked Si with angry impatience. "What's up now?"
"Sergeant, are you in command of this squad?" asked a brisk little man with the green stripes of a Surgeon, who got out of one of the ambulances.
"Yes, I am," said Si, saluting as stiffly as he dared. "What's the matter?"
"Well, get those men of yours that are down into the ambulances as quickly as you can, and form those that are able to walk close behind. Be on the jump, because the consequences of your staying here may be serious to the army. How are you feeling yourself? Got any fever? Let me see your tongue."
"What in the world's the matter with you?" asked Si in bewilderment.
"Come, don't waste any time asking questions," answered the nervous little Surgeon. "There's more troops coming right along, and we mustn't take any chances of their catching it."
"Ketch what? Great grief, ketch what?" groaned Si. "They've already ketched everything in this mortal world that was ketchable. Now what are they goin' to ketch?"
"Why, the smallpox, you dumby," said the Surgeon irritably. "Don't you know that we are terribly afraid of a visitation of smallpox to the army? They've been having it very bad in some places up North, and we've been watching every squad of recruits from up there like hawks. A man came down to Hospital Headquarters just now and reported that a dozen of your boys had dropped right on the platform. He said that he knew you, and you came from a place in Indiana that's being swept by the smallpox."
"Smallpox, your granny," said Si wrathfully. "There haint bin no smallpox in our neighborhood since the battle o' Tippecanoe. The only man there who ever had it fit in the battle under Gen. Harrison. He had it when he was a child, and was so old that the pockmarks on him wuz wore so smooth you could scarcely see 'em. Our neighborhood's so healthy you can't even have a square case o' measles. Gosh darn it," Si exploded, "what glandered fool was it that couldn't tell 'backer-sick from smallpox? What locoed calves have you runnin' up to your Headquarters bawlin' reports?"
"Sir," said the Surgeon stiffly, "you forget that you are speaking to your superior officer."
"Excuse me. Doctor," said Si, recovering himself and saluting. "I'm very hungry, and worried to death with these frisky kids that I'm trying to git to my regiment. The only trouble is that some of the trundle-bed graduates took their first chaw o' terbacker this mornin' on empty stomachs and it keeled 'em over. Come here and look at 'em yourself. You'll see it in a minute."
"Certainly. I see it very plainly," said the Surgeon, after looking them over. "Very absurd to start such a report, but we are quite nervous on the subject of smallpox getting down to the army.
"Take your men in and give them their breakfast, Sergeant, and they'll be all right.
"That's what I've bin tryin' to do for the last two hours," said Si, as he saluted the Surgeon, departing with his ambulances and men. "'Tention. Confound you, fall in in single rank, 'cordin' to size, and do it in short meter, before anything else happens. Right dress! Front! Without doublin', right face! Great Scott, what's the matter with you roosters? Don't you know your right hands from your lefts? Turn around there, you moon-eyed goshngs! Forward—file right—march!"
"Here, Sergeant," said a large man with three chevrons on his arm. "I want to halt your men till I look 'em over. Somebody's gone through a sutler's car over there on the other track and I think it was your crowd. I want to find out."
"Halt nothin'," said Si, brushing him out of the way. "I'm goin' to git these youngsters their breakfast before there's a tornado or an earthquake. Go 'way, if you know what's good for you."
THE long fast had sharpened the zest the boys had for their first "soldier-breakfast." Until they got down to "real soldier-living" they could not feel that they were actually in the service. To have this formal initiation in the historic city of Nashville, far in the interior of the Southern Confederacy, was an exhiliarating event. The coarse fare became viands of rare appetency.
"Gracious, how good these beans taste," murmured Harry Joslyn, calling for a second plateful; "never knowed beans to taste so good before. Wonder how they cook 'em? We'll have to learn how, Gid, so's to cook 'em for ourselves, and when we git back home won't we astonish our mothers and sisters?"
"And sich coffee," echoed Gid. "I'll never drink cream in my coffee agin. I hadn't no idee cream spiled coffee so. Why, this coffee's the best stuff I ever drunk. Beats maple sap, or cider through a straw, all holler. That's good enough for boys. This 's what men and soldiers drink."
"You know those old gods and goddesses," put in Montmorency Scruggs, a pale, studious boy, for shortness called "Monty," and who had a great likeness for ancient history and expected to be a lawyer, "drunk what they called nectar. Maybe it was something like this."
"But we haven't had any hardtack yet," complained Albert Russell, a youth somewhat finicky as to dress, and who had ambitions of becoming a doctor. "They've only given us baker's bread, same as we got on the other side of the river, only better-tasting. Why don't they give us real soldier bread? I've heard Uncle Bob laugh at the 'soft-bread snoozers,' who never got near enough the front to know the taste of hardtack."
"Well, I'm going to eat all I can of it while I can get it," said little Pete Skidmore, the youngest and smallest of the lot, who had only passed the Mustering Officer by exhibiting such a vehement desire to enter the service as to make up for his probable lack of years and quite evident lack of inches. "I've heard Uncle Will say that he was always mighty glad to get back where he could get soft bread for a change, after he'd worn his grinders down to the quick chawing hardtack. It tastes awful good, anyway."
"The Government must pay big wages to the men it hires to do its cooking," philosophized Harry Joslyn, "same as it does to its lawyers and Congressmen and Generals. No common men could cook grub that way. Mebbe it took the cooks away from the Astor House and Delmonico's."
"The boys are certainly making up for lost time," complacently remarked Shorty, as, having taken off the edge of his own hunger with a plateful of pork-and-beans and a half loaf of bread, he stopped for a moment to survey the havoc that his young charges, ranged at a long, rough counter, were making in the Commissary stores. "They're eatin' as if this was the last square meal they expected to git till the rebellion's put down."
"Yes," laughed Si, emptying his second cup of coffee, "I used to think that we had appetites that'd browse a five-acre lot off clean every meal, but these kids kin distance us. If they live off the country its bones 'll be picked mighty white when they pass. That lean, lank Gid Mackall seems to be as holler as a sassidge-skin. Even that wouldn't give room for all that he's stowin' away."
"Harry Joslyn 's runnin' nose-and-nose with him. There ain't the width o' their forelocks difference. Harry's yelled for more beans at the same second that Gid has. In fact, not one of 'em has lagged. They're a great gang, I tell you, but I wouldn't want to board any one of 'em for six bits a week."
Maj. Oglesvie came up.
"Serg't Klegg," said he, "the Quartermaster says that he's got a train load of ammunition to send forward, but he's scarce of guards. I thought of your squad. Don't you think you could take charge of it? I don't imagine there is much need of a guard, for things have been pretty quiet down the road for some weeks. Still, it isn't right to send off so important a train without any protection."
"Only be too glad of the dooty, sir," answered Si, saluting. "It'll give the boys something to think of besides hanging guerrillas. Besides, they're just crazy to git hold o' guns. Where kin I git muskets for 'em?"
"March them right over to that shed there," said the Major, "and the Quartermaster will issue them muskets and equipments, which you can turn over again when you reach Chattanooga. Good-by. I hope you'll have a pleasant trip. Remember me to the boys of the old brigade and tell them I'll be with them before they start out for Atlanta."
"Purty slouchy bizniss that, givin' these kids guns before they've had any drill at all—don't know even the facin's, let alone the manual of arms," remarked Shorty doubtfully, as they marched over to the shed. "They'll be shooting holes through each others' heads and the tops o' the cars, and'll waste more ammynition than a six-mule team kin haul. They'll make a regler Fourth o' July from here to Chattynoogy."
"Don't be worried about them boys," Si reassured him. "Every one of 'em is used to handlin' guns. Then, we kin keep the catridges ourselves and not issue any till they're needed, which they mayn't be."
The boys were in a buzz of delight at getting the guns they had so longed for, and Si's first duty was to end an exuberant bayonet fencing match between Gid and Harry which was imitated all along the line.
"Stop that," he called. "Put your minds to learnin' to load and shoot first. It'll be some time before you git a chance to prod a rebel with a bayonet. Rebels are as wild as crows. You'll be lucky to git as close to 'em as the other side of a 40-acre field."
"But s'posin' a rebel runs at you with his bayonet," expostulated Harry Joslyn, "oughtn't you to know how to ward him off and settle him?"
"The best way's to settle him jest as he comes over the hill, half-a-mile away, with an ounce o' cold lead put where he lives. That'll take the pint offen his bayonet mighty certainly."
Si and Shorty showed the boys how to put on the belts carrying the cap- and cartridge-boxes, and gave them a little dumb-show instruction in loading and firing, ending with exhibiting to them a cartridge, and the method of tearing it with the teeth and putting it in the gun.
"Now give us some catridges," clamored the boys, "and let us do some real shooting."
"No," said Si; "we'll keep the catridges ourselves, and issue them to you when the enemy comes in sight."
"Nice time to give out catridges then," grumbled Harry Joslyn. "When we see the rebels we want to begin shootin' instid o' botherin' you with questions. You wouldn't kill many coons if you had to run back to the house for your powder and lead after you saw the coon before you could shoot him."
"Well, you can't have no catridges now," said Si decisively. "We're not likely to see any coons before we git to Murfreesboro. Then we'll see how things look further down the road. Take off your bayonets, all o' you, and pile into them rear cars there. Stow yourselves around and be as comfortable as you kin."
The boys preferred the tops of the cars to the inside, and scattered themselves along the length of the train to view the war-worn country of which they had heard so much from their relatives who had campaigned there. Si settled himself down in the car to read the morning papers which he had gotten in Nashville, and Shorty, producing a pack of new cards, began a studious practice, with reference to future operations in Chattanooga.
The train was slowing down for the bridge near Lavergne, when there came a single shot, followed by a splutter of them and loud yells.
Exceedingly startled, Si and Shorty sprang up, seized their guns, bounded to the door and looked out. They could see nothing to justify the alarm. There was not a rebel, mounted or unmounted, in sight. In the road below were two or three army teams dragging their slow way along, with their drivers yelling and laughing at a negro, whose mule was careering wildly across the fenceless field. The negro had been apparently jogging along, with a collection of plunder he had picked up in an abandoned camp strung upon his mule, when the latter had become alarmed at the firing and scattered his burden in every direction. The rider was succeeding in holding on by clinging desperately to the mule's neck.
Si set his gun down and clambered up the side of the car.
"What's all that shootin' about?" he demanded of Harry Joslyn.
"I didn't mean it, sir," Harry explained. "I was just aiming my gun at things I see along the road—just trying the sights like. A turkey-buzzard lighted on a stump out there, and I guess I must have forgot myself and cocked my gun, for it went off. Then Gid, seeing me miss, tried to show he was a better shot, and he banged away and missed, too, and then the other boys, they had to try their hands, and they belted away, one after another, and they all missed. I guess we didn't count as we ougther've done on the goin' forward o' the train, because we all struck much nearer than we expected to that nigger on a mule, and scared his mule nigh out o' his skin. We really didn't intend no harm."
"Where did you git catridges?" demanded Si.
"Why, that box that Alf Russell got was half full. He tried to keep 'em all hisself, and intended to shoot 'em off, one by one, to make the rest of us envious. Alf always was a pig in school, and never would divide his apples or doughnuts with the other boys. But we see them almost as quick as he did, an' Gid and me set down on him suddently, as he was lying on the roof, and took away all his catridges, and give 'em around to the rest o' the boys, one a-piece."
"Are they all gone now?"
"Yes, sir; every one shot away," answered Harry regretfully.
Si looked through several of the boxes and at some of the guns to assure himself of this. He gave those near him a lecture on their offense, and then climbed down into the car and resumed his paper, while Shorty was soon immersed again in the abstruse study of the relation of the cross-barred designs on the back of the cards to the numbers and suits of their faces.
They had passed Lavergne, and were approaching Stewart's Creek, when another startling rattle of musketry broke out, this time from the forepart of the train.
"Now, great Scott, what's up?" said Si angrily, as he quickly surveyed the surrounding country. He saw that they were not attacked, and then clambered to the top of the car, where he noticed little wreaths of powder-smoke lingering around the squad in which were Jim Humphreys, little Pete Skidmore and Wes. Brown.
"What're you young whelps shootin' for?" demanded Si. They were all so abashed at his sternness that they could not find their tongues for reply, until little Pete piped up:
"Why we've bin talkin' to the train men, and they said they wuz shot at wunst, about a year ago, from that swamp back there, and we got some catridges from them, and we thought we saw something moving in there, though Jim Humphreys said it wuz only burned stumps that we took for men, and them other boys back there had bin shootin' off their gunn and tryin' 'em, and we thought we could too—"
"You little brats," said Si; "didn't you hear my orders about firin' before we started? If another boy shoots without my orders I'll tie him up by the thumbs! Got any more catridges? Give me every one of 'em."
The boys all protested that every cartridge was gone. Si assured himself of this by examination, savagely scored the train men for giving them ammunition and threatened trouble if any more was, and having relieved his mind returned to his paper in the caboose-car.
The train ran on to a switch where there was another carrying a regiment going home on veteran furlough. Si and Shorty knew some of the men, and in the pleasure of meeting them and in hearing all the news from the front forgot that their boys were mingling with the others and being filled full of the preposterous stories with which veterans delight to stuff new recruits. Finally the whistles gave notice that the trains would move. Si got his boys back on the cars, and renewing his caution about taking care of themselves, holding on tightly and looking out for overhanging branches, returned with Shorty to their car and their occupations.
"We're comin' to Stewart's Crick, Shorty," said Si, looking up from his paper. "Recollect that hill ovyr there? That's where they had that battery that the Colonel thought we wuz goin' to git. Great Scott, the mud and briars in that old field!" "Yes," said Shorty, negligently, with his eyes fixed on the backs of the cards. "But that's ancient history. Say, I've got these marks down fine at last. They're just as plain as A, B, C. You see, when that corner o' the square comes out clear to the edge it's clubs, every time, and there's just as many spots as there is of lines—"
He was interrupted by a volley, apparently from every gun on the roofs of the cars. Then a chorus of shrill, treble, boyish yells, and next instant another volley. The two sprang to the door and looked out. Not a sign of a rebel anywhere. Si went up one side of the car, Shorty the other. They ran along the tops of the cars, storming at the boys, kicking them and bumping their heads against the boards to make them stop. When they succeeded Si sternly ordered every one of them to leave the roofs and come down into the cars. When he had gathered them there he demanded:
"Now, I want to know at once what this means?" Little Pete Skidmore again became the spokesman of the abashed crowd.
"Why, them men back there on the switch cautioned us above all things not to let the rebels git the drop on us when we come to that crick; that we wouldn't see nothin' of 'em—nothin' but a low bank, behind which they wuz hid, with their guns pokin' through the brush, but the moment we see the bank breastwork throwed up along the crick we must let into it. That's what it's for. The rebels throwed it up to hide behind. Them men said that the brush back there was as full o' rebels as a hound o' fleas, and that we must let into 'em the moment we see the bank, or they'd git the drop on us. They had an awful time there theirselves, and they gave us all the catridges they had left for us to use."
"You little numbskulls," said Si; "why didn't you come to use and tell us about this?"
"They told us to be partickeler and say nothin' to you. Your stayin' back there in the car showed that you didn't know nothin' about it; you hadn't bin down this way for a long time and wasn't up to the latest improvements, and you wuz jest as like as not to run us into a hornets' nest; that you wuzzent our real officers, anyway, and it didn't much matter to you what happened to us."
"Our own sins are comin' back on us. Shorty," remarked Si. "This is a judgment on you for the way you've filled up recruits at every chance you got."
"'Taint on me," said Shorty, shrugging his shoulders. "I'm not in command. You are."
"I shall be mighty glad when we git this outfit to Chattanoogy," sighed Si. "I'm gittin' older every minute that I have 'em on my hands."
THE train passed Shelbyville in the course of the afternoon and halted on a switch. Tired of reading, Si was standing at the door of the car, looking out over the country and trying to identify places they had passed or camped at during the campaign of the previous Summer. Suddenly his far-seeing eyes became fixed on the intervals in the trees on the farthest hill-top. Without turning his head he called Shorty in a tone which made that worthy lose all interest in his inevitable pack of cards and spring to his side. Without speaking, Si pointed to the sky-line of the eminence, against which moving figures sketched themselves.
"Guerrillas," said Shorty.
Si nodded affirmatively.
"Skeetin' acrost the country to jump this train or some other," continued Shorty.
"This one, most likely," answered Si.
"Yes," accorded Shorty, with an estimating glance at the direction of the range of hills, "and'll aim at strikin' us at some bridge or deep cut about 10 miles from here."
"Where we'll probably git sometime after dark," assented Si.
"Yes. Let's talk to the conductor and engineer."
The train had started in the meanwhile, but presently the conductor came back into the caboose. He had been a soldier, but so severely wounded as to necessitate his discharge as incapable of further field service.
"I hardly think there's any danger," said Conductor Madden. "Things 've been very quiet this side of the Tennessee River ever since last October, when Crook, Wilder and Minty belted the life out of old Joe Wheeler down there at Farmington and Rodgersville. Our cavalry gave theirs an awful mauling, and them that were lucky enough to escape acrost the river have seemed purty well satisfied to stay on that side. A hell's mint of 'em were drowned trying to get acrost the river. Our cavalry's been patrolling the country ever since, but hasn't seen anything of consequence. Still, it is possible that some gang has managed to sneak acrost a blind-ford somewhere, and in hopes to catch a train. Guerrillas are always where you find 'em."
"Well, I'll bet a hatful o' red apples," said Si, "that them was guerrillas that we saw, and they're makin' for this train. The rebels in Nashville somehow got information to 'em about it."
"Them's guerrillas," affirmed Shorty, "sure's the right bower takes the left. None o' our cavalry's stringin' around over the hill-tops. Then, I made out some white horses, which our cavalry don't have. It's just as Si says, them Nashville spies 's put the rebel cavalry onto us."
"Them cowardly, sneaking, death-deserving rebels in Nashville," broke out Conductor Madden, with a torrent of oaths. "Every man in Nashville that wears citizen's clothes ought to be hung on sight, and half the women. They don't do nothing but lay around and take the oath of allegiance, watch every move we make like a cat does a mouse, and send information through the lines. You can't draw a ration of hardtack but they know it, and they're looking down your throat while you're eating it. They haint got the gravel in their craws to go out and fight themselves, and yet they've cost us a hundred times as many lives as if they had. Why does the General allow them to stay there? He ought to order rocks tied to the necks of every blasted one of 'em and fling 'em into the Cumberland River and then pour turpentine on the infernal old town and touch a match to it. That's what I'd do if I had my way. There's more, brimstone trouble to the acre in Nashville than in any town on the footstool, not barring even Richmond."
"Nashville certainly is tough," sighed Shorty. "'Specially in gamblers. Worst tin-horn crowd that ever fumbled a deck or skinned a greeny out o' the last cent o' his bounty. Say, Si, do you remember that tin-horny that I cleaned out o' his whole pile down there at Murfreesboro, with them cards that I'd clipped with a pair o' scissors, so's I'd know 'em by the feel, and he never ketched on till his last shinplaster was gone, and then I throwed the pack in the fire? Well, I seen him down there at the depot smellin' around for suckers. I told him to let our boys alone or I'd snap his neck off short. Great Jehosephat, but I wanted a chance to git up town and give some o' them cold-deckers a whirl."
"Well," said Conductor Madden, after some deliberation, "I believe what you boys say. You're not the kind to get rattled and make rebels out of cedar-bushes. All the same, there's nothing to do but go ahead. My orders were to take this train through to Chattanooga as quick as I could. I can't stop on a suspicion."
"No, indeed," assented Si and Shorty.
"There's no place to telegraph from till we get to Bridgeport, on the Tennessee, and if we could telegraph they wouldn't pay any attention to mere reports of having seen rebels at a distance. They want something more substantial than that."
"Of course they do, and very properly," said Si. "Is your engineer all right?"
"Game as they make 'em, and loyal as Abraham Lincoln himself," responded the conductor.
"Well, I believe our boys 's all right. They're green, and they're friskier than colts in a clover field, but they're all good stuff, and I believe we kin stand off any ordinary gang o' guerrillas. I'll chance it, anyhow. This's a mighty valuable train to risk, but it ought to go through, for we don't know how badly they may need it. You tell your engineer to go ahead carefully and give two long whistles if he sees anything dangerous."
"I'll go and git onto the engine with him," said Shorty.
"Wait a little," said Si. "We'll get the boys together, issue 'em catridges and give 'em a little preparation for a light, if we're to have one."
The sun had gone down and the night was at hand. The train had stopped to take on a supply of wood from a pile by the roadside. Some of the boys were helping pitch the heavy sticks onto the engine, the rest ware skylarking along the tops of the cars in the irrepressible exuberance of animal spirits of boys who had had plenty to eat and were without a care in the world. Harry Joslyn had been giving exhibitions of standing on his head on the runningboard. Gid Mackall had converted a piece of rope he had picked up into a lasso, and was trying to imitate the feats he had seen performed at the last circus. Monty Scruggs, the incipient lawyer, who was proud of his elocutionary talents, had vociferated at the woods they were passing, "Rienzi's Address to the Romans," "The Last Sigh of the Moor," "Absalom," "The Battle of Waterloo," and similar staples of Friday afternoon recitations. Alf Russell, the embryonic doctor, who sang a fine tenor, was rendering "Lily Dale" with much impressment, and little Pete Skidmore was "skipping" the flat hill-stones over an adjacent pond.
"'Tention!" shouted Si.
There was something so different in the tone from that in which Si had before spoken, that it arrested the attention of every one of them instantly.
"Git your guns and fall in two ranks on that sod, there, at once," commanded Si, in quick, curt accents.
An impalpable something in the tones and words stilled everybody into seriousness. This was deepened by the look they saw on Si's face.
They snatched up their guns and hurried into line on the spot indicated, looking into each other's countenances and into that of Si's for an explanation of what was up.
"Mackall and Joslyn," called Shorty from the car, "come here and take this box of catridges."
"Now," said Si, as they did this, "Joslyn, you and Mackall issue those to the boys. One of you walk down in front and the other behind and give each man two packages of catridges. You boys open the packages and put the catridges in your catridgeboxes, bullet-end up, and the caps in your capboxes."
The boys followed his directions with nervous eagerness, inspired by his words and manner, and then fixed their anxious gaze upon him for further impartment.
Si walked down in front, in the rear of the line, superintending the operation.
"Now, boys," said Si, taking his place in front and facing them, "you've bin talkin' about guerrillas ever since we crossed the Ohio, but now there's a prospect o' meetin' some. I hadn't expected to see any till after we'd reached Chattanoogy, but guerrillas's never where you expect 'em."
"Knowin' you was so anxious to see 'em, they've come up the road to meet you," interjected Shorty.
"It looks," continued Si, "as if they'd got news of the train and slipped out here to take it away from us. They may attack it at any minute after we start agin. Now, we mustn't let 'em git it. It's too valuable to the Government to lose and too valuable to them to git. We mustn't let 'em have it, I tell you. Now, I want you to load your guns carefully, handle 'em very carefully after they are loaded, git back in the cars, stop skylarkin', keep very quiet, listen for orders, and when you git 'em, obey 'em to the letter—no more, no less."
"Can't we go back on top o' the cars, where we kin watch for 'em, and git the first pop at 'em?" said Harry Joslyn, in a pleading tone.
"No; that's too dangerous, and you'll lose time in gittin' together," answered Si. "You must all come into the cars with me."
"Sergeant," said Shorty, "let me have a couple to go on the engine with me."
"Le' me go. Le' me go," they all seemed to shout at once, holding up their hands in eager school-boy fashion.
"I can't take but two o' you," said Shorty; "more'd be in the way."
They all pressed forward. "Count out. That's the only fair way," shouted the boys in the center.
"That's so," said Harry Joslyn. "Stand still till I count. Imry, Ory, Ickery, Ann, Quevy, Quavy, Irish Navy, Filleson, Folleson, Nicholas—Buck! That's me. I'm it!"
He rapidly repeated the magic formula, and pronounced Gid Mackall "it."
"He didn't count fair! He didn't count fair! He never counts fair," protested the others; but Si hustled them into the cars and the train started.
It had grown quite dark. The boys sat silent and anxiously expectant on their seats, clutching their loaded guns, held stiffly upright, and watching Si's face as well as they could by the dim light of the single oil lamp. Si leaned against the side of the door and watched intently.
Only little Pete Skidmore was unrepressed by the gravity of the situation. Rather, it seemed to spur his feet, his hands and his mouth to nimbler activity. He was everywhere—at one moment by Si's side in the door of the car, at the next climbing up to peer out of the window; and then clambering to the top of the car, seeing legions of guerrillas in the bushes, until sternly ordered back by Si. Then he would drop the butt of his musket on the floor with a crash which would start every one of the taut nerves to throbbing. And the questions that he asked:
"Say, Sergeant, will the guerrillas holler before they shoot, or shoot before they holler?"
"Sometimes one and sometimes the other," responded Si, absently. "Keep quiet, Pete."
Quiet for a minute, and then:
"Shall we holler before we shoot or shoot before we holler?"
"Neither. Keep perfectly quiet, and 'tend strictly to your little business."
"I think we ought to holler some. Makes it livelier. What sort o' guns has the guerrillas?"
"Every kind—shot-guns, pistols, rifles, flint-locks, cap-locks—every kind. Now, you mustn't ask me any more questions. Don't bother me."
"Yes, sir; I won't."
Quiet for at least five seconds. Then:
"Have the guerrillas guns that'll shoot through the sides of the cars?"
"Probably."
"Then I'd ruther be on top, where I kin see something. Kin they shoot through the sides o' the tender, and let all the water out and stop the engine?"
"Guess not."
"Haven't they any real big guns that will?"
"Mebbe."
"Kin we plug up the holes, anyway, then, and start agin?"
"Probably."
"Hain't the engineer got an iron shield that he kin git behind, so they can't shoot him?"
"Can't he turn the steam onto 'em, and scald 'em if they try to git at him?"
"What'll happen if they shoot the head-light out?"
"Why wouldn't it be a good idee to put a lot o' us on the cow-ketcher, with fixed bayonets, and then let the engineer crack on a full head o' steam and run us right into 'em?"
"Great Scott, Pete, you must stop askin' questions," said Si desperately. "Don't you see Pm busy?"
Pete was silent for another minute. Then he could hold in no longer:
"Sergeant, jest one question more, and then I'll keep quiet."
"Well, what is it?"
"If the rebels shoot the bell, won't it make a noise that they kin hear clear back at Nashville?"
The engine suddenly stopped, and gave two long whistles. Above the screech they heard shots from Shorty and the two boys with him.
"Here they are, boys," said Si, springing out and running up the bank. "All out, boys. Come up here and form."
As he reached the top of the bank a yell and a volley came from the other side of the creek. Shorty joined him at once, bringing the two boys on the engine with him.
"We've bin runnin' through this deep cut," he explained, "and jest come out onto the approach to the bridge, when we see a little fire away ahead, and the head-light showed some men runnin' down on to the bank on the other side o' the crick. We see in a moment what was up. They've jest got to the road and started a fire on the bridge that's about a mile ahead. Their game was to burn that bridge, and when this train stopped, burn this one behind us, ketch us, whip us, and take the train. We shot at the men we see on the bank, but probably didn't do 'em no harm. They're all pilin' down now to the other bank to whip us out and git the train. You'd better deploy the boys along the top o' the bank here and open on 'em. We can't save that bridge, but we kin this and the train, by keepin' 'em on the other side o' the crick. I'll take charge o' the p'int here with two or three boys, and drive off any o' them that tries to set fire to the bridge, and you kin look out for the rest o' the line. It's goin' to be longtaw work, for you see the crick's purty wide, but our guns 'll carry further'n theirs, and if we keep the boys well in hand I think we kin stand 'em off without much trouble."
"Sure," said Si confidently. "You watch the other side o' the bridge and I'll look out for the rest."
The eager boys had already begun firing, entering into the spirit of the thing with the zest of a Fame of town-ball. Shorty took Gid Mackall and Harry Joslyn down to the cover of some large stones, behind which they could lie and command the approach to the other end of the bridge with their rifles. Si took the other boys and placed them behind rocks and stumps along the crest and instructed them to fire with as good aim as possible at the flashes from the other side. In a minute or two he had a fine skirmish-line in operation, with the boys firing as deliberately and accurately as veterans. The engineer had backed the train under the cover of the cut, and presently he and the conductor came up with guns and joined the firing-line.
"I say, Shorty," said Si, coming down to where that worthy was stationed, "what d' you think o' the boys now? They take to this like a duck to water. They think it's more fun than squirrel-huntin'. Listen."
They heard Monty Scruggs's baritone call:
"Say, Alf, did you see me salt that feller that's bin yellin' and cussin' at me over there? He's cussin' now for something else. I think I got him right where he lived."
"I wasn't paying any attention to you," Alf's fine tenor replied, as his rammer rang in his barrel. "I've got business o' my own to 'tend to. There's a feller over there that's firing buckshot at me that I've got to settle, and here goes."
"The 200th Injianny Volunteers couldn't put up a purtier skirmish than this," murmured Si, in accents of pride, as he raised his gun and fired at a series of flashes on the farther bank.
"I say, tell that engineer to uncouple his engine and bring it back up here where the head-light'll cover the other side," said Shorty. "It'll make the other side as light as day and we kin see every move, while we'll be in the dark."
"Good idee," said Si, hastening to find the engineer.
He was none too soon. As the engine rolled up, flooding its advance with light, it brought a storm of bullets from the other side, but revealed three men creeping toward the other end of the bridge. Two were carrying pine knots, and the third, walking behind, had a stick of blazing pine, which he was trying to shield from observation with his hat.
"Take the front man, Harry. Take the second one, Gid. I'll take the man with the light," commanded Shorty.
The three rifles cracked in quick succession and the three men dropped.
"Bully, boys," ejaculated Shorty, as he reloaded. "You'll do. The 200th Injianny's proud o' you."
"I hit my man in the leg," said Harry, flushing with delight, as he bit off another cartridge. "Jerusalem, I wish they'd send another one down."
"I drawed on my man's bundle o' wood," said Gid, "and then dropped a little, so's to git him where he was biggest and make sure o' him."
"Well, my man's beauty's spiled forever," said Shorty. "The light flared up on his face and I let him have it there."
"But Linden saw another light.
When beat the drums at dead of night,
Commanding fires of death to hight
The darkness of her scenery,"
recited Monty Scruggs. "Gracious, I'm hit!"
"Where?" asked Si, running up to him.
"Through my leg," answered Monty.
"Kin you walk?"
"I guess so."
"Well, make your way back to the cars and git in and lay down."
"Not much," answered Monty determinedly. "It don't hurt much, and I'm going to stay and see this thing out. I can tie it up with my handkerchief."
"Scatter again, boys," Si warned several, who had rushed up; "don't make too big a mark for the fellers on the other side. Go back and 'tend to your bizniss. I'll help him tie up his wound. I'm afeared, though, that some o' the boys are runnin' out o' catridges, they have bin shootin' so rapidly. I want a couple o' you to run back to the cars and git another box."
"Let me and Sandy go," pleaded little Pete Skidmore. "The big boys went before."
"All right; skip out. Break the lid o' the box off before you take it out o' the car. We haven't anything here to do it with. Leave your guns here."
"No, we'll take 'em along," pleaded Pete, with a boyish love for his rifle. "We mightn't be able to find 'em agin."
The firing from the opposite bank became fitful, died down, and then ceased altogether. Then a couple of shots rang out from far in the rear in the direction of the train. This seemed to rouse the rebels to another volley, and then all became quiet. The shots in the rear disturbed Si, who started back to see what they meant, but met Pete Skidmore and Sandy Baker coming panting up, carrying a box of cartridges between them.
"We got back as quick as we could," Pete explained as he got his breath. "Just as we was coming to the train we see a rebel who was carrying a fat-pine torch, and making for the train to set it on fire. We shot him. Was that all right?"
"Perfectly," said Si. "Was there any more with him?"
"No. We looked around for others, but couldn't find none. That's what kept up so long."
"The Johnnies have given it up and gone," said Shorty, coming up. "I went over to a place where I could see 'em skippin' out by the light o' the burnin' o' the other bridge. We might as well put out guards here and go into camp till mornin'."
"All right," assented Si. "We've saved the train and bridge, and that's all we kin do."
THOUGH Si and Shorty were certain that the trouble was over and the rebels all gone, it was impossible to convince the boys of this. The sudden appearance of the guerrillas had been so mysterious that they could not rid themselves of the idea that the dark depths beyond the creek were yet filled with vicious foemen animated by dire intents.
Si and Shorty gathered the boys together on the bank above the railroad cut, had fires built, posted a few guards, and ordered the rest of the boys to lie down and go to sleep. They set the example by unrolling their own blankets at the foot of a little jack-oat, whose thickly-growing branches, still bearing a full burden of rusty-brown leaves, made an excellent substitute for a tent.
"Crawl in. Si, and git some sleep," said Shorty, filling his pipe. "I'll take a smoke and set up for an hour or two. If it looks worth while then, I'll wake you up and let you take a trick o' keepin' awake. But if everything looks all right I'll jest crawl in beside you and start a snorin'-match."
But neither orders nor example could calm down the nerves of boys who had just had their first experience under fire. There was as little rest for them as for a nest of hornets which had been rudely shaken. They lay down at Si's order, but the next minute they were buzzing together in groups about the fires, or out with their guns to vantage points on the bank, looking for more enemies. Their excited imaginations made the opposite bank of the creek alive with men, moving in masses, squads and singly, with the sounds of footsteps, harsh commands, and of portentous movements.
Two or three times Shorty repressed them and sharply ordered them to lie down and go to sleep. Then he decided to let them wear themselves out, braced his back against a sapling near the fire, pulled out from his pocket the piece of Maria's dress, and became lost in a swarm of thoughts that traveled north of the Ohio River.
He was recalled by Harry Joslyn and Gid Mackall appearing before him.
"Say, Corpril," inquired Harry, "what's to be done with them rebels over there at the end o' the bridge?"
"Them that we shot?" said Shorty carelessly, feeling around for his tobacco to refill his pipe. "Nothin'. I guess we've done enough for 'em already."
"Don't we do nothin' more?" repeated Harry.
"No," answered Shorty, as he rubbed the whittlings from his plug to powder in the hollow of his hand.
"Just plug at 'em as you would at a crow, and then go on your way whistlin'?" persisted Harry.
"Certainly," answered Shorty, filling his pipe and looking around for a sliver with which to light it. "What're you thinkin' about?"
"I don't hardly know," hesitated Harry. "It seems awful strange just to blaze away at men and then pay no more attention to 'em. They mayn't be knocked out at all—only 'possumin'."
"No 'possumin' about them fellers," said Shorty sententiously, as he lighted his pipe. "Feller that gits an ounce o' lead from a Springfield rifle anywhere in his carkiss don't play off nor purtend. He's got something real to occupy his attention, if he's got any attention left to occupy. You needn't bother any more about them fellers over there. Their names's mud. They're now only part o' the real estate on the other side o' the crick. They're suddently become no good for poll-tax; only to be assessed by the acre."
"So you're sure they can't do more harm to the bridge?"
"No more'n the dead leaves on the banks."
"But I thought," persisted Harry, "that when a man's killed something had to be done—coroner's inquest, corpse got ready, funeral, preacher, neighbors gather in, and so on."
"Well, you needn't bother about any obsequies to them fellers over there," said Shorty, sententiously, as he pulled away at his pipe. "You done your whole share when you done the heavy work o' providin' the corpses. Let anybody that wants to put on any frills about plantin' 'em. If we have time tomorrow mornin' and nothin' better to do, we may go over there and dig holes and put 'em in. But most likely we'll be needed to rebuild that bridge they burnt. I'd rather do that, so's we kin hurry on to Chattynoogy. Buzzards'll probably be their undertakers. They've got a contract from the Southern Confedrisy for all that work. You lay down and go to sleep. That's the first dooty of a soldier. You don't know what may be wanted o' you tomorrow, and you should git yourselves in shape for anything—fightin', marchin' or workin'."
"And sha'n't we do nothin' neither to that man that we shot when he was tryin' to set fire to the train?" asked little Pete Skidmore, who with Sandy Baker had come up and listened to Shorty's lecture. "He's still layin' out there where he dropped, awful still. Me and Sandy took a piece o' fat pine and went down and looked at him. We didn't go very close. We didn't like to. He seemed so awful quiet and still."
"No; you let him alone," snapped Shorty impatiently. "He'll keep. Lay down and git some sleep, I tell you. What need you bother about a dead rebel? He ain't makin' no trouble. It's the livin' ones that need lookin' out for."
The boys' looks showed that they were face to face with one of the incomprehensibilities of war. But they lay down and tried to go to sleep, and Shorty's thoughts returned to Indiana.
A shot rang out from the post on which he had stationed Jim Humphreys. He was on his feet in an instant, with his gun in hand, and in the next Si was beside him.
"What's up?" inquired Si, rubbing his eyes.
"Nothin', I believe," answered Shorty. "But hold the boys and I'll go out and see."
He strode forward to Jim's side and demanded what he had shot at.
"I saw some men tryin' to cross the crick there," replied Jim, pointing with his rammer in the direction of the opposite bank.
"There, you kin see 'em for yourself."
"I don't see no men," said Shorty, after a moment's scrutiny.
"There they are. Don't you see that white there?" said Jim, capping his musket for another shot.
"That white," said Shorty contemptously, "is some water-birches. They was there when you came on guard, for I noticed 'em, and they hain't moved since. You seen 'em then, lookin' just as they do now. You're a fool to think you kin see anything white in a rebel. 'Taint their color."
"I don't care," half whimpered Jim. "Gid Mackall, and Harry Joslyn, and Alf Russell, and Pete Skidmore, and even Sandy Baker, have all shot rebels, and I hain't hit none. I don't have half-a-show."
"Be patient," Shorty consoled him. "Your three years's only begun. You'll have lots o' chances yit. But if I ketch you shootin' at any more white birches I'll tie you up by the thumbs."
Shorty returned to the fire. Si bade the boys he down again, and took his own blanket. Shorty relighted his pipe, took out his never-failing deck of cards and began running them over.
Jim Humphreys's shot had given new restlessness to the boys. They did not at all believe in Shorty's diagnosis of the situation. There must be more men lurking over there whence all that murderous shooting had come only a little while ago. Jim Humphreys was more than probably right. One after another of them quietly slipped away from the fire with his gun and made his way down to Jim Humphreys's post, which commanded what seemed to be a crossing of the creek. They stood there and scanned the opposite bank of darkness with tense expectancy. They had their ears tuned up to respond to even the rustle of the brown, dry leaves on the trees and the murmur of the creek over the stones. They even saw the white birches move around from place to place and approach the water, but Shorty's dire threat prevented their firing until they got something more substantial.
"There's rebels over there, sure as you're born,"' murmured Jim to them, without turning his head to relax his fixed gaze nor taking his finger from the trigger of his cocked gun. "Wish they'd fire a gun first to convince that old terror of a Corpril, who thinks he kin tell where rebels is just by the smell. I'd—"
"Sh! Jim, I hear a hoss's hoofs," said Harry Joslyn.
"Sh! so do I," echoed Gid Mackall.
They all listened with painful eagerness.
"Hoss's hoofs and breakin' limbs, sure's you're a foot high," whispered Harry. "And they're comin' down the hill this way."
"That's right. They're a'most to the crick now," assented Gid. "I'm going to shoot."
"No; I've got the right to a first shot," said Jim. "You fellers hold off."
Bang went Jim's gun, followed almost instantly by the others.
"Hi, dere, boys; I's done found you at las'! Whoopee!" called out a cheery voice from across the creek, and a man rode boldly down to the water's edge, where the boys were nervously reloading.
"Now, Jim Humphreys, what in blazes are you bangin' away at now?" angrily demanded Si, striding up. "At a cotton-tailed rabbit or a sycamore stump?"
"The woods is full o' rebel cavalry comin' acrost the crick," gasped Jim, as he rammed down his cartridge. "There, you kin see 'em for yourself."
"What foh you come dis-a-way, boys?" continued the voice of the man on horseback. "I done los' you! I fought we done agreed to go ober by Simpson's hill, an' I jine you dar. I went dat-a-way, an' den I hear you shootin' ober dis-a-way, an' seed yoh fiah, and I cut acrost to git to you. Whah'd you git so many guns, an' sich big ones? Sound like sojer guns. I done beared dem way ober dah, an' I—"
"Hold on, boys," sternly shouted Shorty, springing in front of them and throwing up their guns. "Don't one o' you dare shoot! Hold up, I say! Hello, you there! Who are you?"
"Who's me?" said the negro, astonished by the strange voice. "I's Majah Wilkinson's Sam, Massa Patrol. I's got a pass all right. De old Majah done tole me I could go out coon-huntin' wid Kunnel Oberly's boys tonight, but I done missed dem."
"Come ashore here, boy," commanded Shorty, "and be thankful that you're alive. You've had a mighty narrow squeak of it. Next time you go out coon huntin' be sure there's no Yankee and rebel soldiers huntin' one another in the neighborhood. Coons have a tough time then."
"Yankee sojers!" gasped the negro, as he was led back to the fire, and saw the blue uniforms. "Lawdy, massy, don't kill me. I pray, sah, don't. I hain't done nuffin. Sho' I hain't. Massa said you'd burn me alibe if you eber cotched me, but you won't, will you?"
"We ain't goin' to hurt you," said Shorty. "Sit down there by the fire and git the goose-flesh offen you." Then turning to the boys he remarked sarcastically:
"Fine lot o' marksmen you are, for a fact. Halfa dozen o' you bangin' away at a hundred yards, and not comin' close enough to a nigger to let him know you was shootin' at him. Now will you lay down and go to sleep? Here, Si, you take charge o' this gang and let me go to sleep. I've had enough o' them for one night."
During the night a train came up, carrying a regiment of entirely new troops. In the morning these scattered over the ground, scanning everything with the greatest interest and drinking in every detail of the thrilling events of the previous night.
"It's just killin'," said Si to Shorty, "to watch the veteran airs our boys are puttin' on over those new fellers. You'd think they'd fit in every battle since Bunker Hill, and learned Gen. Grant all he knows about tactics. Talk about the way the old fellers used to fill us up, why, these boys lay away over everything we ever knowed. I overheard Harry Joslyn laying it into about 40 of them. 'No man knows just what his feelin's will be under fire until he has the actual experience,' says he. 'Now, the first time I heard a rebel bullet whistle,' and his face took on a look as if he was trying to recollect something years ago."
"Yes," laughed Shorty, "and you should hear little Pete Skidmore and Sandy Baker lecturing them greenies as to the need o' lookin' carefully to their rear and beware o' rebels sneakin' 'round and attackin' their trains. Hold on. Look through this brush. There's Monty Scruggs explainin' the plan o' battle to a crowd of 'em. He don't know we're anywhere around. Listen and you'll hear something."
"The enemy had reached the ground in advance of us," Monty was elucidating, in language with which his school histories and the daily papers had familiarized him, "and had strongly posted himself along those hights, occupying a position of great natural strength, including their own natural cussedness. Their numbers was greatly superior to ours, and they had prepared a cunning trap for us, which we only escaped by the vigilance of Corpril Elliott and the generalship of Serg't Klegg. I tell you, those men are a dandy team when it comes to running a battle. They know their little biz, and don't you forget it for a minute. The enemy opened a galling fire, when Corpril Elliott gallantly advanced to that point there and responded, while Serg't Klegg rapidly arrayed his men along there, and the battle became terrific. It was like the poet says:
"'Then shook the hills with thunder riven,
Then rushed the steeds to battle driven,
And louder than the bolts of heaven,
Far flashed the red artillery.'"
"O, come off, Monty," called the more prosaic Gid Mackall; "you know we didn't have no artillery. If we'd had, we'd a blowed 'em clean offen the hill."
The whistle summoned them to get aboard and move on.
"WHAT'S the program?" Si inquired of the conductor, as the boys were being formed on the bank, preparatory to entering the cars. "I s'pose it's to go over there and put in a week o' hard work rebuildin' that bridge. Have you got any axes and saws on the train? How long is the blamed old bridge, anyway?"
"Not much it ain't," responded the conductor. "If you think the army's goin' to wait a week, or even a day, on a bridge, you're simply not up to date, that's all. The old Buell and Rosecrans way o' doin' things is played out since Sherman took command. Your Uncle Billy's a hustler, and don't let that escape your mind for a minute, or it'll likely lead you into trouble. You'll find when you get down to Chattynoogy that nobody's asleep in daylight, or for a good part o' the night. They're not only wide-awake, but on the keen jump. The old man kin see four ways at once, he's always where he ain't expected, and after everybody with a sharp stick. In Buell's time a burnt bridge 50 foot long 'd stopped us for two weeks. Now that bridge 'll likely be finished by the time we git there. I've just been over there, and they were layin' the stringers."
"Why, how in the world did they manage?" asked Si.
"O, Sherman's first move was to order down here duplicates for every bridge on the road. He's got 'em piled up at Louisville, Nashville, Murfreesboro and Chattynoogy. The moment a bridge is reported burned a gang starts for the place with another bridge, and they're at work as soon's it's cool enough to let 'em get to the abutments. I've seen 'em pullin' away the burnin' timbers to lay new ones. They knowed at Chattynoogy as soon's we did that the bridge was burned. The operator at the next station must 've seen it and telegraphed the news, and they started a bridge-gang right out. I tell you, double-quick's the time around where old Cump Sherman is."
"Duplicate bridges," gasped Si. "Well, that is an idee."
"What does he mean by duplicate, Corpril?" asked Harry Joslyn to Shorty.
"O, duplicate's something that you ring in on a feller like a cold deck."
"I don't understand," said Harry.
"Why—hem—hem—duplicate's the new-fangled college word for anything that you have up your sleeve to flatten a feller when he thinks he's got you euchered. You want to deal the other feller only left bowers and keep the right bowers for yourself. Them's duplicates. If you give him aces, have the jokers handy for when you want 'em. Them's duplicates. Duplicates 's Sherman's great lay—learned it from his old side-partner, Unconditional Surrender Grant—just as strategy was old McClellan's. There's this difference: Sherman always stacks the deck to win himself, while McClellan used to shuffle the cards for the other feller to win."
"Still I don't understand about the duplicate bridges," persisted Harry.
"Why, old Sherman just plays doublets on the rebels. He leads a king at 'em and then plumps down an ace, and after that the left and right bowers. They burn one bridge and he plumps down a better one instead. They blow up a tunnel and he just hauls it out and sticks a bigger one in its place. Great head, that Sherman. Knows almost as much as old Abe Lincoln himself."
"Do you say that Sherman has extra tunnels, too, to put in whenever one is needed?" asked Harry, with opening eyes.
"O, cert," replied Shorty carelessly. "You seen that big iron buildin' we went into to git on the cars at Louisville? That was really a tunnel, all ready to be shoved out on the road when it was needed. If you hadn't bin so keen on the lookout for guerrillas as we come along you'd 'a' seen pieces o' tunnels layin' all along the road ready for use."
As the train dashed confidently over the newly-completed bridge the boys gazed with intense interest and astonishment at the still smoldering wreckage, which had been dragged out of the way to admit the erection of the new structure. It was one of the wonders of the new, strange life upon which they were entering.
The marvelous impressiveness and beauty of the scenery as they approached Chattanooga fascinated the boys, who had never seen anything more remarkable than the low, rounded hills of Southern Indiana.
The towering mountains, reaching up toward the clouds, or even above them, their summits crowned with castellated rocks looking like impregnable strongholds, the sheer, beetling cliffs, marking where the swift, clear current of the winding Tennessee River had cut its way through the granite walls, all had a deep fascination for them. Then, everywhere were strong intrenchments and frowning forts, guarding the crossings of the river or the passages through the mountains. There were populous villages of log huts, some with canvas roofs, some roofed with clapboards, some with boards purloined from the Quartermaster's stores. These were the Winter quarters of the garrisons of the fortifications. Everywhere men were marching to and fro, and long trains of army wagons struggling through the mud of the valleys and up the steep hillsides.
"My, what lots o' men," gasped Harry Joslyn. "We won't be once among sich a crowd. Wonder if Sergeant Klegg and Corpril Elliott kin keep us from bein' lost?"
"Trust Corpril Elliott," said Gid, returning to his old partisanship of the taller veteran. "He knows his business every time."
"Not any better'n Sergeant Klegg," responded Harry, taking up the gantlet for his favorite. "Long-legged men are very good in their way, but they don't have the brains that shorter men have. Nature don't give no man everything. What she gives to his legs she takes off his head, my dad says."
"That's just because you're a duck-legged snipe," answered Gid wrathfully. "Do you mean to?"
"Don't make any slurs at me, you spindle-legged sand-hill crane," retorted Harry.
This was enough. Blows came next. It was their way. Gid Mackall and Harry Joslyn had been inseparable companions since they had begun going to school, and they had scarcely ever let a day pass without a fight. The moment that Si and Shorty appeared within their horizon they had raised the issue of which was the best soldier, and made it a matter of lively partisanship.
Si and Shorty had been on the eager lookout for the indications of the position of the army, for places that they could recognize, and for regiments, brigades and divisions they were acquainted with, so they did not at first notice the squabble. Then they pulled the boys asunder, shook them and scolded them for their conduct.
New emotions filled Si's and Shorty's breasts. They had been away from their regiment so long that they were acutely homesick to be back to it. Such is the magic of military discipline and association that their regimental flag had become the center of their universe, and the real people of their world the men who gathered around it. Everything and everybody else was subsidiary to that thing of wonderful sacredness—"the regiment." They felt like wanderers who had been away for years, and were now returning to their proper home, friends, associations and vocation. Once more under the Flag life would become again what it should be, with proper objects of daily interest and the satisfactory performance of every-day duties. They really belonged in the regiment, and everywhere else were interlopers, sojourners, strangers in a strange land. They now sat together and talked of the regiment as they had formerly sat around the campfire with the other boys and talked of their far-away homes, their fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters and sweethearts.
They had last seen their regiment in the fierce charge from the crest of Snodgrass Hill. The burning questions were who had survived that terrible day? Who had been so badly wounded as to lose his place on the rolls? Who commanded the regiment and the companies? Who filled the non-commissioned offices? What voices that once rang out in command on the drill-ground, in camp and battle, were now silent, and whose would be lifted instead? "I'm af eared the old rijimint will never fight agin as it did at Stone River and Chickamauga," said Si mournfully. "Too many good men gone what made the rijimint what it is."
"Well, I don't know about that," said Shorty more hopefully. "They got two mighty good non-commish when they promoted me and you. If they done as well in the rest o' the promotions, the rijimint is all right. Lord knows I'd willingly give up my stripes to poor Jim Sanders, if he could come back; but I guess I kin yank around a squad as well as he done. This infant class that we're takin' down there ain't up to some o' the boys that've turned up their toes, but they average mighty well, and after we git some o' the coltishness drilled out o' 'em they'll be a credit to the rijimint."
The train finally halted on a side-track in the outskirts of Chattanooga, under the gigantic shadow of Lookout Mountain, and in the midst of an ocean of turmoiling activity that made the eyes ache to look upon it, and awed every one, even Si and Shorty, with a sense of incomprehensible immensity. As far as they could see, in every direction, were camps, forts, intrenchments, flags, hordes of men, trains of wagons, herds of cattle, innumerable horses, countless mules, mountains of boxes, barrels and bales. Immediately around them was a wilderness of trains, with noisy locomotives and shouting men. Regiments returning from veteran furlough, or entirely new ones, were disembarking with loud cheering, which was answered from the camps on the hillsides. On the river front steamboats were whistling and clanging their bells.
The boys, too much awed for speech, clustered around Si and Shorty and cast anxious glances at their faces.
"Great Jehosephat," murmured Shorty. "They seem to be all here."
"No," answered Si, as the cheers of a newly-arrived regiment rang out, "the back townships are still comin' in."
Monty Scruggs found tongue enough to quote:
"And ships by thousands lay below,
And men by nations, all were his."
"Where in time do you s'pose the 200th Injianny is in all this freshet of men and mules and bosses?" said Si, with an anxious brow. The look made the boys almost terror-stricken. They huddled together and turned their glances toward Shorty for hope. But Shorty looked as puzzled as Si.
"Possibly," he suggested to Si, "the conductor will take us further up into the town, where we kin find somebody that we know, who'll tell us where the rijimint is."
"No," said the conductor, who came back at that moment; "I can't go no further with you. Just got my orders. You must pile right out here at once. They want the engine and empties in five minutes to take a load back to Nashville. Git your men out quick as you kin."
"Fall in," commanded Si. "Single rank. Foller me and Corpril Elliott. Keep well closed up, for if you git separated from us goodness knows what'll become o' you in this raft o' men."
The passage through the crowded, busy railroad yard was bewildering, toilsome, exciting and dangerous. The space between the tracks was scarcely more than wide enough for one man to pass, and the trains on either side would be moving in different directions. On the tracks that the boys crossed trains were going ahead or backing in entire regardlessness of them, and with many profane yells from the trainmen for them to get out of the way and keep out. Si only kept his direction by occasionally glancing over his shoulder and setting his face to walk in the direction away from Pulpit Rock, which juts out from the extremity of Lookout Mountain.
At last, after a series of hair-breadth dodges, Si drew up his squad in an open space where the tracks crossed, and proceeded to count them.
CONTENTS
PREFACE.
SI KLEGG
CHAPTER I. SHORTY BEGINS BEING A FATHER TO PETE SKIDMORE
CHAPTER II. SI AND SHORTY COME VERY NEAR LOSING THEIR BOYS
CHAPTER III. THE PARTNERS GET BACK TO THEIR REGIMENT AT LAST
CHAPTER IV. THE RECRUITS ARE ASSIGNED TO COMPANIES
CHAPTER V. THE YOUNG RECRUITS
CHAPTER VI. SI KLEGG PUTS HIS AWKWARD SQUAD THROUGH ITS FIRST DRILL
CHAPTER VII. SHORTY'S HEART TURNS TOWARD MARIA
CHAPTER VIII. SHORTY WRITES A LETTER TO MARIA KLEGG
CHAPTER IX. SI TAKES HIS BOYS FOR A LITTLE MARCH INTO THE COUNTRY
CHAPTER X. THE BOYS HAVE A COUPLE OF LITTLE SKIRMISHES
CHAPTER XI. SHORTY GIVES THE BOYS THEIR FIRST LESSON IN FORAGING
CHAPTER XII. THE OPENING OF THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN
CHAPTER XIII. THE FIRST DAY OF THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN
CHAPTER XIV. THE EVENING AFTER THE BATTLE
CHAPTER XV. THE FIGHTING AROUND BUZZARD ROOST
CHAPTER XVI. THE 200TH IND. ASSAULTS THE REBEL WORKS AT DAYBREAK
CHAPTER XVII. GATHERING UP THE BOYS AFTER THE BATTLE
CHAPTER XVIII. AN ARTILLERY DUEL
CHAPTER XIX. SI AND SHORTY ARE PUT UNDER ARREST
CHAPTER XX. SHORTY IS ARRAIGNED BEFORE THE COURT-MARTIAL
ILLUSTRATIONS
Them's Our Names and Addresses 59
Mr. Yank, Don't Conjure Me. 135
Little Pete's Awful Rebels. 149
Little Pete's Horse Bolts. 168
Capture of Rebel Stronghold. 185
The Charge Thru the Abatis. 211
"Si Klegg, of the 200th Ind., and Shorty, his Partner," were born years ago in the brain of John McElroy, Editor of The National Tribune.
These sketches are the original ones published in The National Tribune, revised and enlarged somewhat by the author. How true they are to nature every veteran can abundantly testify from his own service. Really, only the name of the regiment was invented. There is no doubt that there were several men of the name of Josiah Klegg in the Union Army, and who did valiant service for the Government. They had experiences akin to, if not identical with, those narrated here, and substantially every man who faithfully and bravely carried a musket in defense of the best Government on earth had sometimes, if not often, experiences of which those of Si Klegg are a strong reminder.
The Publishers.
"Come, my boy," Si said kindly. "Don't cry. You're a soldier now, and soldiers don't cry. Stop it."
"Dod durn it," blubbered Pete, "I ain't cryin' bekase Pm skeered. I'm cryin' bekase I'm afeared you'll lose me. I know durned well you'll lose me yit, with all this foolin' around."
"No, we won't," Si assured him. "You just keep with us and you'll be all right."
"Here, you blim-blammed, moon-eyed suckers, git offen that 'ere crossin'," yelled at them a fireman whose engine came tearing down toward the middle of the squad. "Hain't you got no more sense than to stand on a crossin'?"
He hurled a chunk of coal at the squad, which hastily followed Si to the other side of the track.
"Hello, there; where are you goin', you chuckle-headed clodhoppers?" yelled the men on another train rushing down from a different direction. "This ain't no hayfield. Go back home and drive cows, and git out o' the way o' men who're at work."
There was more scurrying, and when at last Si reached a clear space, he had only a portion of his squad with him, while Shorty was vowing he would not go a step farther until he had licked a railroad man. But the engines continued to whirl back and forth in apparently purposeless confusion, and the moment that he fixed upon any particular victim of his wrath, he was sure to be compelled to jump out of the way of a locomotive clanging up from an unexpected direction and interposing a train of freight cars between him and the man he was after.
Si was too deeply exercised about getting his squad together to pay attention to Shorty or the jeering, taunting railroaders. He became very fearful that some of them had been caught and badly hurt, probably killed, by the remorseless locomotives.
"This's wuss'n a battle," he remarked to the boys around him. "I'd ruther take you out on the skirmish-line than through them trains agin."
However, he had come to get some comprehension of the lay of the ground and the movements of the trains by this time, and by careful watching succeeded in gathering in his boys, one after another, until he had them all but little Pete Skidmore. The opinion grew among them that Pete had unwisely tried to keep up with the bigger boys, who had jumped across the track in front of a locomotive, and had been caught and crushed beneath the wheels. He had been seen up to a certain time, and then those who were last with him had been so busy getting out of the way that they had forgotten to look for him. Si calmed Shorty down enough to get him to forget the trainmen for awhile and take charge of the squad while he went to look for Pete. He had become so bewildered that he could not tell the direction whence they had come, or where the tragedy was likely to have happened. The farther he went in attempting to penetrate the maze of moving trains, the more hopeless the quest seemed. Finally he went over to the engineer of a locomotive that was standing still and inquired if he had heard of any accident to a boy soldier during the day.
"Seems to me that I did hear some o' the boys talkin' about No. 47 or 63 havin' run over a boy, or something," answered the engineer carelessly, without removing his pipe from his mouth. "I didn't pay no attention to it. Them things happen every day. Sometimes it's my engine, sometimes it's some other man's. But I hain't run over nobody for nigh a month now."
"Confound it," said Si savagely; "you talk about runnin' over men as if it was part o' your business."
"No," said the engineer languidly, as he reached up for his bell-rope. "'Tain't, so to speak, part o' our regler business. But the yard's awfully crowded, old Sherman's makin' it do five times the work it was calculated for, trains has got to be run on the dot, and men must keep off the track if they don't want to git hurt. Stand clear, there, yourself, for I'm goin' to start."
Si returned dejectedly to the place where he had left his squad. The expression of his face told the news before he had spoken a word. It was now getting dark, and he and Shorty decided that it was the best thing to go into bivouac where they were and wait till morning before attempting to penetrate the maze beyond in search of their regiment. They gathered up some wood, built fires, made coffee and ate the remainder of their rations. They were all horribly depressed by little Pete Skidmore's fate, and Si and Shorty, accustomed as they were to violent deaths, could not free themselves from responsibility however much they tried to reason it out as an unavoidable accident. They could not talk to one another, but each wrapped himself up in his blanket and sat moodily, a little distance from the fires, chewing the cud of bitter fancies. Neither could bear the thought of reporting to their regiment that they had been unable to take care of the smallest boy in their squad. Si's mind went back to Peter Skidmore's home, and his mother, whose heart would break over the news.
The clanging and whistling of the trains kept up unabated, and Si thought they made the most hateful din that ever assailed his ears.
Presently one of the trains stopped opposite them and a voice called from the locomotive:
"Do you men know of a squad of Injianny recruits commanded by Serg't Klegg?"
"Yes, here they are," said Si, springing up. "I'm Serg't Klegg."
"That's him," piped out Pete Skidmore's voice from the engine, with a very noticeable blubber of joy. "He's the same durned old-fool that I kept tellin' all the time he'd lose me if he wasn't careful, and he went and done it all the same."
"Well, here's your boy," continued the first voice. "Be mighty glad you've got him back and see that you take care o' him after this. My fireman run down on the cow-ketcher and snatched him up just in the nick o' time. A second more and he'd bin mince-meat. Men what can't take better care o' boys oughtn't to be allowed to have charge of 'em. But the Government gits all sorts o' damn fools for $13 a month."
Si was so delighted at getting Pete back unhurt that he did not have the heart to reply to the engineer's gibes.
ALL healthy boys have a strong tincture of the savage in them. The savage alternately worships his gods with blind, unreasoning idolatry, or treats them with measureless contumely.
Boys do the same with their heroes. It is either fervent admiration, or profound distrust, merging into actual contempt. After the successful little skirmish with the guerrillas the boys were wild in their enthusiasm over Si and Shorty. They could not be made to believe that Gens. Grant, Sherman or Thomas could conduct a battle better. But the moment that Si and Shorty seemed dazed by the multitude into which they were launched, a revulsion of feeling developed, which soon threatened to be ruinous to the partners' ascendancy.
During the uncomfortable, wakeful night the prestige of the partners still further diminished. In their absence the army had been turned topsy-turvy and reorganized in a most bewildering way. The old familiar guide-marks had disappeared. Two of the great corps had been abolished—consolidated into one, with a new number and a strange commander. Two corps of strange troops had come in from the Army of the Potomac, and had been consolidated into one, taking an old corps' number. Divisions, brigades and regiments had been totally changed in commanders, formation and position. Then the Army of the Tennessee had come in, to complicate the seeming muddle, and the more that Si and Shorty cross-questioned such stragglers as came by the clearer it seemed to the boys that they were hopelessly bewildered, and the more depressed the youngsters became.
The morning brought no relief. Si and Shorty talked together, standing apart from the squad, and casting anxious glances over the swirling mass of army activity, which the boys did not fail to note and read with dismal forebodings.
"I do believe they're lost," whimpered little Pete Skidmore. "What in goodness will ever become of us, if we're lost in this awful wilderness?"
The rest shuddered and grew pale at this horrible prospect.
"That looks like a brigade headquarters over there," said Si, pointing to the left. "And I believe that's our old brigade flag. I'm goin' over there to see."
"I don't believe that's any brigade headquarters at all," said Shorty. "Up there, to the right, looks ever so much more like a brigade headquarters. I'm goin' up there to see. You boys stay right there, and don't move off the ground till I come back. I won't be gone long."
As he left, the boys began to feel more lonely and hopeless than ever, and little Pete Skidmore had hard work to restrain his tears.
A large, heavy-jowled man, with a mass of black whiskers, and wearing a showy but nondescript uniform, appeared.
"That must be one o' the big Generals," said Harry Joslyn. "Looks like the pictures o' Grant. Git into line, boys, and salute."
"No, it ain't Grant, neither," said Gid Mackall. "Too big. Must be Gen. Thomas."
The awed boys made an effort to form a line and receive him properly.
"Who are you, boys?" said the newcomer, after gravely returning the salute.
"We're recruits for the 200th Injianny Volunteer Infantry," answered Harry Joslyn. "Kin you tell us where the rijimint is? We're lost.
"Used to know sich a regiment. In fact, I used to be Lieutenant-Colonel of it. But I hain't heared of it for a long time. Think it's petered out."
"Petered out!" gasped the boys.
"Yes. It was mauled and mummixed to death. There's plenty o' mismanagement all around the army, but the 200th Injianny had the worst luck of all. It got into awful bad hands. I quit it just as soon's I see how things was a-going. They begun to plant the men just as soon's they crossed the Ohio, and their graves are strung all the way from Louisville to Chickamauga. The others got tired o' being mauled around, and starved, and tyrannized over, and o' fighting for the nigger, and they skipped for home like sensible men."
The boys shuddered at the doleful picture.
"Who brung you here?" continued the newcomer.
"Sarjint Klegg and Corpril Elliott," answered Harry.
"Holy smoke," said the newcomer with a look of disgust. "They've made non-commish out o' them sapsuckers. Why, I wouldn't let them do nothin' but dig ditches when I was in command o' the regiment. But they probably had to take them. All the decent material was gone. How much bounty'd you get?"
"We got $27.50 apiece," answered Harry. "But we didn't care nothin' for the bounty. We—"
"Only $27.50 apiece. Holy smoke! They're payin' 10 times that in some places."
"I tell you, we didn't enlist for the bounty," reiterated Harry.
"All the same, you don't want to be robbed o' what's yours. You don't want to be skinned out o' your money by a gang o' snoozers who're gittin' rich off of green boys like you. Where's this Sarjint Klegg and Corpril Elliott that brung you here?"
"They've gone to look for the rijimint."
"Gone to look for the regiment. Much they've gone to look for the regiment. They've gone to look out for their scalawag selves. When you see 'em agin, you'll know 'em, that's all."
Little Pete Skidmore began to whimper.
"Say, boys," continued the newcomer, "you'd better drop all idee of that 200th Injianny and come with me. If there is any sich a regiment any more, and you get to it, you'd be sorry for it as long as you live. I know a man over here who's got a nice regiment, and wants a few more boys like you to fill it up. He'll treat you white and give you twice as much bounty as you'll git anywhere's else, and he's goin' to keep his regiment back in the fortifications, where there won't be no fightin', and hard marches, and starvation—"
"But we enlisted to fight and march, and—" interjected Harry.
"Well, you want a good breakfast just now, more'n anything else, judgin' from appearances. Come along with me and I'll git you something to eat."
"But we waz enlisted for the 200th Injianny Volunteer Infantry, and must go to that rijimint," protested Monty Scruggs.
"Well, what's that got to do with your havin' a good breakfast?" said the newcomer plausibly. "You need that right off. Then we kin talk about your regiment. As a matter of fact, you're only enlisted in the Army of the United States and have the right to go to any regiment you please. Tyrannical as the officers may be, they can't take that privilege of an American freeman away from you. Come along and git breakfast first."
The man's appearance was so impressive, his words and confident manner so convincing, and the boys so hungry that their scruples vanished, and all followed the late Lieut.-Col. Billings, as he gave the word, and started off through the mazes of the camp with an air of confident knowledge that completed his conquest of them.
Ex-Lieut.-Col. Billings strode blithely along, feeling the gladsome exuberance of a man who had "struck a good thing," and turning over in his mind as to where he had best market his batch of lively recruits, how he could get around the facts of their previous enlistment, and how much he ought to realize per head. He felt that he could afford to give the boys a good breakfast, and that that would be fine policy. Accordingly, he led the way to one of the numerous large eating houses, established by enterprising sutlers, to their own great profit and the shrinkage of the pay of the volunteers. He lined the boys up in front of the long shelf which served for a table and ordered the keeper:
"Now, give each of these boys a good breakfast of ham and eggs and trimmings and I'll settle for it."
"Good mornin', Kunnel. When 'd you git down here?" said a voice at his elbow.
"Hello, Groundhog, is that you?" said Billings, turning around. "Just the man I wanted to see. Finish your breakfast and come out here. I want to talk to you."
"Well," answered Groundhog, wiping his mouth, "I'm through. The feller that runs this shebang ain't made nothin' offen me, I kin tell you. It's the first square meal I've had for a week, and I've et until there ain't a crack left inside o' me that a skeeter could git his bill in. I laid out to git the wuth o' my money, and I done it. What're you doin' down here in this hole? Ain't Injianny good enough for you?"
"Injianny's good enough on general principles, but just now there's too much Abolition malaria there for me. The Lincoln satraps 've got the swing on me, and I thought I'd take a change of air. I've come down here to see if there weren't some chances to make a good turn, and I've done very well so far. I've done a little in cattle and got some cotton through the lines—enough at least to pay my board and railroad fare. But I think the biggest thing is in recruits, and I've got a scheme which I may let you into. You know there are a lot of agents down here from the New England States trying to git niggers to fill up their quotas, and they are paying big money for recruits. Can't you go out and gether up a lot o' niggers that we kin sell 'em?"
"Sure," said Groundhog confidently. "Kin git all you want, if you'll pay for 'em. But what's this gang you've got with you?"
"O, they're a batch for that blasted Abolition outfit, the 200th Injianny. Them two ornery galoots, Si and Shorty, whose necks I ought've broke when I was with the regiment, have brung 'em down. They're not goin' to git to the 200th Injianny if I kin help it, though. First place, it'll give old McBiddle, that Abolition varmint, enough to git him mustered as Colonel. He helped oust me, and I have it in for him. He was recommended for promotion for gittin' his arm shot off at Chickamauga. Wisht it'd bin his cussed head."
"But what're you goin' to do with the gang?" Groundhog inquired.
"O, there are two or three men around here that I kin sell 'em to for big money. I ought to make a clean thousand off 'em if I make a cent."
"How much'll I git out o' that?" inquired Groundhog anxiously.
"Well, you ain't entitled to nothin' by rights. I've hived this crowd all by myself, and kin work 'em all right. But if you'll come along and make any affidavits that we may need, I'll give you a sawbuck. But on the nigger lay I'll stand in even with you, half and half. You run 'em in and I'll place 'em and we'll whack up."
"'Tain't enough," answered Groundhog angrily. "Look here, Jeff Billings, I know you of old. You've played off on me before, and I won't stand no more of it. Jest bekase you've bin a Lieutenant-Colonel and me only a teamster you've played the high and mighty with me. I'm jest as good as you are any day. I wouldn't give a howl in the infernal regions for your promises. You come down now with $100 in greenbacks and I'll go along and help you all I kin. If you don't—"
"If I don't what'll you do, you lowlived whelp?" said Billings, in his usual brow-beating manner. "I only let you into this as a favor, because I've knowed you before. You hain't brains enough to make a picayune yourself, and hain't no gratitude when someone else makes it for you. Git out o' here; I'm ashamed to be seen speakin' to a mangy hound like you. Git out o' here before I kick you out. Don't you dare speak to one o' them boys, or ever to me agin. If you do I'll mash you. Git out."
Si and Shorty's dismay when they returned and found their squad entirely disappeared was overwhelming. They stood and gazed at one another for a minute in speechless alarm and wonderment.
"Great goodness," gasped Si at length, "they can't have gone far. They must be somewhere around."
"Don't know about that," said Shorty despairingly. "We've bin gone some little time and they're quick-footed little rascals."
"What fools we wuz to both go off and leave 'em," murmured Si in deep contrition. "What fools we wuz."
"No use o' cryin' over spilt milk," answered Shorty. "The thing to do now is to find 'em, which is very much like huntin' a needle in a haystack. You stay here, on the chance o' them comin' back, and I'll take a circle around there to the left and look for 'em. If I don't find 'em I'll come back and we'll go down to the Provo-Marshal's."
"Goodness, I'd rather be shot than go back to the rijimint without 'em," groaned Si. "How kin I ever face the Colonel and the rest o' the boys?"
Leaving Si gazing anxiously in every direction for some clew to his missing youngsters, Shorty rushed off in the direction of the sutler's shanties, where instinct told him he was most likely to find the runaways.
He ran up against Groundhog.
"Where are you goin' in sich a devil of a hurry?" the teamster asked. "Smell a distillery somewhere?"
"Hello, Groundhog, is that you? Ain't you dead yit? Say, have you seen a squad o' recruits around here—all boys, with new uniforms, and no letters or numbers on their caps?"
"Lots and gobs of 'em. Camp's full of 'em. More comin' in by every train."
"But these wuz all Injianny boys, most of 'em little. Not an old man among 'em."
"Shorty, I know where your boys are. What'll you give me to tell you?"
Shorty knew his man of old, and just the basis on which to open negotiations.
"Groundhog, I've just had my canteen filled with first-class whisky—none o' your commissary rotgut, but old rye, hand-made, fire-distilled. I got it to take out to the boys o' the rijimint to celebrate my comin' back. Le' me have just one drink out of it, and I'll give it to you if you'll tell."
Groundhog wavered an instant. "I wuz offered $10 on the other side."
Shorty was desperate. "I'll give you the whisky and $10."
"Le' me see your money and taste your licker."
"Here's the money," said Shorty, showing a bill. "I ain't goin' to trust you with the canteen, but I'll pour out this big spoon full, which'll be enough for you to taste." Shorty drew a spoon from his haversack and filled it level full.
"It's certainly boss licker," said Groundhog, after he had drunk it, and prudently hefted the canteen to see if it was full. "I'll take your offer. You're to have just one swig out o' it, and no more, and not a hog-swaller neither. I know you. You'd drink that hull canteenful at one gulp, if you had to. You'll let me put my thumb on your throat?"
"Yes, and I'll give you the canteen now and the money after we find the boys."
"All right. Go ahead. Drink quick, for you must go on the jump, or you'll lose your boys."
Shorty lifted the canteen to his lips and Groundhog clasped his throat with his thumb on Adam's apple. When Shorty got his breath he sputtered:
"Great Jehosephat, you didn't let me git more'n a spoonful. But where are the boys?"
"Old Jeff Billings's got 'em down at Zeke Wiggins's hash-foundry feedin' 'em, so's he kin toll 'em off into another rijimint."
"Old Billings agin," shouted Shorty in a rage. "Where's the place? Show it to me. But wait a minute till I run back and git my pardner."
"Gi' me that licker fust," shouted Groundhog, but Shorty was already running back for Si. When he returned with him he threw the canteen to Groundhog with the order, "Go ahead and show us the place."
By the time they came in sight of the sutler's shanty the boys had finished their breakfast and were moving off after Billings.
"There's your man and there's your boys," said Groundhog, pointing to them. "Now gi' me that 'ere sawbuck. You'll have to excuse me havin' anything to do with old Billings. He's licked me twice already."
Shorty shoved the bill into his hand, and rushed down in front of Billings.
"Here, you black-whiskered old roustabout, where 're you takin' them boys?" he demanded.
"Git out o' my way, you red-headed snipe," answered Billings, making a motion as if to brush him away.
"If you don't go off and leave them boys alone I'll belt you over the head with my gun," said Si, raising his musket.
"You drunken maverick," answered Billings, trying to brave it out. "I'll have you shot for insultin' and threatenin' your sooperior officer. Skip out o' here before the Provo comes up and ketches you. Let me go on about my business. Forward, boys."
"Officer nothin'. You can't play that on us," said Si. "Halt, there, boys, and stand fast."
A crowd of teamsters, sutlers' men and other camp followers gathered around. A tall, sandybearded man with keen, gray eyes and a rugged, stony face rode up. He wore a shabby slouch hat, his coat was old and weather-stained, but he rode a spirited horse.
"Here, what's all this row about?" he asked in quick, sharp tones.
"Keep out o' this mix," said Shorty, without looking around. "'Tain't none o' your business. This is our party." With that he made a snatch at Billings's collar to jerk him out of the way.
"What, you rascal, would you assault an officer?" said the newcomer, spurring his horse through the crowd to get at Shorty.
"He ain't no officer, General," said Si, catching sight of two dim stars on the man's shoulders. "He's tryin' to steal our recruits from us."
"Yes, I am an officer," said Billings, avoiding Shorty's clutch. "These men are assaultin' me while I'm on duty. I want them arrested and punished."
"Fall back there, both of you," said the General severely, as Si and Shorty came to a present arms. "Sergeant, who are you, and where do you belong?"
"I'm Serg't Klegg, sir, of Co. Q, 200th Injianny Volunteer Infantry."
"Who are you, Corporal?"
"I'm Corp'l Elliott, sir, of Co. Q, 200th Injianny Volunteer Infantry."
"Now, officer, who are you?"
"I'm Lieut.-Col. Billings, sir."
"Where's your shoulder-straps?"
"I had 'em taken off this coat to git fixed. They were torn."
"Where's your sword?"
"I left it in my quarters."
"Fine officer, to go on duty that way. Where do you belong?"
Billings hesitated an instant, but he felt sure that the General did not belong to the Army of the Cumberland, and he answered:
"I belong to the 200th Ind."
"That ain't true, General," Si protested. "He was fired out of the regiment a year ago. He's a citizen."
"Silence, Sergeant. Billings? Billings? The name of the Lieutenant-Colonel of the 200th Ind. happens to be McBiddle—one-armed man, good soldier. Billings? Billings? T. J. Billings? Is that your name?"
"Yes, sir," answered Billings, beginning to look very uncomfortable.
"Didn't you have some trouble about a bunch of cattle you sold to the Quartermaster-General?"
"Well, there was little difference of opinion, but—"
"That'll do, sir. That'll do for the present. I begin to get you placed. I thought I knew the name Billings as soon as you spoke it, but I couldn't remember any officer in my army of that name. Now, Sergeant, tell me your story."
"General, me and my pardner here," began Si, "have bin home on wounded furlough. Wounded at Chickamauga and promoted. We got orders to bring on this squad o' recruits from Jeffersonville for our rijimint. We got in last night and this mornin' me and my pardner started out to see if we could find someone to direct us to the rijimint, leavin' the squad alone for a few minutes. While we wuz gone this feller, who's bin fired out of our rijimint and another one that he was in, come along and tolled our boys off, intendin' to sneak 'em into another rijimint and git pay for 'em. By great good luck we ketched him in time, just before you come up. You kin ask the boys themselves if I hain't told you the truth."
"Good idea," said the General, in his quick, peremptory way. "You three (indicating Si, Shorty and Billings) march off there 25 paces, while I talk to the boys."
Gen. Sherman, for it was the Commander of the Military Division of the Mississippi, who, with his usual impetuous, thorough way, would investigate even the most insignificant affair in his camps, when the humor seized him, now sprang from his horse, and began a sharp, nervous cross-questioning of the boys as to their names, residence, ages, how they came there and whither they were bound.
"You came down with this Sergeant and Corporal, did you? You were recruited for the 200th Ind., were you? You were put under the charge of those men to be taken to your regiment?" he asked Pete Skidmore, at the end of the line.
"Yes, sir," blubbered Pete. "And they are always losin' us, particularly me, durn 'em. Spite of all I kin say to 'em they'll lose me, durn their skins."
"No, my boy, you sha'n't be lost," said the General kindly, as he remounted. "Stick to our command and you'll come through all right. Billings, you thorough-paced rascal, I want you to get to the other side of the Ohio River as quickly as the trains will carry you. I haven't time to deal with you as you deserve, but if I have occasion to speak to you again you'll rue it as long as you live. There's a train getting ready to go out. If you are wise, you'll take it. Serg't Klegg and Corp'l Elliott, you deserve to lose your stripes for both of you leaving your squad at the same time. See that you don't do it again. You'll find the 200th Ind. in camp on the east side of Mission Ridge, about a mile south of Rossville Gap. Go out this road until you pass old John Ross's house about a half a mile. You'll find several roads leading off to the right, but don't take any of them till you come to one that turns off by a sweet gum and a honey-locust standing together on the banks of a creek. Understand? A sweet gum and a honey-locust standing together on the banks of a creek. Turn off there, go across the mountain and you'll find your camp. Move promptly now."
"I declare," said a big Wagonmaster, as the General galloped off, "if that old Gump Sherman don't beat the world. He not only knows where every regiment in his whole army is located, but I believe he knows every man in it. He's a far-reacher, I tell you."
"Great Jehosephat," gasped Shorty, "was that Gen. Tecumseh Sherman?"
"As sure 's you're a foot high," replied the Wagonmaster.
"And I told him to mind his own business," stammered Shorty.
"Yes, and if it hadn't bin for him you'd 'a' lost us, durn it," ejaculated little Pete Skidmore.
SI AND SHORTY were too glad to get their boys back, and too eager to find their regiment, to waste any time in scolding the derelicts.
"Now that you boys have had a good breakfast," Si remarked with an accent of cutting sarcasm, "at the expense of that kind-hearted gentleman, Mr. Billings, I'm goin' to give you a pleasant little exercise in the shape of a forced march. If you don't make the distance between here and the other side o' Rossville Gap quicker'n ary squad has ever made it I'm much mistaken. Shorty, put yourself on the left and bring up the rear."
"You bet," answered Shorty, "and I'll take durned good care I don't lose little Pete Skidmore."
"Now," commanded Si, getting a good lay of the ground toward the gap, "Attention. All ready? Forward, march."
He led off with the long march stride of the veteran, and began threading his way through the maze of teams, batteries, herds, and marching men and stragglers with the ease and certainty born of long acquaintance with crowded camps. He dodged around a regiment here, avoided a train there, and slipped through a marching battery at the next place with a swift, unresting progress that quickly took away the boys' wind and made them pant with the exertion of keeping up.
In the rear was the relentless Shorty.
"Close up, there! Close up!" he kept shouting to those in front. "Don't allow no gaps between you. Keep marchin' distance—19 inches from back to breast. Come along, Pete. I ain't a-goin' to lose you, no matter what happens."
"Sarjint," gasped flarry Joslyn, after they had gone a couple of miles, "don't you call this purty fast marchin'?"
"Naah," said Si contemptuously. "We're just crawlin' along. Wait till we git where it's a little clear, and then we'll go. Here, cut acrost ahead o' that battery that's comin' up a-trot."
There was a rush for another mile or two, when there was a momentary halt to allow a regiment of cavalry to go by at a quick walk.
"Goodness," murmured Gid Mackall, as he set down the carpet-sack which he would persist in carrying, "are they always in a hurry? I s'posed that when soldiers wuzzent marchin' or fightin' they lay around camp and played cards and stole chickens, and wrote letters home, but everybody 'round here seems on the dead rush."
"Don't seem to be nobody pic-nickin' as far's I kin see," responded Si, "but we hain't no time to talk about it now. We must git to the rijimint. Forward!"
Another swift push of two or three miles brought them toward the foot of Mission Ridge, and near the little, unpainted frame house which had once been the home of John Ross, the chief of the Cherokees.
"Boys, there's the shebang or palace of the big Injun who used to be king of all these mountains and valleys," said Si, stopping the squad to give them a much needed rest. "He run this whole country, and had Injuns to burn, though he generally preferred to burn them that didn't belong to his church."
"Roasted his neighbors instid o' his friends in a heathen sort of a way," continued Shorty.
"What was his name?" inquired Monty Scruggs.
"John Ross."
"Humph, not much of a name," said Monty in a disappointed tone, for he had been an assiduous reader of dime novels. "'Tain't anything like as fine as Tecumseh, and Osceola, and Powhatan, and Jibbeninosay, and Man-Afraid-of-Gettin'-His-Neck-Broke. Wasn't much of a big Injun."
"Deed he was," answered Si. "He and his fathers before him run' this whole neck o' woods accordin' to the big Injun taste, and give the Army o' the United States all they wanted to do. Used to knock all the other Injuns around here about like ten-pins. The Rosses were bosses from the word go."
"Don't sound right, though," said Monty regretfully. "And such a shack as that don't look like the wigwam of a great chief. 'Tain't any different from the hired men's houses on the farms in Injianny."
"Well, all the same, it's got to go for the scene of a cord o' dime novels," said Shorty. "We've brung in civilization and modern improvements and killed more men around here in a hour o' working time than the ignorant, screechin' Injuns killed since the flood."
"Do them rijimints look like the 200th Injianny?" anxiously inquired Harry Joslyn, pointing to some camps on the mountain-side, where the men were drilling and engaged in other soldierly duties.
"Them," snorted Shorty contemptuously. "Them's only recruits that ain't got licked into shape yet. When you see the 200th Injianny you'll see a rijimint, I tell you. Best one in the army. You ought to be mighty proud you got a chanst to git into sich a rijimint."
"We are; we are," the boys assured him. "But we're awful anxious to see jest what it's like."
"Well, you'll see in a little while the boss lot o' boys. Every one of 'em fightin' cocks, thoroughbred—not a dunghill feather or strain in the lot. Weeded 'em all out long ago. All straight-cut gentlemen. They'll welcome you like brothers and skin you out of every cent o' your bounty, if you play cards with 'em. They're a dandy crowd when it comes to fingerin' the pasteboards. They'll be regler fathers to you, but you don't want to play no cards with 'em."
"I thought you said they wuz all gentlemen and would be regler brothers to us," said Harry Joslyn.
"So they will—so they will. But your brother's the feller that you've got to watch clostest when he's settin' in front o' you with one little pair. He's the feller that's most likely to know all you know about the cards and what he knows besides. They've bin skinnin' one another so long that they'll be as anxious to git at your fresh young blood as a New Orleans skeeter is to sink into a man just from the North."
"Didn't think they'd allow gambling in so good a regiment as the 200th Ind.," remarked Alf Russell, who was a devoted attendant on Sunday school.
"Don't allow it. It's strictly prohibited."
"But I thought that in the army you carried out orders, if you had to kill men."
"Well, there's orders and orders," said Shorty, philosophically. "Most of 'em you obey to the last curl on the letter R, and do it with a jump. Some of 'em you obey only when you have to, and take your chances at improving the State o' Tennessee by buildin' roads and diggin' up stumps in the parade ground if you're ketched not mindin'. Of them kind is the orders agin gamblin'."
"Shorty, stop talkin' to the boys about gamblin'. I won't have it," commanded Si. "Boys, you mustn't play cards on no account, especially with older men. It's strictly agin orders, besides which I'll break any o' your necks that I ketch at it. You must take care o' your money and send it home. Forward, march."
They went up the road from the John Ross house until they came to that turning off to the right by a sweet gum and a sycamore, as indicated by Gen. Sherman, and then began a labored climbing of the rough, stony way across Mission Ridge. Si's and Shorty's eagerness to get to the regiment increased so with their nearness to it that they went at a terrific pace in spite of all obstacles.
"Please, Sarjint," begged Gid Mackall, as they halted for an instant near a large rock, "need we go quite so fast? We're awfully anxious to git to the regiment, too, but I feel like as if I'd stove two inches offen my legs already against them blamed rocks."
"I can't keep up. I can't keep up at all," whimpered little Pete Skidmore. "You are just dead certain to lose me."
"Pull out just a little more, boys," Si said pleasantly. "We must be almost there. It can't be but a little ways now."
"Close up there in front!" commanded Shorty. "Keep marchin' distance—19 inches from back to breast. Come on, Pete. Gi' me your hand; I'll help you along."
"I ain't no kid, to be led along by the hand," answered Pete sturdily, refusing the offer. "I'll keep up somehow. But you can't expect my short legs to cover as much ground as them telegraph poles o' your'n."
The summit of the ridge was crossed and a number of camps appeared along the slope.
"Wonder which one o' them is the 200th Injianny's?" said Si to Shorty.
"I thought the 200th Injianny was so much finer rijimint than any other that you'd know it at sight," said Harry Joslyn, with a shade of disappointment in his voice.
"I would know it if I was sure I was lookin' at it," answered Shorty. "But they seem to have picked out all the best rijimints in the army to go into camp here this side o' Mission Ridge. Mebbe they want to make the best show to the enemy."
"That looks like the camp o' the 200th Injianny over there," said Si, pointing to the right, after scanning the mountain-side. "See all them red shirts hangin' out to dry? That's Co. A; they run to red flannel shirts like a nigger barber to striped pants."
"No," answered Shorty; "that's that Ohio rijimint, made up o' rollin' mill men and molders. They all wear red flannel shirts. There's the 200th Injianny just down there to the left, with all them men on extra duty on the parade ground. I know just the gang. Same old crowd; I kin almost tell their faces. They've bin runnin' guard, as usual, and comin' back full o' apple-jack and bad language and desire to give the camp a heavy coat o' red paint. Old McBiddle has tried to convince 'em that he was still runnin' the rijimint, and his idees wuz better 'n theirs, and there they are. There's Jim Monaghan handlin' that pick as if he was in the last stages o' consumption. There's Barney' Maguire, pickin' up three twigs 'bout as big as lead pencils, and solemnly carryin' 'em off the parade ground as if they wuz fence-rails. I'll just bet a month's pay that's Denny Murphy marchin' up and down there with his knapsack filled with Tennessee dornicks. Denny's done that feather-weight knapsack trick so often that his shoulders have corns and windgalls on 'em, and they always keep a knapsack packed for him at the guard-house ready for one of his Donnybrook fair songs and dances. Mighty good boy, Denny, but he kin git up a red-hotter riot on his share of a canteen of apple-jack than any three men in the rijimint. That feller tied to a tree is Tony Wilson. He's refused to dig trenches agin. O, I tell you, they're a daisy lot."
"Shorty," admonished Si. "You mustn't talk that way before the boys. What'll they think o' the rijimint?"
"Think of it?" said Shorty, recovering himself. "They've got to think of it as the very best rijimint that ever stood in line-of-battle. I'll punch the head of any man that says anything to the contrary. Every man in it is a high-toned, Christian gentleman. Mind that, now, every one of you brats, and don't you allow nobody to say otherwise."
"No," said Si, after further study of the camps, "neither o' them 's the 200th Injianny. They've both got brass bands. Must be new rijimints."
"Say," said Shorty, "there's a royal lookin' rooster standin' up in front of that little house there. Looks as if the house was headquarters for some highroller, and him doin' Orderly duty. If he knows as much as he's got style, he knows more'n old Sherman himself. Go up and ask him."
It was the first time in all their service that either of them had seen a soldier in the full dress prescribed by the United States Army regulations, and this man had clearly won the coveted detail of Orderly by competition with his comrades as being the neatest, best-dressed man in the squad. He was a tall, fine-looking young man, wearing white gloves and a paper collar, with a spotless dress coat buttoned to the chin, his shoes shining like mirrors, his buttons and belt-plates like new gold, and his regulation hat caught up on the left side with a feather and a gilt eagle. The front of his hat was a mass of gilt letters and figures and a bugle, indicating his company, regiment and State. On his breast was a large, red star.
"Jehosephat," sighed Shorty. "I wish I had as many dollars as he has style. Must be one of old Abe's body guards, sent out here with Grant's commission as Lieutenant-General. Expect that red star passes him on the railroads and at the hotels. I'd like to play him two games out o' three, cut-throat, for it. I could use it in my business."
"No," said the Orderly to Si, with a strong Yankee twang, "I don't know a mite about the 200th Ind. Leastwise, I don't remember it. Everybody down here's from Indiana, Ohio or Illinois. It's one eternal mix, like Uncle Jed Stover's fish—couldn't tell shad, herring nor sprat from one another. It seems to me more like a 'tarnal big town-meeting than an army. All talk alike, and have got just as much to say; all act alike. Can't tell where an Indiana regiment leaves off and Ohio one begins; can't tell officer from private, everybody dresses as he pleases, and half of them don't wear anything to tell where they belong. There wasn't a corps badge in the whole army when we come here."
"Corps badges—what's them?" asked Si.
"Corps badges? Why this is one," said the man, tapping his red star. "This shows I belong to the Twelfth Corps—best corps in the Army of the Potomac, and the First Division—best division in the corps. We have to wear them so's to show our General which are his men, and where they be. Haven't you no corps badges?"
"Our General don't have to tag us," said Shorty, who had come up and listened. "He knows all of us that's worth knowin', and that we'll go wherever he orders us, and stay there till he pulls us off. Our corps badge's a full haversack and Springfield rifle sighted up to 1,200 yards."
"Well, you do fight in a most amazing way," said the Orderly, cordially. "We never believed it of such rag-tag and bobtail until we saw you go up over Mission Ridge. You were all straggling then, but you were straggling toward the enemy. Never saw such a mob, but it made the rebels sick."
"Well, if you'd seen us bustin' your old friend Long-street at Snodgrass Hill, you'd seen some hefightin'. We learned him that he wasn't monkeyin' with the Army o' the Potomac, but with fellers that wuz down there for business, and not to wear paper collars and shine their buttons. He come at us seven times before we could git that little fact through his head, and we piled up his dead like cordwood."
"Well, you didn't do any better than we did with Early's men at Gulp's Hill, if we do wear paper collars," returned the other proudly. "After we got through with Johnston's Division you couldn't see the ground in front for the dead and wounded. And none of your men got up on Lookout Mountain any quicker'n we did. Paper collars and red stars showed you the way right along."
"My pardner's only envious because he hain't no paper collars nor fine clothes," said Si, conciliatorily. "I've often told him that if he'd leave chuck-a-luck alone and save his money he'd be able to dress better'n Gen. Grant."
"Gen. Grant's no great shakes as a dresser," returned the other. "I was never so surprised in my life as one day when I was Orderly at Division Headquarters, and a short man with a red beard, and his clothes spattered with mud, rode up, followed by one Orderly, and said, 'Orderly, tell the General that Gen. Grant would like to see him.' By looking hard I managed to make out three stars on his shoulder. Why, if Gen. McClellan had been coming you'd have seen him for a mile before he got there."
"If Gen. Grant put on as much style in proportion to what he done as McClellan, you could see him as far as the moon," ventured Shorty.
"Well, we're not gettin' to the rijimint," said the impatient Si. "Le's rack on. So long, Orderly. Come and see us in the 200th Injianny and we'll treat you white. Forward, march!"
"There's a couple of boys comin' up the road. Probably they kin tell us where the rijimint is," suggested Shorty.
The two boys were evidently recruits of some months' standing, but not yet considered seasoned soldiers.
"No," they said, "there is no 200th Ind. here now. It was here yesterday, and was camped right over there, where you see that old camp, but before noon came an order to march with three days' rations and 40 rounds. It went out the Lafayette Road, and the boys seemed to think they wuz goin' out to Pigeon Mountain to begin the general advance o' the army, and wuz mightily tickled over it."
"Gone away," said Si, scanning the abandoned camp sadly; "everybody couldn't have gone. They must've left somebody behind that wasn't able to travel, and somebody to take care o' 'em. They must've left some rijimintal stuff behind and a guard over it."
"No," the boys assured him. "They broke up camp completely. All that wasn't able to march was sent to the hospital in Chattynoogy. Every mite of stuff was loaded into wagons and hauled off with 'em. They never expected to come back."
"That camp ground don't look as it'd bin occupied for two weeks," said Shorty. "See the ruts made by the rain in the parade ground and the general look o' things. I don't believe the rijimint only left there yisterday. It don't look as if the 200th Injianny ever had sich a camp. It's more like one o' the camps o' them slack-twisted Kaintucky and Tennessee rijimints."
"If Oi didn't belave that Si Klegg and Sharty was did intoirely, and up home in Injianny, Oi'd be sure that was their v'ices," said a voice from the thicket by the side of the road. The next instant a redheaded man, with a very distinct map of Ireland in his face, leaped out, shouting:
"Si and Sharty, ye thieves of the worruld, whin did ye get back, and how are yez? Howly saints, but Oi'm glad to see yez."
"Jim Monaghan, you old Erin-go-bragh," said Shorty, putting his arm around the man's neck, "may I never see the back o' my neck, but I'm glad to see you. I was just talkin' about you. I thought I recognized you over there in one of the camps, at your favorite occupation of extry dooty, cleanin' up the parade ground."
"No; Oi've not bin on extry doty for narely two wakes now, but it's about due. But here comes Barney Maguire and Con Taylor, Tony Wilson and the rest iv the gang. Lord love yez, but they'll be surely glad to see yez."
The others came up with a tumultuous welcome to both.
"Where's the camp?" asked Si.
"Jist bey ant—jist bey ant them cedars there—not a musket-shot away," answered Jim, pointing to the place.
"What'd you mean, you infernal liars, by tellin' us that the rijimint was gone?" said Shorty, wrathfully to the men whom he had met, and who were still standing near, looking puzzled at the demonstrations.
"Aisy, now, aisy," said Jim. "We're to blame for that, so we are. Ye say, we wint over by Rossville last night and had a bit av a shindy and cleaned out a sutler's shop. We brought away some av the most illegant whisky that iver wet a man's lips, and hid it down there in the gulch, where we had jist come back for it. We sane you comin' and thought yez was the provo-guard after us. Ye say ye stopped there and talked to that peacock at the Provo-Marshal's quarters, and we thought yez was gittin' instructions. We sint these rookies out, who we thought nobody'd know, to give you a little fairy story about the rijimint being gone, to throw you off the scint, until we could finish the liquor."
"Yes, I know," laughed Shorty, "after you'd got the budge down you didn't care what happened. You're the same old brick-topped Connaught Ranger."
"You and Si come down into the gulch and jine us."
"Can't think of it for a minute," said Shorty with great self-denial. "Don't speak so loud before these boys. They're recruits for the rijimint. We must take 'em into camp. We'll see you later."
THE strangest feeling possessed Si and Shorty when once in the camp of their old regiment, and after the first hearty welcome of their comrades was over.
There was a strangeness about everything that they could not comprehend.
It was their regiment—the 200th Ind.; it was made up of the same companies, with the great majority of the men the same, but it was very far from being the 200th Ind. which crossed the Ohio River in September, 1862.
Marvelous changes had been wrought by 18 months' tuition in the iron school of war, in the 10 separate herds of undisciplined farmer boys which originally constituted the regiment. Yellow, downy beards appeared on faces which had been of boyish smoothness when the river was crossed, but this was only one of the minor changes. There was an alertness, a sureness, a self-confidence shining from eyes which was even more marked. Every one carried himself as if he knew precisely what he was there for, and intended doing it. There was enough merriment around camp, but it was very different from the noisy rollicking of the earlier days. The men who had something to do were doing it with systematic earnestness; the men who had nothing to do were getting as much solid comfort and fun as the situation afforded. The frothy element among officers and men had been rigorously weeded out or repressed. All that remained were soldiers in the truest sense of the word. The change had been very great even since the regiment had lined up for the fearful ordeal of Chickamauga.
"Did you ever see a gang o' half-baked kids get to be men as quick as these boys?" Si asked Shorty. "Think o' the awkward squads that used to be continually fallin' over their own feet, and stabbing theirselves with their own bayonets."
"Seems so," answered Shorty, "but I don't know that they've growed any faster'n we have. Walt Slusser, who's bin Orderly at Headquarters, says that he heard Capt. McGillicuddy tell Col. McBiddle that he'd never seen men come out as me and you had, and he thought we'd make very effective noncommish."
"Probably we've all growed," Si assented thoughtfully. "Just think o' McBiddle as Lieutenant-Colonel, in place o' old Billings. Remember the first time we saw McBiddle to know him? That time he was Sergeant o' the Guard before Perryville, and was so gentle and soft-spoken that lots o' the boys fooled themselves with the idee that he lacked sand. Same fellers thought that old bellerin' bull Billings was a great fightin' man. What chumps we all wuz that we stood Billings a week."
"Wonder if I'm ever goin' to have a chanst for a little private sociable with Billings? Just as I think I'm goin' to have it, something interferes. That feller's bin so long ripe for a lickin' that I'm afraid he'll be completely spiled before my chanst comes."
"But I can't git over missin' so many familiar voices in command, and hearin' others in their places," said Si. "That battalion drill they wuz havin' as we come in didn't sound like our rijimint at all. I could always tell which was our rijimint drillin' half a mile away by the sound of the voices. What a ringin' voice Capt. Scudder had. It beat the bugle. You could hear him sing out, 'Co. C, on right, into line! Forward, guide right—March!' farther'n you could the bugle. The last time I heard him wuz as we wuz' going up Snodgrass Hill. A rebel bullet went through his head just as he said, 'March!' Now, Lieut. Scripps is in command o' Co. C, and he's got a penny-whistle voice that I can't git used to."
"Lieut. Scripps's a mighty good man. He'll take Co. C as far as Capt. Scudder would."
"I know that Scripps's all right. No discount on him. But it don't seem natural, that's all. Every one o' the companies except ours has a new man in command, and in ours Capt. McGillicuddy's voice has got a different ring to it than before Chickamaugy."
"Practicin' to command the battalion," suggested Shorty. "You know he'll be Major if McBiddle's made a full Kurnel."
"That reminds me," said Shorty, "that our squad o' recruits'll probably fill up the rijimint so's to give McBiddle his eagle. They'll be 'round presently to divide up the squad and assign 'em to companies. As all the companies is about equally strong, they'll divide 'em equally—that'll make six and one-half boys to each company. Capt. McGillicuddy bein' the senior Captain, is to have first choice. We want to pick out the best six and one-half for our company and put 'em in one squad at the right or left, and give the Captain the wink to choose 'em."
"If we do it's got to be done mighty slick," said Si. "They're all mighty good boys, and spunky. They'll all want to go with us, and if they find out we've made any choice they'll never forgive us. I'd a'most as soon have one six boys as another, yit if I had to pick out six I believe I'd take Harry Joslyn, Gid Mackall, Alf Russell, Monty Scruggs, Jim Humphreys and Sandy Baker."
"And Pete Skidmore," added Shorty. "We've got to take special care o' that little rat. Besides, I want to. Somehow I've took quite a fancy to the brat."
"Yes, we must take little Pete," assented Si. "The proportion's six and one-half to a company. He 'll pass for the half man. But it won't do to let him know it. He thinks he's as big as any man in the rijimint. But how're we goin' to fix it not to let the other boys know that we've picked 'em out?"
"I'll tell you what we'll do," said Shorty, the man of many wiles. "When the boys are drawed up in line and Capt. McGillicuddy goes down it to pick 'em out, you stand at attention, two paces in front, facin' 'em and lookin' as severe and impartial as a judge on the bench. I'll stand behind you with my leg against your'n, this way, and apparently fixing my gun-lock. When Cap comes in front o' one that we want, yo give me a little hunch with your leg, and I'll make the lock click."
"Splendid idee," said Si. "I'll go and post the Cap while you git the boys into line."
When Shorty returned to the squad he found them in feverish excitement about the distribution to the different companies. As he and Si had apprehended, all were exceedingly anxious to go with them into Co. Q, which Si and Shorty had unwittingly impressed upon them was the crack company of the regiment, and contained the very cream of the men. To be assigned to any other company seemed to them, if not an actual misfortune, a lack of good luck.
"Nonsense," Shorty replied to their eager entreaties; "all the companies in the 200th Injianny is good, prime, first-class—better'n the companies in ary other rijimint. You're playin' in great luck to git into any one o' 'em, I tell you. You might've got into one o' 'em rijimints that're back there at Nashville guardin' fortifications, or one o' 'em that lost their colors at Chickamaugy. I'd ruther be the tail end o' the 200th Injianny, than the Drum Major o' any other."
"That's all right," they shouted. "We're glad we're in the 200th Injianny, but we want to be in Co. Q."
"Well, you can't all be in Co. Q. Only six and one-half of you. The rest's got to go to other companies."
"Say, Corpril," spoke up Harry Joslyn, "you'll see that I git in, won't you? You know I shot that rebel at the burnt bridge."
"And didn't I shoot one, too?" put in Gid Mackall. "Just as much as you did. They want tall men in the company, don't they, Corpril? Not little runts."
"And didn't I watch the crossing down there at the burnt bridge?" pleaded Jim Humphreys.
"And git scared to death by a nigger huntin' coons," laughed the others.
"Who kept the rebel from gittin' back to the train and settin' it on fire, but me and Sandy Baker?" piped up little Pete Skidmore. "Who got lost, and nearly killed by a locomotive. Don't that count for nothin'?"
"Boys," said Shorty, leaning on his musket, and speaking with the utmost gravity, "this's a great military dooty and must be performed without fear, favor nor affection. I'd like to have you all in Co. Q, but this's a thing 'bout which I hain't got no say. There's a great many things in the army 'bout which a Corpril hain't as much inflooence as he orter have, as you'll find out later on. Here comes the Captain o' Co. Q, who, because o' his rank, has the first pick o' the recruits. He's never seen you before, and don't know one o' you from Adam's off-ox. He has his own ideas as to who he wants in the company, and what he says goes. It may be that the color o' your hair'll decide him, mebbe the look in your eyes, mebbe the shape o' your noses. 'Tention! Right dress! Front! Saloot!"
Capt. McGillicuddy came down at the head of the company officers of the regiment, and took a comprehensive survey of the squad.
"Fine-looking lot of youngsters," he remarked. "They'll make good soldiers."
"Every one o' them true-blue, all wool and a yard wide. Captain," said Si.
"You'll play fair, now, Captain, won't you, and choose for yourself?" said Capt. Scripps. "I've no doubt they're all good boys, but there's a choice in good boys, and that Sergeant of yours has learned where the choice is. You let him stay back, while you go down the line yourself."
"Certainly," replied Capt. McGillicuddy. "Serg't Klegg, stay where you are."
Si saluted and took his position, facing the line, with a look of calm impartiality upon his face. Shorty turned around and backed up to him so that the calves of their legs touched, and began intently studying his gunlock.
Capt. McGillicuddy stepped over to the right of the line stopped in front of Harry Joslyn and Gid Mackall. Shorty full-cocked his gun with two sharp clicks.
"You two step forward one pace," said Capt. McGillicuddy to the two radiant boys, who obeyed with a jump. The Captain walked on down the line, carefully scrutinizing each one, but did not stop until Shorty's gun clicked twice, when he was in front of Alf Russell and Monty Scruggs.
"Step forward one pace," he commanded.
He proceeded on down the line until he came in front of Jim Humphreys and Sandy Baker, when Shorty's gun clicked again.
"You two step forward one pace," he commanded. "Gentleman, I've got my six. The rest are yours."
"But you hain't got me. You've lost me," screamed Pete Skidmore, dismayed at being separated from Sandy Baker. Shorty's gun clicked again.
"I believe that there is a fraction of a half a man to be distributed around," the Captain said, turning to the other officers. "We agreed to draw cuts for that choice. But as that's the smallest boy in the lot I'll take him for my fraction. I think that's fair. Step forward, there, you boy on the left."
"All right Captain," laughed Capt. Scripps. "You've got the pick of the men, and I'm glad of it.
"I know you have, for I've been watching that Corporal of yours. I know him of old. I've played cards too often with Shorty not to keep my eye on him whenever he is around. I saw through that gun-lock trick."
"The trouble with you fellows," responded Capt. McGillicuddy, "is that you are constantly hunting around for some reason rather than the real one for Co. Q being always ahead of you. It isn't my fault that Co. Q is the best company in the regiment. It simply comes natural to the men that make up the company. You gentlemen divide up the rest among you, and then come down to the sutler's and we'll talk the matter over. Serg't Klegg, take these men down to the company and have the Orderly provide for them."
"Hello, awful glad to see you back—and you, too, Shorty," said the busy Orderly-Sergeant, speaking in his usual short, snappy sentences, without using any more words than absolutely necessary. "We need you. Short of non-commish. Two Sergeants off on detached duty and two Corporals in hospital. Being worked for all we're worth. Both of you look fine. Had a nice, long rest. In great shape for work. Pitch in, now, and help me. First, let's get the names of these kids on the roll. Humphreys—we've got two other Humphreys, so you'll answer to Humphreys, 3d.
"But I don't want to be with the Humphreys, sir," broke in Jim. "Me and Monty Scruggs—"
"Hold your tongue," said the Orderly sharply. "Don't interrupt me. If you speak when you're spoken to you'll do all the talking expected of you.
"Joslyn, you're after Jones, 3d. M—M—Mackall, you come after Lawrence."
"But you've put me after Joslyn," protested Gid. "He's never ahead of me."
"Shut up," answered the Orderly. "I do the talking for this company. Russell, Scruggs, Skidmore; there, I've got 'em all down. Si, go down toward Co. A and find Bill Stiles and walk him up to the guard-tent and leave him there to cool off. He's got his hide full of coffin varnish somewhere, and of course wants to settle an old score with that Co. A man, who'll likely knock his head off if he catches him. Shorty, go back there to the cook tent and shake up those cooks. Give it to them, for they're getting lazier every day. I want supper ready as soon's we come off dress parade. Here, you boys, trot along after me to the Quartermaster's tent, and draw your blankets, tents, haversacks and canteens. Shorty, as soon's you're through with the cooks, go to the left of the company and start to fixing up a place for these boys' tents. Si, get back as soon's you can, for I want you to take the squad down after rations. Then you'll have to relieve Jake Warder as Sergeant of the Guard, for Jake's hardly able to be around."
The Orderly strode off toward the Quartermaster's tent at such a pace that it gave the boys all they could do to keep up with him. Arriving there he called out sharply to the Quartermaster-Sergeant:
"Wes, give me seven blankets."
That official responded by tossing the required number, one after another, counting them as he did so. As the Orderly caught them he tossed them to the boys, calling their names. Gid Mackall happened to be looking at a battery of artillery when his name was called, and received the blanket on the back of his neck, knocking him over.
"'Tend to your business, there; don't be gawking around," said the Orderly sternly. "Now, Wes, seven halves of pup-tents."
These were tossed and counted the same way. Then followed canteens, haversacks and tin plates and cups.
"Now, boys, there's your kits. Give you your guns tomorrow. Hurry back to the company street and set up those tents on railroad time, for it's going to rain. Jump, now."
When they reached Shorty he hustled them around to pitch their tents, but he was not fast enough to please the Orderly, who presently appeared, with the remark:
"Cesar's ghost. Shorty, how slow you are. Are you going to be all night getting up two or three tents? Get a move on you, now, for there's a rain coming up, and besides I want you for something else as soon's you're through with this?"
"Who is that man, Corpril?" asked Monty Scruggs, as the Orderly left.
"That's the Orderly-Sergeant of Co. Q."
"Orderly-Sergeant?" repeated Monty dubiously. "Who's he? I've heard of Captains, Majors, Colonels and Generals, but never of Orderly-Sergeants, and yit he seems to be bigger'n all of 'em. He has more to say, and does more orderin' around than all of 'em put together. He even orders you and Sarjint Klegg. Is he the biggest man in the army?"
"Well, SO far's you're concerned and to all general purposes he is. You needn't pay no partickler attention as a rule to nobody else, but when the Orderly speaks, you jump, and the quicker you jump the better it'll be for you. He don't draw as much salary, nor put on as many frills as the bigger fellers, but you hain't nothin' to do with that. You kin find fault with the Captain, criticize the Kurnel, and lampoon the General, but you don't want to give the Orderly no slack. He's not to be fooled with. Russell, run up there and snatch that spade to dig ditches around these tents."
"When I enlisted," Monty confided to Alf Russell, "I thought I'd do my best to become a Captain or a General. Now, I'm dead anxious to be an Orderly-Sarjint."
BY the time Shorty had gotten the boys fairly tented, he was ordered to take a squad and guard some stores at the Division Quartermaster's. Si, instead of going on camp-guard, had to go out to the grand guard. When he came back the next morning the Orderly-Sergeant said to him:
"See here, Si, you've got to take that squad of kids you brung into your particular charge, and lick 'em into shape. They need an awful sight of it, and I hain't got any time to give 'em. I've something else to do besides teaching an infant class. I never was good at bringing children up by hand, anyway. I ain't built that way. I want you to go for them young roosters at once, and get 'em into shape in short meter. Marching orders may come any day, and then we want everybody up and dressed. There'll be no time for foolishness. Those dratted little rats were all over camp last night, and into more kinds of devilment than so many pet crows. I've been hearing about nothing else this morning."
"Why," said Si, "I supposed that they was too tired to do anything but lay down and go to sleep. What'd they do?"
"Better ask what they didn't do," replied the Orderly. "They done everything that a passel o' impish school boys could think of, and what they couldn't think of them smart Alecks down in the company put 'em up to. I'm going to put some o' them smarties through a course o' sprouts. I like to see boys in good spirits, and I can enjoy a joke with the next man, but there's such a thing as being too funny. I think a few hours o' extry fatigue duty will reduce their fever for fun."
"Why, what'd they do?" repeated Si.
"Well, in the first place, they got that Joslyn and Mackall to mark a big number 79 on their tents, and then put the same, with their names, on a sheet of paper, and take it up to the Captain's tent.
"The Captain was having a life-and-death rassle with Cap Summerville over their eternal chess, when he's crosser'n two sticks, and liable to snap your head off if you interrupt him. 'Hello, what do you want? What's this?' says he, taking the paper."
"'Them's our names and addresses,' says the brats, cool as cucumbers. Thought we ought to give 'em to you, so's you'd know where to find us, in case you wanted us in a hurry, say, at night.'
"The blazes it is,' says Cap, and Cap Summerville roared. 'You get back to your quarters quick as you can run. Don't worry about my not finding you when I want you. It's my business to find you, and I've got men to help me do it. I'll find you sometime in a way that'll make your hair stand up. Get out, now, and never come around my tent with any such blamed nonsense as that.'
"And Cap Somerville took advantage of the break to snap up Cap's queen, which made him hotter'n ever.
"When the boys got back they found them smart Alecks, Bob Walsh and Andy Sweeney, waiting for 'em, and they consoled 'em, saying, That's just the way with that old bull-head. Never'll take no good advice from nobody about running' the company. Thinks he knows it all. You see how he runs the company. He haint got the addresses o' half his men this minnit, and don't know where they are. That's the reason so many o' our letters from home, and the good things they send us, never reach us. He ought to keep a regler directory, same as in the other companies.'"
"Then some o' them smarties found out that Scruggs was stuck on his spouting. Seems that he was the star declaimer in his school. They laid it in to him that I was soft on hearing poetry spouted, especially after night, when the moon was up, and everything quiet in camp, and that I was particularly tender on 'Bingen on the Rhine.' You know that if there is anything I'm dead sore on it's that sniveling rot. There used to be a pasty-faced boy in school that'd wail that out, and set all the girls to bawling. Then they gave us an entertainment just before we left, and all the girls were there, and Pasty-Face he must be the star attraction. He wailed out his condemned old There-was-a-soldier-of-the Legion—laying-i-n-Algiers, and all the girls looked at us as if we were already dead, and they'd better look out for new beaux. My own particular geranium did not lose any time, but married another feller before we got to Stone River. That made me hate the blasted caterwaul worse'n ever. Then that white-eyed, moon-struck Alfonso used to be yowling it at every chance, until he went to the hospital, and he got all the rest so that they were sputtering rags and tags of it. But I've been sorer than a bile on the condemned sick calfishness ever since I brung my chum Jim Bridgewater off the field at Chickamauga, and watched him die as the moon rose, back there at McFarland Gap. Well, what do these smarties do but fill up Scruggs with the idea that the best way to make himself forever solid with me was to stroll down close to my tent and casually let off 'Bingen on the Rhine' in his best style. I'd just got down to work on them pesky pay-rolls, having kept Monaghan two days in the guard-house, so's to be sure that he'd be sober enough to help me—and you know Monaghan's lightning with the pen when he's sober—when that possessed sap-sucker Scruggs began blatting out 'Bingen on the Rhine' till you could hear him down to the Colonel's quarters. It made me so mad that I knocked over the ink as I jumped up, and spoiled the triplicate rolls that we'd got about half made out. I snatched up a club to simply mash the bawling brat, but they got him away before I could reach 'im. They explained to Scruggs afterward that I was subject to fits whenever the moon was in her last quarter, and they'd forgotten to look at the almanac that evening. O, but I'll soak 'em for that yet."
"Trouble is," said Si, laughing, "the boys've bin layin' around doin' nothin' too long. They're fuller o' devilment than a dog is of fleas."
"But I haint told you half," continued the Orderly-Sergeant. "Them smarties were quick to find out that Alf Russell and Jim Humphreys leaned strongly toward religion, and they filled 'em with the idea that Cap McGillicuddy was a very devout man, and held family devotions every evening in his tent, in which his company joined."
"Great goodness," gasped Si. "They never heard Cap's remarks when we balked on a right wheel in company column."
"Well," continued the Orderly, "Cap had been waxed by Cap Summerville two games hand-running, and they were nip-and-tuck on the third, and just as impatient and cross as they always are when they're neck-and-neck in the last heat. The tent-flap raised, and in walked Russell and Humphreys soft and quietlike, as if they were going into the sitting-room for evening prayers. They had their caps in their hands, and didn't say anything but brushed their hair back and took their seats in the first place they could find, which happened to be Cap's cot. Cap didn't notice 'em till after Cap Summerville had caught his queen and then checkmated him in two moves. You know how redhot Cap gets when he loses a game of chess, particularly to Cap Summerville, who rubs it in on him without mercy.
"Cap looked at the boys in astonishment, and then snapped out: 'Well, what do you boys want?' 'We've just come in for evening prayers,' says they, mild as skimmed milk. 'Evening what?' roared the Cap. 'Evening prayers,' says they. 'Don't you have family devotion every evening? Cap Summerville couldn't hold in any longer, and just roared, and the fellers outside, who'd had their ears against the canvas listening to every word, they roared too. Cap was madder'n a July hornet, and cussed till the ridgepole shook. Then he took the two boys by the ears and marched 'em out and says: 'You two brats go back to your tents and stay there. When I want you to come to my tent I'll send for you, and you'll wish I hadn't. You'll do praying enough if you're on hand when the church call's sounded. You'll be mightily different from the rest of my company if you don't prefer going on guard to church. Get, now!'"
"Now the Captain oughtn't to say that about the company," protested Si. "I for one go to church every chance I get."
"O, yes, you do," sneered the Orderly-Sergeant. "Who was it, I'd like to know, that sent word back to the boys in the rear to steal the Chaplain's horse, and keep him hid for a day or two so's he couldn't get up and hold services, because you boys wanted to go fishing in the Tennessee River?"
"Yes, I did," Si confessed; "but it was because the boys begged me to. We'd just got there, and it looked as if the biting was good, and we probably wouldn't stay there longer'n over Sunday."
"Well, I ain't done yet," continued the Orderly-Sergeant. "That little snipe, Pete Skidmore—"
"Good gracious, he wasn't lost again, was he?" gasped Si.
"That's just what he was, the little runt, and we had the devil's own time finding him. What in Sam Hill did the Captain take him for, I'd like to know? Co. Q aint no nursery. Well, the bugler up at Brigade Headquarters blowed some sort of a call, and Skidmore wanted to know what it meant. They told him that it was an order for the youngest man in each company to come up there and get some milk for his coffee tomorrow morning, and butter for his bread. There was only enough issued for the youngest boys, and if he wanted his share he'd have to get a big hustle on him, for the feller whose nose he'd put out o' joint 'd try hard to get there ahead o' him, and get his share. So Skidmore went off at a dead run toward the sound of the bugle, with the boys looking after him and snickering. But he didn't come back at roll-call, nor at tattoo, and the smart Alecks begun to get scared, and abuse each other for setting up a job on a poor, innocent little boy. Osc Brewster and Ol Perry, who had been foremost in the trick had a fight as to which had been to blame. Taps come, and he didn't get back, and then we all became scared. I'd sent Jim Hunter over to Brigade Headquarters to look for him, but he came back, and said they hadn't seen anything of him there. Then I turned out the whole company to look for him. Of course, them too-awfully smart galoots of Co. A had to get very funny over our trouble. They asked why we didn't get the right kind of nurses for our company, that wouldn't let the members stray out of their sight? Why we didn't call the children in when the chickens went to roost, undress 'em, and tuck 'em in their little beds, and sing to 'em after they'd said 'Now I lay me down to sleep?' I stood it all until that big, hulking Pete Nasmith came down with a camp-kettle, which he was making ring like a bell, as he yelled out, 'Child lost! Child lost!' Behind him was Tub Rawlings singing, 'Empty's the cradle, baby's gone.' Then I pulled off my blouse and slung it into my tent, and told 'em there went my chevrons, and I was simply Scott Ralston, and able to lick any man in Co. A. One o' their Lieutenants came out and ordered them back to their quarters, and I deployed the company in a skirmish-line, and started 'em through the brush toward Brigade Headquarters. About three-quarters o' the way Osc Brewster and Ol Perry, when going through a thicket, heard a boy boo-hooing. They made their way to him, and there was little Skidmore sitting on a stump, completely confused and fagged out. He'd lost his way, and the more he tried to find it the worse he got turned around. They called out to him, and he blubbered out: 'Yes, it's me; little Pete Skidmore. Them doddurned fools in my company 've lost me, just as I've bin tellin' 'em right along they would, durn 'em.' Osc and Ol were so tickled at finding him that they gathered him up, and come whooping back to camp, carrying him every step of the way."
"Well, I declare to gracious," ejaculated Si. "But there's one left yet. Didn't anything happen to Sandy Baker?"
"O, yes," groaned the Orderly. "He had to be in it, too. He took advantage of the tumult to fall into the company well. We didn't know anything about it till we come back from hunting Skidmore. By that time he was so chilled that he could hardly holler any more, and his teeth chattered like a nigger minstrel's bones. I'd got a can of brandied peaches down at the sutler's, and it took all the brandy to bring him around, and I had nothing left but the peaches. Now, while I like a little variety in camp-life as well as the next man, I don't want no more ructions like last night's. I'll put you in charge of those kids, and hold you responsible for 'em. I don't care what you do with 'em, so long's you keep 'em quiet, and don't disturb the company. Kill 'em, if you want to, but keep 'em quiet. I've got to finish up them pay-rolls tonight."
"You bet me and Shorty'll stop these smart Alecks from imposin' on the poor little greenies," asserted Si.
"I GUESS," thought Si, as he left the Orderly-Sergeant, and walked down the company street to the left, "that the best way to begin is to get them little whelps into an awkward squad, and give 'em an hour or two o' sharp drillin'. That'll introduce 'em to the realities o' soljerin'."
It was a warm, bright March day, with the North Georgia mountains rapidly robing themselves in fresh green, to welcome the coming Spring. The effervescent boys had entirely forgotten the worries of the previous night, and were frolicking in the bright sunshine as if "out-at-recess" from school.
Mackall, Joslyn, Humphreys and Baker had gotten hold of a ball, and were having a game of "two-cornered cat," with noise enough for a whole school play-ground. Russell and Scruggs were running a foot-race, for the entertainment of a squad of cooks and teamsters, and little Pete Skidmore was giving an exhibition before the same audience of his ability to stand on his head, and turn somersaults.
"Little thought they have of the seriousness of war," thought Si, with a shrug of his shoulders, as he yelled out:
"Come, boys, fall in here."
When the boys had first come under Si's command they regarded him as one of the greatest men in the army. In their shadowy notions of military matters they rather thought that he stood next to the great Generals whose names filled all mouths. These ideas had been toppled into dust by their arrival in camp, and seeing so many different men order him around. They felt ashamed of themselves that they had ever mistaken him for a great man, and put him up on a pedestal. That is the way with boys. They resent nothing more sharply than the thought of their having been deceived into honoring somebody or something unworthy of honor. They can stand anything better than a reflection upon their shrewdness and judgment.
"Hear Klegg a-calling?" said Joslyn, pausing for an instant, with the ball in his hand.
"Let him call," said Mackall, indifferently, finishing his run to base. "He ain't big boss no more. He's only the lowest Sergeant in the company. Throw the ball, Harry. You must do better'n you've been doing. We're getting away with you."
"Fall in here, boys, I tell you," said Si so sternly that Pete Skidmore stopped in his handspring, but seeing the bigger boys making no move to obey, decided that it would be improper for him to show any signs of weakness, and he executed his flip-flap.
"Here, you're out, Gid. Gi' me the bat," shouted Harry Joslyn, as he caught the ball which Mackall had vainly struck at.
Si strode over to the group, snatched the bat from Harry's hand, spanked him with it, and started for the others of the group.
"Say, you musn't hit that boy," exclaimed Gid, jumping on Si's back. Gid was as ready to fight for Harry as to fight with him. The others rushed up, school boy like, to defend their companion against "the man," and little Pete Skidmore picked up a stone and adjusted it for throwing.
"Why, you little scamps you," gasped Si in amazement. "What'd you mean? Ain't you goin' to obey my orders?"
"You haint no right to give us orders no more," asserted Humphreys, flourishing his bat defiantly. "You're only an enlisted man, same as the rest o' us. They told us so, last night, and that we mustn't let you impose on us, as you'd bin doin'. Only the Captain and the Colonel command us. We've bin posted. And if you dare hit any o' us we'll all jump on you and maul your head offen you."
The rest looked approval of Jim's brave words.
"We're goin' to strike for our altars and our fires. Strike for the green graves of our sires. God and our native land," declaimed Monty Scruggs.
The waspish little mutiny was so amusing that Si had to smile in spite of himself. With a quick, unexpected movement he snatched the bat from Jim Humphreys' hand, and said good-humoredly:
"Now, boys, you mustn't make fools of yourselves agin'. Stop this nonsense at once, I tell you. I'm just as much your commandin' officer as I ever was."
"How can you be a commanding officer, when everybody else bosses you about?" persisted the argumentative Monty Scruggs. "Everybody that comes near you orders you around, just the same as you used to us, and you mind 'em. That ain't no way for a commanding officer. We don't want anybody bossing us that everybody else bosses."
"Well, that's the way o' the army," Si explained patiently, "and you've got to git used to it. 'Most everybody bosses somebody else. The President tells Gen. Grant what he wants done. Gen. Grant orders Gen, Thomas to do it. Gen. Thomas orders a Major-General. The Major-General orders a Brigadier-General. The Brigadier-General orders our Colonel. Our Colonel orders Cap McGillicuddy. Cap McGillicuddy orders the Orderly-Sarjint, the Orderly-Sarjint orders me, and I command you."
"Why, it's worse'n 'The-House-That-Jack-Built,'" said Monty Scruggs.
"Well, you needn't learn all of it," said Si. "It's enough for you to know that I command you. That's the A B C of the business, and all you need know. A man in the army gits into trouble offen by knowin' too much. You git it well into your craws that I command you, and that you've got to do just as I say, and I'll do the rest o' the knowin' that you need.—"
"But how're we to know that you're right every time," argued Monty Scruggs.
"Well," explained the patient Si, "if you've any doubts, go to the Orderly-Sarjint. If he don't satisfy you, go to the Captain. If you have doubts about him, carry it to the Colonel. If you're still in doubt, refer it to the Brigadier-General, then to the Major-General, to Gen. Thomas, Gen. Grant, and lastly to the President of the United States."
"Great goodness!" they gasped.
"But the less you bother your heads with Captains and Curnels and Generals the better you'll git along. The feller that's right over you—in arm's length o' you all the time—is the feller that you've got to look out for sharply. I'm him. Now I want you to form in two ranks quicker'n scat, and 'tend to business. I'm goin' to drill you. Gid Mackall, take your place there. Harry Joslyn, stand behind him."
The old squabbles as to precedence immediately broke out between Gid and Harry, which Si impatiently ended by snatching Harry by the collar and yanking him behind Gid, with the wrathful Harry protesting that he intended carrying the matter up through the whole military hierarchy, even to the President of the United States, if necessary. He did not come into the army to be run over.
"You came into the army to do just as I tell you, and you'll do it. Silence in the ranks," commanded Si. "Humphreys, stand next to Mackall. Scruggs, stand behind Humphreys."
"Why do you put one man behind another?" queried Monty Scruggs. "I don't think that's right.—Jim's big head'll be forever in my way, so's I can't see anything. Why don't you put us out in one line, like a class in school? Then everybody's got the same show."
"I didn't make the tactics. Git into your places," snapped Si.
"Well, I don't think much of a teacher that can't explain what he's teaching," mumbled Monty, as he reluctantly obeyed.
"Now, Russell, stand next to Humphreys; Baker, stand behind Russell; Skidmore, stand next to Russell."
"Goody, I'm in the front rank," giggled little Pete, and Harry Joslyn looked as if here was another case of favoritism that he would have to call the President's attention to.
"Now," commanded Si, "put your heels together, turn your toes out, stand erect, draw your stomachs in—"
"Look here, Jim Humphreys," grumbled Monty Scruggs, "when he told you to draw your stomach in he didn't mean for you to stick your hips out till you bumped me over into the next Township. I've got to have room to stand here, as well as you."
"Silence in the ranks," commanded Si. "Draw your stomachs in, put your little fingers down to the seams of your pantaloons—"
"You mean the middle finger, don't you?" queried Monty Scruggs. "That's more natural way of standing."
"No, I mean the little finger," asserted Si.
"But the middle finger is more natural," persisted Monty. "You can't stand straight with your little finger at the seam. See here."
"Scruggs, do as I say, without no words," said Si, and then Monty's face took on an expression of determination to carry the matter to a higher court.
"Now, keep your faces straight to the front, and at the command 'Right dress!' turn your eyes, without moving your heads, until you kin see the buttons on the breast of the second man to the right. 'Right dress!'"
"There's no man on my right for me to look toward. What 'm I to do?" complained Gid Mackall.
"There, you see what come o' putting him in front," exulted Harry Joslyn. "Now, if I'd bin—"
"Say, I can't see up to Jim Humphreys' big breast without twistin' my neck nearly off," murmured little Pete Skidmore. "Can't you make him scrooch a little? Jest see him swell up."
"What's the use o' linin' on a feller that can't stand still a second?" complained the others.
"Great Scott, what a line," groaned Si, walking along, shoving the boys back, and twisting them around, to get them straight. "Crooked as a pumpkin vine in a cornfield. Here, I told you not to turn your heads, but only your eyes. If you snipes wouldn't gab so much, but listen to what I say, you'd git along better. Silence in ranks. Now, try it over again. Faces straight to the front. Eyes cast to the right, until they catch the buttons on the breast of the second man. Right dress!"
"Great grief," sighed he, looking at the result. "You wriggle about like so many eels. Might as well try to line up so many kittens. Won't you straighten Up and keep straight?" Then came a renewal of the noisy discussion, with mutual blaming of one another.
Si picked up a stick and drew a line in the ground. "Now bring your toes to that line, and keep 'em there."
"Shall we take that scratch along with us as we march, or will you draw another one for us as we need it?" Monty Scruggs asked, at which the other boys laughed, which did not improve Si's temper. It was long, hard work before he got the restless, talkative young fellows so that they would form a fairly straight line, and maintain it for a minute or two.
He looked at them, wiped his perspiring brow, and remarked internally:
"Well, I thought them was bright boys, that it'd be no trouble to drill. I'd ruther break in the stoonidest lot o' hayseeds that ever breathed, rather than boys that think they know more'n I do. Now I'm goin' to have the time o' my life learnin' 'em the right face."
He began the explanation of that complicated manuver:
"Now, I want every one o' you to stop talkin', gether up them scatter-fire brains o' your'n, and pay strict 'tention to every word I say—"
"Harry Joslyn," broke in Gid, "if you tramp on my heels just one more time, I'll knock your head off. I've told you often enough."
"Well, you just keep off en my toes with them rockgrinders o' your'n," Harry retorted.
"Silence in ranks," commanded Si. "Each rank will count twos."
"What are twos? Where are they, and how many of 'em do you want us to count?" asked Monty Scruggs, at which the other boys snickered. They were getting very tired of the drill, and in the humor to nag and balk the drillmaster. Si lost a trifle of his temper, and said:
"You're too all-fired smart with your tongue, Scruggs. If you were only half as smart learnin' your business—"
"Sergeant," said one of the Lieutenants who happened to be passing, "keep your temper. You'll get along better. Don't squabble with your men."
This made the boys much worse.
"What I mean by countin' twos," explained Si, "is that the man on the right in each rank shall count one, the next one, two; the next one, one and so on. Count twos!"
They made such an exasperating muddle of it, that Si almost had a fit. The cooks, teamsters and other hangers-on saw the trouble and came flocking around with all manner of jesting remarks and laughter, which strained Si's temper to the utmost, and encouraged the boys in their perversity. Si curbed himself down, and laboriously exemplified the manner of counting until the boys had no excuse for not understanding it.
"Now, said he, at the command 'Right face,' the No. 1 man in the front rank faces to the right and stand fast—"
"What do the rest of us do?" they chorused.
"The rest o' you chase yourselves around him," said a humorist among the cooks, while the others laughed uproariously.
"Shut up, you pot-wrastlers," said Si wrathfully. "If I hear another word from you, I'll light into you with a club. Now you brats—"
"Sergeant," admonished the Lieutenant, "you mustn't use such language to your men."
This made Si angrier, and the boys more cantankerous. Si controlled himself to go on with his explanations in a calm tone:
"No 1 in the front rank will face to the right, and stand fast, and take a side step to the right. Each No. 2 will face to the right, and take on oblique side step to the right to place himself on the right hand of his No. 1 man."
"Say that all again, Sergeant," asked Monty Scruggs.
Si patiently repeated the explanation.
"Now sing it to the tune of 'When this Cruel War is Over,' called out the cook-humorist.
"Right face," commanded Si.
A roar went up from the camp-follower audience at the hopeless tangle which ensued. No two of the boys seemed to have done the same thing. Several had turned to the left, and all were sprinting around in various ways in a more or less genuine pretense of executing the order. Meanwhile the news that Si's squad of recruits were having fun with him spread through the camp, and a crowd gathered to watch the performance and give their jeering advice in that characteristic soldierly way when they see a comrade wrestling with a perplexing job.
"Git a bushel basket, and gather 'em up in it."
"Tie straw around their left feet, and hay around their right ones, so's they'll know 'em."
"Back 'em up agin' a rail fence and git 'em into line;" were among the freely offered suggestions. Si was sweating all over, and so angry that he had to stolidly bite his words off, one at a time, to keep from showing his temper. To add to his troubles, he saw the Colonel, of whom he stood in proper awe, become interested in the crowd and the shouting, and stroll down from his tent to see what the excitement was.
"As you were," Si commanded, steadying his voice with a great effort. "Every one of you git back as I placed you. Right dress!"
To his wonderment they formed as good a line as veterans could have done. They heard a whisper that the Colonel was coming, and it sobered them.
"Right face!" commanded Si.
They all faced to the right and stepped into their places without an error.
"Front!" commanded Si, and they returned to two ranks.
"Ah, Sergeant," said the Colonel, kindly, as he made his way through the respectfully opened, saluting crowd. "Giving your men their first drill, are you? Well, you are getting along remarkably well for recruits. I saw that last movement, and it was very well done, indeed. You've got some very nice-looking boys there, and I think they'll be a credit to the regiment."
"Saved by the skin o' my teeth," gasped Si to himself, as the Colonel strolled on. "Now, you young roosters, I see that you kin do it whenever you want to, and you've got to want to after this. A boy that don't want to I'll take down to the branch there, and hold his head under water till he does want to. I'm goin' to stay with you until you learn the drill dead letter perfect. You can't git rid of me. You'll save trouble by rememberin' that. Now we'll go back for supper. Right face—forward—file left—March!"
AFTER the flush of excitement of returning to his old regiment and meeting his comrades—after the process of readjusting himself to the changed relations made by death, wounds, discharges, resignations and promotions—after the days had brought a settling back into the old routine of camp-life, there developed in Shorty's heart growing homesickness for Maria Klegg.
At least that was what it seemed to him. He did not exactly know what homesickness was from personal experience, as he had never really had a home. But he had seen thousands of boys more or less affected by that obscure but stubborn and dangerous malady, and had noted their symptoms, which strongly resembled his own.
Somehow, the sun only shone with real brightness and warmth over the pleasant homes and fertile fields of Posey County, Ind. Somehow, women had a fairness and sweetness there denied to their sex elsewhere, and somehow the flower of them all was a buxom maiden of 20 dwelling under the roof of Deacon Klegg.
Shorty appreciated very properly the dignity and responsibilities of his two stripes. He was going to be the model Corporal of the regiment, and give all the rest a copy which they could follow to advantage. Of all the Corporals he had ever known, Si Klegg had come nearest his ideas as to what a Corporal should be, but even Si had his limitations. He would show him some improvements. So shorty bent his mind upon the performance of everything pertaining to the Corporalcy with promptness and zeal. He even set to studying the Regulations and Tactics—at least those paragraphs relating to Corporals and their duties—where heretofore he had despised "book-soldiering," and relied on quick observation and "horse sense" to teach him all that was worth knowing. But his stay in the Deacon's home showed him that they esteemed "book-knowledge" even in common things as of much value, and he began to have a new respect for that source of instruction.
Even through the pressure of official duties and responsibilities there would steal, like the wafting of a sweet song to the ears of the reapers in a hot field, thoughts of the coolness, the beauty and the peace of that quiet home on the Wabash, with one flower-faced girl, with white, soft arms, going about her daily tasks, singing with such blithe cheeriness that even the birds stopped to listen to a sweeter note than theirs. Some subtle fragrance from her seemed to be with him wherever he was, and whatever he might be doing. When, as the tallest Corporal in Co. Q, he stood on the right of the company, on drill and dress parade, and made the others "dress" on him, he wished that Maria Klegg could only see how straight the line was, and how soldierly the boys looked. When the Colonel personally selected him to command the squad which was to escort the Paymaster through a dangerous part of the country, he would have given much had Maria known of the trust reposed in him. And when, as Corporal of the Guard, he suppressed in his usual summary way a noisy row among the teamsters and cooks, he was very glad that Maria did not hear the remarks that a Corporal always thinks necessary to make on such occasions. Shorty did not swear with the fluent ease of before his visit to the Klegg homestead, but a little excitement gave the old looseness to his tongue. And when he sat around the guard-fire, he would refuse to be drawn into any "little games," but turn his back upon the chattering crowd, and furtively draw from his breast-pocket the remnant of Maria's dress, and feel it, and muse over it, until aroused by the call:
"Corporal of the Guard, Post No. 14. I want a drink o' water."
Shorty began to watch for Si's mail a good deal more anxiously than that worthy did. He managed to go by the Chaplain's tent whenever duty took him in that part of the camp, and sometimes when it did not, and inquire if there was any mail there for Si. One day he was rewarded by the Chaplain handing him two letters. His heart beat a little quicker by seeing that they were both postmarked Bean Blossom Creek. The smaller—a white envelope, superscribed in Annabel's cramped little hand—he thrust indifferently into his pocket, and the larger—a fat, yellow envelope, covered with the good Deacon's massive crow-tracks, and securely fastened by a dab of sealing wax, pressed down with a cent—he studied with tender interest. It had come directly from her home—from her father. It probably told something about her.
It seemed as if there was something of the perfume of her presence about it. Possibly she had carried it to the station and mailed it. He turned it over gently, studied every detail, and fixed his eyes upon it, as if he would make them pierce the thick, strong paper and devour the contents. Then it occurred to him that the better and quicker way to get at the inside would be to deliver the letters to Si. So he hunted up his partner, whom he found about to take his squad out for a turn at wagon guarding.
Si looked pleased as he recognized his father's letter, but his face flushed to the roots of his sandy hair at the sight of Annabel's. He put the latter carefully in his pocket. It was too sweet and sacred a thing to be opened and read under the gaze of any one else's eyes. He broke open his father's and as his eyes traveled slowly down the large foolscap pages, covered with the Deacon's full-grown characters, for the Deacon made his letters as he liked his stock—big and full—he said:
"They're all well at home, but mother's had a tech of her old rheumatiz. Pap's sold his wheat at a dollar and four bits. Peaches about half killed. Had good luck with his lambs. Wheat's lookin' unusually well. Beck Spangler's married Josh Wilson, whose wife died last Fall, leavin' him two little children. Brindle cow's come in fresh, with a nice calf, quarter Jersey. Copperhead's gittin' sassy agin. Holdin' night meetin's and wearin' butternut badges, and talkin' about resistin' draft. Hogs wintered well, and looks as if Pap'd have a nice drove to sell in the Fall. Pap'll put in 'bout 90 acres o' corn, and'll have to hustle his plowin' ez soon's the ground's fit. Little Sammy Woggles had a fight with Beecham's boy, who's six months older, and licked him. Sammy likes school better now than he did. Pap's bought Abraham Lincoln a new suit o' store clothes and the girls have made him some white shirts. He goes to church every Sunday now, and carries a cane. Pap sends his regards to you, Shorty, and mother and the girls want to be kindly remembered. There, take the letter, Shorty, and read it for yourself. I've got to skip out with my squad."
Shorty took the letter with eagerness, and retired to a nook to read it all over carefully, and see if he could not mayhap glean out of it something more relating to Her. But the main satisfaction was in reading again and again "Mother and the girls want to be kindly remembered to Shorty."
"Not uncomfortably warm, and purty general, like the gal who promised to be a sister to the hull rijimint," mused Shorty, as he refolded the letter and replaced it in the envelope. "But, then, it is better to be kindly remembered by sich people as them than to be slobbered over by anybody else in the world. Wisht I knowed jest how much o' the kind remembrance was Maria's, and if it differed in any way from her mother's and sister's?"
The next evening the Orderly-Sergeant handed Shorty a badly-thumb-marked and blotted yellow envelope, on which was scrawled in a very schoolish hand:
"To Mister Corpril Elliott,
"Co. Q, Two Hundred Injianny
Volintears,
"Chattynoogy, 10-S-E."
Opening it he read:
Mister Shortee
U ar a Frawd!!! That's what U ar!!!
Whairz mi Gunn??????
U ar a long-shanked, brick-topt Frawd & a promisbraker!!!
Whairz mi Gunn???
U hav now bin away a hole month, & I haint seen no Gunn!
Awl the boiz is makin fun ov Me, bekaws I blowed around bout
the Gunn I waz going 2 git, & I didn't git none.
Whairz mi Gunn???
I likked Ans. Beechum till he hollered nuff, for teezin Me
bout mi Gunn. That's quiled the other boiz.
But I want mi Gunn!
I have just lots & Gobs 2 tell U, bout what Maria's bin
sayin bout yore saffron head, but I shant write a word till
I git mi Gunn!
I wont tell U how the girls is pleggin her bout her Big
Sunflower till I git mi Gunn!
If U doant send mi Gunn rite off He tel Maria everything I
no.
I tel U now. He spile yore fun
Onless at once U send mi Gunn.
Yores til deth,
SAMUEL WOGGLES.
The reception of this perturbed Shorty to his depths. He had not forgotten his promise to Sammy—merely postponed its execution under the pressure of other engrossments. He reproached himself for not remembering how eagerly the boy had been looking forward to a possession which would make him the envy of the other boys—really hated by them for his towering and undeserved fortune.
"And Maria and the girls is talkin' about me," he communed with himself. "I knowed that my left ear hadn't bin burnin' ever since we crossed the Ohio River for nothin'. I thought it was because it'd got so tender layin' on pillers that the blankets chafed it. Now I understand it. And I can't hear nothin' of what they've bin sayin' till I git that gun to Sammy. I'll start it to him this day, if it takes a leg. I'd intended to go over to the camp o' the Maumee Muskrats today, on a missionary, tower with them new tricks I brung back with me, but I'll put in the time gittin' Sammy's gun and shippin' it to him. Wonder where I kin pick up a rebel musket and trimmins'?" Shorty did not find this so easy as he had anticipated. Generally, rebel guns had been a drug in the market. They could be found lying around camp almost anywhere, and were used for any purpose to which they could be applied—poles to hang kettles on over the fire, tent-sticks, revetments to hold the dirt back, or any other use. But under the rigid system now prevailing in Sherman's camps everything had to be accounted for, and every gun sufficiently serviceable to be worth sending to Sammy had been gathered up and stored away in a large shed. Shorty went down there and scrutinized the armory. There were plenty of guns in there, any one of which would make Sammy's heart leap for joy, and render him the object of the burning envy of all the boys for miles around. But there were guards pacing around, and they looked watchful. Still, if the night were dark he might slip in and steal one. But somehow since he had known Maria there had risen in his mind a repugnance to that way of procuring things. It was not in accordance with Klegg ideas. He sat down and pondered on other methods. He went over and talked to the Sergeant in charge, an old acquaintance, but the Sergeant was obdurate.
"No, sir. Can't let one of 'em go on no account," said the Sergeant firmly. "My Captain's in charge of 'em, and he's put me in charge. He knows he can trust me, and I know that he can. He don't know how many guns and bayonets and cartridge-boxes there are, but I do, for I counted them first thing when I come on. I don't propose that he shall have to have any shortage charged against him when he comes to settle his accounts. I don't know whether they've got an account of the things at Headquarters, but they're likely to have, and I'm not taking any risks. I'm looking out for my Captain."
"But suppose I pay you the value of the blamed old blunderbuss," said Shorty, as a desperate resort, for it was the first time that he had ever thought of a rebel gun having a money value.
"I wouldn't take it," replied the Sergeant. "First place, I haint no idea what they're worth. Next place, if I had, I wouldn't take it, for I don't want any shortage in Cap's accounts. Thirdly, if I took the money I'd like as not set into a game o' poker tonight and lose it, and then where'd I be, and where'd Cap be? I've been having monstrous hard luck at poker lately."
"That's because you ain't up to the latest kinks," said Shorty, hopefully. "I've been back to the rear—just come from Jeffersonville—and I've got on to a lot of new dodges. I'll show 'em all to you for one o' them guns."
The waver in the Sergeant's face showed the temptation was a trying one, but he answered firmly:
"No; I won't do it."
"I'll put up a $10 bill agin one o' the guns, play you two out o' three for it, learn you the tricks, and give you back the money if I win," said Shorty desperately.
Again the Sergeant's face showed great irresolution, but again his fidelity triumphed, and he answered firmly, "No I won't." Then he softened his refusal by saying:
"Come, Shorty, walk over a little way with me. I know where we can get something good."
After they had shared a tincupful of applejack that a teamster supplied them the Sergeant's heart thawed out a little.
"I tell you. Shorty, there's a gun in there that'd just tickle your boy to death. It's an Enfield, new one, and has a Yankee bullet sticking in the butt. Must've knocked the Johnny a double somersault when it struck. I've been thinkin' sending it home myself. But I'll let you have it, and I'll tell you how you can get it. See that camp over there? Well, that's a regiment being organized out o' Tennessee refugees. They and their officers are the carelessest lot of galoots that ever lived. Their Quartermaster stores and their Commissary stores, and everything they have is allowed to lie around loose, just wherever they get the notion to drop them. I've had my eye on 'em for several days, and've helped several of my friends to straighten up their company accounts, and replace things that they'd lost. You just waltz over there, careless like, as if you belonged to the regiment, pick up a gun and traps, put 'em on, and sail back here, and I'll turn your things in, and give you that gun with the bullet in the stock in exchange."
Shorty lost no time in acting on the advice. That afternoon the express from Chattanooga carried a gun to Sammy Woggles, the contemplation of which deprived that youth of sleep the night after he received it, and won him the cordial hatred of every boy in his neighborhood for his overweening pride.
But after the gun was gone, and after Shorty had written a laborious letter, informing Sammy of the shipment of the gun and its history, which letter inclosed a crisp greenback, and was almost as urgent in injunctions to Sammy to write as Sammy had been about his piece of ordnance, Shorty sat down in sadness of heart. He was famishing for information from Maria, and at the lowest calculation he could not hope for a letter from Sammy for two weeks.
"It'll take at least a week for that little rat to git over his fever about that gun," he mused, "until he'll be able to set up and think about anything else. Then it'll take him at least another week to build a letter. Great Jehosephat, how'm I goin' to stand it till then? Where'll I be two weeks from now? What kin I do? I a'most wish that something'd happen to Si that'd give me an excuse for writin'."
He racked his fertile brain with expedients and devices for getting up communication, but for once he had to reject them all. There was a halo of unapproachableness about Maria Klegg that paralyzed him.
He awoke the next morning with the same anxiety gnawing at his heart, and it haunted him so that he went through the morning's routine mechanically. When he came back from taking a squad up to Headquarters to report for fatigue duty, the Orderly-Sergeant called out:
"Here's a letter for you, Corporal Elliott." Shorty took the small white envelope from the Orderly's hand, and looked at it curiously. Who could it be from? It resembled somewhat the letters that once came from Bad Ax, Wis., but then again it was very different. He studied the handwriting, which was entirely strange to him. Then he was electrified by seeing that the postmark seemed to be something the same as on Si's letters, but was blurred. He gave a little gasp, and said:
"Orderly, I'd like to git off a little while today." "Why, Shorty," remonstrated the busy Sergeant, "you were off yesterday. But go. I'll try to get along without you. Don't stay long."
Shorty would not trust himself to more than look at the outside, until he had gained a safe screen behind a clump of bushes. Then he took out his knife, carefully slit the envelope, and read:
Dear Mr. Elliot—
I take my pen in hand to inform you that we are all in good
health and hope you are enjoyin' the same blessing fur which
we should all be thankful to God. I am over on a visit to
Prairie Hen and Mrs. Skidmore a widow woman called to see me
today In the course of conversation she said her little boy
Peter had run off and shed hurd hed joined the 200th Indiana
Volunteer Infantry. She heard that we had folks in that
regiment and so had come over to see me to see if I knowed
anybody that would give her any news about her boy so as she
could ask them to look out for him. I told her I knowed a
gentleman in the 200th Indiana who would look out for Peter
and be a second father to him and as soon as she had went I
started this epistle. I thot id answer my letters because
its all he can do to write answer my letter because its all
he can do to write to mother and Annabel and dont write to
mother haf often enuf besides id like to hear from you
myself. Sincerely Yore Friend
Maria Klegg.
"M-a-r-i-a-r K-l-e-g-g," gasped Shorty, spelling over the letters, one at a time, to make sure that his eyes were not making a fool of him. "And she'd like to hear from me."
And he took off his hat, and fanned his burning face.
THE self-sufficient, self-reliant Shorty had never before had anything to so completely daze him. "Ackchelly a letter from Maria Klegg. Writ of her own free will and accord. And she wants to hear from me," he murmured, reading the letter over and over again, and scanning the envelope as if by intensity of gaze he would wring more from the mute white paper. The thought was overpowering that it had come directly from her soft hand; that she had written his name upon it; that her lips had touched the stamp upon it. He tenderly folded up the letter and replaced it in the envelope. His thoughts were too tumultuous for him to sit still. He would walk and calm himself. He wrapped the piece of Maria's dress around the letter, rose and started off. He had gone but a few steps when it seemed to him that he had not caught the full meaning of some of the words in the letter. He sought a secluded place where he could sit down, unseen by any eyes, and read the letter all over again several times. Then came the disturbing thought of how he was to care for and protect the precious missive? He could not bear to part with it for a single minute, and yet he did not want to carry the sacred thing around exposed to the dirt and moil of daily camp-life and the danger of loss. He thought long and earnestly, and at last went down to a large sutler's store, and purchased the finest morocco wallet from his stock. Even this did not seem a sufficiently rich casket for such a gem, and he bought a large red silk bandana, in which he carefully wrapped letter, dress fragment and wallet, and put them in the pocket of his flannel shirt, next his breast. Next came the momentous duty of writing an answer to the letter. Yesterday he was burning with a desire to make an opportunity to write. Now the opportunity was at hand, the object of his desires had actually asked him to write her, and the completeness of the opportunity unnerved him.
"The first thing I have got to do," said he, "is to git some paper and envelopes and ink. I don't s'pose they've got anything here fit for a gentleman to write to a lady with." He turned over the sutler's stock of stationery disdainfully, and finally secured a full quire of heavy, gilt-edged paper, and a package of envelopes, on which was depicted a red-and-blue soldier, with a flag in one hand and a gun in the other, charging bayonets through a storm of bursting shells.
"It's true I ain't one o' the color-guard yit," mused Shorty, studying the picture, "but the Colonel sorter hinted that I might be, if Cap McGillicuddy could spare me from Co. Q, which ain't at all likely. Now, Mister, le'me see some pens."
"Here's some—Gillott's—best quality," said the sutler's clerk.
"Naw," said Shorty contemptuously. "Don't want no common steel pens. Goin' to write to a lady. Git me your best gold ones."
Shorty made quite a pretense of trying, as he had seen penmen do, the temper of the pens upon his thumb-nail, but chose the largest and highest priced one, in an elaborate silver holder.
"I'm very partickler 'bout my pens," said he to the clerk. "I must have 'em to just suit my hand. Some folks's very keerless about what they write with, but I wasn't brung up that way."
"If you'd ask my advice," said the clerk, "I'd recommend this thing as the best for you to use. It'd suit fine Italian hand better'n any pen ever made."
And he held up a marking-pot and brush.
"Young man," said Shorty, solemnly, as he paid for his purchases, "the condition o' your health requires you not to try to be funny. It's one o' the dangerousest things in the army. You're exposed to a great many complaints down here, but nothin' 'll send you to the hospital as suddenly as bein' funny."
The next thing was a studio where he could conduct his literary task without interruption, and Shorty finally found a rock surrounded by bushes, where he could sit and commune with his thoughts. He got the cover of a cracker-box, to place on his knees and serve for a desk, laid his stationery down beside him, re-read Maria's letter several times, spoiled several sheets of paper in trying to get his fingers limber enough for chirography, and then, begun the hardest, most anxious afternoon's work he had ever done, in writing the following letter:
"Camp ov the 2 Hunderdth Injianny
"Voluntear Infantry,
"Mishun Rij, nere Chattynoogy, April the 10, 1864.
"Miss Maria Klegg,
"Respected Frend.
(This part of the letter had cost Shorty nearly an hour of anxious thought. He had at first written "Dere Miss Maria," and then recoiled, shuddered and blushed at the thought of the affectionate familiarity implied. Then he had scrawled, one after another, the whole gamut of beginnings, before he decided upon addressing her, as was her right, as formally as he would the wife of the President.)
"Yore letter was welcomer to me than the visit ov the
Pamaster, after six months exclipse ov hiz cheerful mug."
("I think 'mug' is the word they use for face in good society," mused Shorty, with the end of the penholder in his mouth. "At least I heard the Kurnel use it one day. She can't expect no man to be much gladder of anything than the comin' o' the Paymaster, and that orter please her.")
"Thankee for yore kind inkwiries az to mi helth? Ime glad to
say that Ime all rite, and sound in lung, body and runnin'
gear, and—"
(Shorty was on the point of adding "Hope that you are enjoying the same blessing," when a shiver passed through him that it might be improper to allude to a young lady's locomotory apparatus. After deep meditation, he took safety's side and added):
"So's Si. I sinserely hoap that you are injoyin' the
blessin's ov helth, and the konsolashuns ov religion."
("I'm not certain about that last," thought Shorty, "but I heard a preacher say it once, and it ought to be all right to write to a young lady.")
"We are still layin' in camp, but expectin' every day orders
to move out for a little soshable with Mister Joe Johnston,
whose roostin over on Pigeon Mountain. When we git at him,
there won't be no pigeon about it, but a game ov fox-and-
geese with us for the foxes.
("There," mused Shorty, complacently; "that'll amuse her. Girls like a little fun throwed into letters, when it's entirely respectful.)
"Little Pete Skidmore is in the company, all rite. He is wun
ov the nicest boys that ever lived, but he needs half-
killin' nerely every day. All real nice boys do. Woodent
give much for them if they diddent. Tel his mother He look
out for him, and fetch him up in the way he shood go, if I
haf to break every bone in his body. She needent worry. I no
awl about boys. Thair like colts—need to be well-broke
before thair enny akount."
("Now," commented Shorty, as he read what he had written, "that'll make Maria and his mother feel easy in their minds. They'll think they're in great luck to git a man who'll be a second father to Pete, and not risk spilin the child by sparin the rod.")
("Great Jehosephat, what work writing to a young lady is. I'd much ruther build breastworks or make roads. Now, if it was some ordinary woman, I wouldn't have to be careful about my spelin' and gramer, but with sich a lady as Maria Klegg—great Cesar's ghost! a man must do the very best that's in him, and then that ain't half enough. But I must hurry and finish this letter this afternoon. I can't git another day off to work at it.")
"Respected Miss Maria, what a fine writer you are. Yore
handwritin' is the most beautiful I ever seen. Jeb Smith,
our company clerk, thinks that he can sFlink ink to beat old
Spencerian System hisself, but he ain't once with you. Ide
ruther see one line ov your beautiful ritin' than all that
he ever writ."
("That's so," said Shorty, after judicially scanning the sentence. "Jeb kin do some awful fancy kurlys, and draw a bird without takin' his pen from the paper, but he never writ my name a thousandth part as purty as Maria kin.")
"And how purty you spel. Ime something ov a speler myself,
and can nock out most ov the boys in the company on
Webster's Primary, but I aint to be menshuned in the saim
day with you.
"With best respecks to your family, and hoapin soon to here
from you, I am very respeckfully, your friend,
W. L. Elliot.
Corpril, Company Q, 2 Hundsrdth Injiamiy Volintear
Infantry."
By the time he had his letter finished, and was wiping the sweat of intense labor from his brow, he heard the bugle sounding the first call for dress parade. "I must go and begin my fatherly dooties to little Pete Skidmore," he said, carefully sealing his letter and sticking a stamp on it, to mail at the Chaplain's tent as he went by. "It's goin' to be extry fatigue to be daddy to a little cuss as lively as a schoolhouse flea, and Corpril of Co. Q, at the same time, but I'm going to do it, if it breaks a leg."
He was passing a clump of barberry bushes when he overheard Pete Skidmore's voice inside:
"I'll bet $10 I kin pick it out every time. I'll bet $25 I kin pick it out this time. Don't tech the cards."
"I don't want to lose no more money on baby bets," replied a tantalizing voice. "I'll make it $40 or nothin'. Now, youngster, if y're a man—"
Shorty softly parted the bushes and looked in. Two of the well-known sharpers who hung around the camps had enticed little Pete in there, and to a game of three-card monte. They had inflamed his boyish conceit by allowing him to pick out two cards in succession, and with small bets.
"I hain't got but $40 left o' my bounty and first month's pay," said little Pete irresolutely, "and I wanted to send $35 of it home to mother, but I'll—"
"You'll do nothin' o' the kind," shouted Shorty, bursting through the bushes. "You measly whelps, hain't you a grain o' manhood left? Ain't you ashamed to swindle a green little kid out o' the money that he wants to send to his widowed mother?"
"Go off and 'tend to your own business, if you know what's good for you," said the larger of the men threateningly. "Keep your spoon out o' other folks' soup. This young man knows what he's about. He kin take care o' himself. He ain't no chicken. You ain't his guardeen."
"No he ain't," said Pete Skidmore, whose vanity was touched as well as his cupidity aroused. "Mind your own business, Mister Elliott. You're only a Corpril anyway. You hain't nothin' to do with me outside the company. I kin take care o' myself. I've beat these men twice, and kin do it again."
"Clear out, now, if you don't want to git hurt," said the larger man,' moving his hand toward his hip.
Shorty's response was to kick over the board on which the cards were lying, and knock the man sprawling with a back-handed blow. He made a long pass at the other man, who avoided it, and ran away. Shorty took Pete by the collar and drew him out of the bushes, in spite of that youngster's kicks and protestations.
He halted there, pulled out his pocket-knife, and judicially selected a hickory limb, which he cut and carefully pruned.
"What're you goin' to do?" asked Pete apprehensively.
"I'm goin' to give you a lesson on the evils of gamblin', Pete, especially when you don't know how."
"But I did know how," persisted Pete. "I beat them fellers twice, and could beat them every time. I could see quicker'n they could move their hands."
"You little fool, you knowed about as much about them cards as they know of ice-water in the place where Jeff Davis is goin'. Pete, I'm goin' to be a second father to you."
"Dod dum you, who asked you to be a daddy to me? I've had one already. When I want another, I'll pick one out to suit myself," and Pete looked around for a stone or a club with which to defend himself.
"Pete," said Shorty solemnly as he finished trimming the switch, and replaced the knife in his pocket, "nobody's allowed to pick out his own daddy in this world. He just gits him. It's one o' the mysterious ways o' Providence. You've got me through one o' them mysterious ways o' Providence, and you can't git shet o' me. I'm goin' to lick you still harder for swearin' before your father, and sayin' disrespeckful words to him. And I'm goin' to lick you till you promise never to tech another card until I learn you you how to play, which'll be never. Come here, my son."
The yells that soon rose from that thicket would have indicated that either a boy was being skinned alive or was having his face washed by his mother.
"SI," said the Orderly-Sergeant, "here's a chance to give them pin-feather roosters o' yours a little taste of active service, that'll be good seasoning for 'em, and help develop their hackles and spurs."
"Good idee. What is it?" responded Si with alacrity.
"An order's come down from Headquarters to detail a Sergeant and eight men from the company to go out about eight or 10 miles in the country, and take a turn guarding a little mill they're running out there, grinding meal. There's a gang of bushwhackers around there, that occasionally pester the men at work and they've tried once to burn the mill. I don't think you'll have much trouble, but you've got to keep your eye peeled, and not let any of your boys go to sleep on post."
"I'll look out for that."
"I know you will. You'll take Shorty along, and your seven kids, which'll make up the number. You'll draw three days' rations, at the end of which time you'll be relieved."
"Now, boys," said Si, returning to his squad, "we won't drill today, but are going out on some real soldierin'. The Kurnel has given us a very important detail."
The boys swelled up visibly at the news.
"I want you to all act like soldiers, now," continued Si, "and be a credit to the company and the rijiment. We're goin' to be all by ourselves, and everybody's eyes 'll be on us."
"Yes," echoed Shorty, "we'll be the only part o' the rijiment at the front, and we want to git a good stiff brace on ourselves, because if we don't some o' these other rijiments may git the grand laugh on us."
Shorty's tone was that this was a calamity to which death was preferable, and the boys were correspondingly impressed. They were rapidly learning the lesson that the regiment and its reputation were the most important things in the whole world.
"Come along, and le's draw our rations," said Si. "And you boys want to keep in mind that this's all you'll git for three days, and govern yourselves accordingly. The 'Leventh Commandment is to take all that you kin git, and take mighty good care of it after you git it—"
"For sich is the Kingdom of Heaven," interjected Shorty, imitating the Chaplain's tone.
"No," said Si, who was irritated by his partner's irreverence: "but it's the way a good soldier does. His first dooty's to take care o' his grub, because that's takin' care o' himself, and keepin' himself in good shape to do the dooty the Government expects o' him. 'Tain't servin' the Government right for him to be careless about himself. Now here's 27 rations o' bread, meat, coffee, sugar, salt and beans—three apiece for each of us. Harry Joslyn, you and Gid Mack divide them up into nine equal piles."
Si and Shorty turned to give directions about packing up the shelter-tents and blankets for carrying.
"Now, Gid Mackall," said Harry, "play fair, if you ever did in your life. I won't have none o' your shenanniging."
"Don't talk to me about shenanniging, you little imp," responded Gid cordially. "You can't do a straight thing if you try, and you never try. You never fisted-up with me on a ball-bat that you didn't slip your hand so's to come out ahead."
"Now, there's three loaves o' bread for the Sargint," said Harry, laying them down on a newspaper. "There's three for the Corpril; there's three for me; there's three for you."
"Here, what're you givin' me that broken loaf for?" demanded Gid, stopping in his distribution of meat. "Give that to Pete Skidmore. He's the littlest."
"Ain't goin' to do nothin' o' the kind," responded Harry. "You've got to take things as they come. That loaf fell to you, and you've got to keep it."
"If you don't take that nubbin loaf away and put a full one in its place, not a speck o' lean meat 'll you get—nothin' but fat six inches thick."
"You'll cut that meat straight across, and give me my right share o' lean, you puddin'-headed, sandhill crane," shouted Harry.
"Who're you a-calling names, you bow-legged little shrimp?" shouted Gid, slapping Harry across the face with a piece of fat pork.
An angry mix-up, school boy rules, followed, to the great detriment of the rations. Si and Shorty rushed up, separated the combatants, and administered shakes, cuffs, and sharp reprimands.
"Now, you quarrelsome little whelps," said Si, after quiet had been restored, "you've got to take them rations that you've spiled for yourselves. You shan't have no other. Put that bread and that meat you've kicked around into your own haversacks. Then go back there and roll up your blankets—same as the other boys. Alf Russell, you and Jim Humphreys come here and divide the rest o' these rations into seven parts, if you kin do it without fightin'."
The division of the rations proceeded, with some jars between Russell and Humphreys over the apportionment of fat and lean meat, and angry protests from little Pete Skidmore because they made his share smaller than anybody else's.
"Yit," said he, "I've got to march just as far as any of you, carry just as big a gun, and do just as much shootin'."
"You're wrong," said the medical-minded Alf Russell. "You ought to have less than the others, because you're smaller. The littler and younger the person the smaller the dose, always."
"No," acceded the farmer Jim Humphreys. "Tain't natural, nor right. You don't give a colt as much feed as you do a grown horse. Anybody knows that."
"Pete's plea is sound," contraverted the legal-minded Monty Scruggs. "All men are equal before the law, though they mayn't be a foot high. Rations are a matter of law, and the law's no respecter of persons."
"Rations is intended," persisted Alf, "to give a man what he needs to eat—nothing more, nothing less. Pete don't need as much as a man; why give it to him? There'd be just as much sense in giving him the clothes for a six-footer."
"All o' you are always imposin' on me 'cause I'm little," whimpered Pete. "And that stuck-up Alf Russell's the worst of all. Just because he's goin' to be a doctor, and leads in singin' at church, he thinks he knows more'n the man what writ the arithmetic, and he's down on me because I won't take all he says for law and gospel, in spite of his airs. Jim Humphreys is down on me, because I writ home that I'd shot a man back there at the burnt bridge, and Jim got skeered at a coon-huntin' nigger."
"Never mind, Pete," said Monty consolingly, "none o' them shall impose on you while I'm around. Now, Alf, you and Jim give Pete just as much as the rest, or I'll make you."
"Who'll you make, you brindle steer?" said Alf, laying down his bread and bristling up.
"Stand back, Alf; he meant me," said Jim, disposing his meat, and approaching Monty with doubled fists. "Now, Mister Scruggs, le's see you do some makin', since you're so brash."
"Here, stop that, you little scamps," shouted Si, whose attention had been so far devoted to quieting Harry and Gid, and showing them how to prepare their traps for marching. "Great Scott, can't you git along without fightin'? I'm goin' to take you where you'll git real fightin' enough to satisfy you.
"Go ahead, there, and divide them rations, as I ordered you, and be quick about it, for we must hurry off."
The mention of real fighting immediately sobered up the boys, and made them forget their squabbles. They hurried about their work with quickened zeal.
"Now," said Si, "pack your rations carefully in your haversacks, just as you see me and Corpril Elliott doin'. First, keep your sugar, coffee and salt separate. Put 'em in little tin boxes, like these, and see that the lids are on tight. Hurry up, now. Shorty, you'd better look over the boxes, and go up and draw as many cartridges as you think we'll need."
The mention of need for cartridges was an electric impulse which set the boys keenly alive. They bundled their rations into their haversacks, and flung their blanket rolls over their shoulders, and were standing in a state of palpitating expectancy, when Shorty came back with his hands full of cartridges, which he proceeded to distribute.
"Take arms," commanded Si. "Forward!—March!"
Si and Shorty started off with their long, easy campaign stride, which, in some incomprehensible way that the veteran only learns by practice, brought their feet down every time in exactly the right place, avoiding all stumbling-blocks, and covering without apparent effort a long distance in the course of an hour. The boys pattered industriously after, doing their best to keep up, but stumbling over roots and stones, and slipping on steep places, and dropping to the rear in spite of themselves.
When Si made the customary halt at the end of the first hour, his little command was strung back for a quarter of a mile, and little Pete Skidmore was out of sight.
"Better go back and look for little Pete, Shorty," said Si. "We seem to be losin' him."
Pete was soon brought up, panting and tired.
"Dod durn it, what're you all runnin' away from me for?" he gasped. "Want to lose me? Want to git into the fight all by yourselves, and leave me out? Think because I'm little I can't help? I kin shoot as well as anybody in the crowd, dod durn you."
"There, you see the nonsense o' giving you as much rations as the others," suggested Alf Russell. "You can't pack 'em, and you wouldn't need 'em if you did pack 'em."
"What business is it of yours. Mister Russell, I'd like to know," asked Monty Scruggs, "what he does with his rations. His rations are his rights, and he's entitled to 'em. It's nobody's business what use a man makes of his rights."
"Where are these rebels that we're goin' to fight?" asked Harry Joslyn, eagerly scanning the horizon. "I've been looking for 'em all along, but couldn't see none. Was you in such a hurry for fear they'd get away, and have they got away?"
"I wasn't in no hurry," answered Si. "That was only regler marchin' gait."
"Holy smoke," murmured the rest, wiping their foreheads; "we thought you was trying to run the rebels down."
"Don't be discouraged, boys," said Si. "You'll soon git used to marchin' that way right along, and never thinking of it. It may seem a little hard now, but it won't last long. I guess you're rested enough. Attention! Forward!—March!"
Si and Shorty had mercifully intended to slow down a little, and not push the boys. But as they pulled out they forgot themselves, and fell again into their long, swinging stride, that soon strung the boys out worse than ever, especially as they were not now buoyed up by an expectation of meeting the enemy.
"We must march slower. Si," said Shorty, glancing ruefully back, "or we'll lose every blamed one o' them boys. They're too green yit."
"That's so," accorded Si. "It's like tryin' to make a grass-bellied horse run a quarter-stretch."
"Might I inquire," asked Monty Scruggs, as he came up, wiped his face and sat down on a rock, "whether this is what you'd call a forced march, or merely a free-will trial trot for a record."
"Neither," answered Si. "It's only a common, straight, every-day march out into the country. You kin count upon one a day like this for the rest o' your natural lives—I mean your service. It's part o' what you enlisted for. And this's only a beginnin'. Some days you'll have to keep this up 15 or 18 hours at a stretch."
There was a general groan of dismay.
"Gracious, I wish I'd wings, or that I'd enlisted in the cavalry," sighed Harry.
"Brace up! Brace up!" said Shorty. "You'll soon git used to it, and make your 40 miles a day like the rest of us, carrying your bed-clothes and family groceries with you. It's all in gittin' used to it, as the man said who'd bin skinnin' eels for 40 years, and that now they didn't mind it a bit."
"Well, le's jog along," said Si. "We ought to git there in another hour. There's a big rain comin' up, and we want to git under cover before it strikes us. Forward!—March!"
But the rain was nearer that Si thought. It came, as the Spring rains come in the North Georgia mountains—as if Niagara had been shifted into the clouds overhead. The boys were literally washed off the road, and clung to saplings to avoid being carried away into the brush.
"I'll fall back and keep the boys together," said Shorty, as soon as an intermission allowed them to speak.
"Alright," said Si. "Look out for little Pete." And Si began to forge stolidly ahead.
"Goodness, Sarjint, you're not going to travel in such a storm as this," gasped Gid Mackall.
"Certainly," Si called back. "Come on. We've got to reach that mill tonight, no matter what happens. You'd might as well be drowned marchin' as standin' still. 'Tain't rainin' no worse further ahead than here. Forward!"
"Close up, boys," said Shorty, taking little Pete's gun and the youngster's hand. "This's only a Spring shower. 'Tain't nothin' to what we had on the Tullyhomy Campaign. There the drops was as big as punkins, and come as thick as the grains on a ear o' corn. Close up, there; dodge the big drops, and go ahead."
"Hold on to me tight! Hold on to me!" clamored little Pete. "If you don't I'll be washed away and lost for sure."
"Come along, Peter, my son," Shorty assured him.
"I hain't never lost no children yit, and I hain't goin' to begin with you."
The storm grew more violent every minute, limbs were torn from the trees, and fell with a crash, and torrents rushed down from the mountain side, across the road. Si strode on resolutely, as if the disturbance were nothing more than a Summer zephyr. He waded squarely through the raging streams, turning at times to help the next boy to him, strode over the fallen limbs, and took the dashing downpour with stolid indifference.
"Close up, boys! Close up!" shouted Shorty from time to time, "Don't mind a little sprinkle like this. It'll lay the dust, and make marchin' easier. Come along, Peter, my son. I'm not goin' to lose you."
Night suddenly came, with pitchy darkness, but Si steadily forged onward. Then the rain ceased as suddenly as it began, but the road was encumbered with fallen timber and swirling races of muddy water. They seemed more uncomfortable even than when the rain was falling. They were now nearing the mill, and the sound of a fitful musketry fire came to their ears.
"They've sneaked up in the storm to attack the mill," Si called out to Shorty. "Close up and prepare for action."
"Goodness," gasped Gid Mackall, much of whose vim had been soaked out of him by the fearful downpour, and who was oppressed by fatigue, hunger, and the dense blackness of the night in the strange woods. "You don't have to fight when you're wetter'n a drowned rat, and so tired you're ready to drop, do you?"
"That's what you do," said Shorty, wiping off his musket. "That's the way you'll have to do most o' your fightin'. The miserabler you feel the miserabler you want to make the other fellers feel. Boys, turn your guns upside down and let the water run out. Then half-cock 'em, and blow into 'em to clean the water out o' the tubes. Then find a dry rag somewhere about you, and wipe off the nipples. We want every gun to go off when the order is given. Don't anybody load till Si gives the order."
The drenched but excited boys followed his directions with nervous haste. Shorty took one gun after another and examined it, while Si went forward a little ways to reconnoiter. The calm deliberation of the partners steadied the nervous boys.
"Load," called back Si, from the vantage ground of a little knoll, upon which he was standing, trying to see into the darkness beyond. A volley from out in front responded to the sound of his voice, and bullets knocked bark off the big chestnut behind which he had shrewdly taken refuge.
"Jest as I expected, Si," Shorty called back to him. "The rebels have throwed back a squad to watch for us."
"Yes," said Si, coolly, as he stepped back to meet the boys. "There ain't but 10 o' them, though. I counted every flash and located 'em. They're all in a bunch right over there by a dead tree to the left. Move up there quick, aim a little to the left. Aim low, and fire just as we reach the rise. I'll fire first, and the rest of you foller. Try to hit something, every one of you."
THE time and the surroundings were such as to bring the spirits of the boys to their lowest ebb.
The gloomy, mysterious woods seemed a world's distance away from their homes, friends and assistance.
The long, tiresome tramp, the violent rainstorm, which had soaked them to their skins, and apparently found its way to their hearts; the muddy, slippery road, with torrents rushing across it, the splashing, searching rivulets from the boughs overhead, were all deeply depressing.
The boys huddled together, as if to gain courage by closer contact.
"Gracious, I never supposed they'd pull off a fight at night, when everybody was tired to death and soaked to a gruel," said Alf Russell in a shivery whisper.
"They fought at Hohenlinden at night, and on the snow," answered Monty Scruggs. "But snow's not so bad as rain, and, then, they didn't have these awful woods. I'd feel much better if we was out in a clearing somewhere."
"Come into line to the left, there," commanded Si, in a low tone. "Deploy, one pace apart. Shorty, take the left out there in the bushes. Don't make no noise, step carefully, and don't shoot till I do."
"Keep near me, Pete, and you won't git lost," said Shorty, as he stepped off into the brush.
—"Must I shoot the same time you do, or wait till you shoot?" asked Pete, who seemed less depressed by his surroundings than the others, and mainly eager to get a chance to shoot.
"Don't watch me," cautioned Shorty. "Watch the fellers you are shootin' at, and try to hit 'em. Fire just as soon as you want to after you hear the others."
"I'll bet I'll hit a rebel if anybody does," said Pete with hopeful animation.
They tramped forward a few steps over the spongy ground, and through the dripping bushes.
The musketry fire continued fitfully around the mill in the distance.
They came to the summit of the little rise.
"Hist—halt; lay down, quick," called the watchful Si, in a penetrating voice. "They've loaded agin', and are about to shoot."
He and Shorty were down on their faces as he spoke. The others obeyed more slowly and clumsily. The rebel volley cut the limbs and bushes over their heads, and whistled viciously through the damp air and the darkness.
As little Pete dropped to the ground, his nervous finger touched the trigger and his gun went off up in the air. The others took this as a cue, and banged away as rapidly as they could get their muskets off.
Only Si and Shorty, in dropping, had kept the lay of the ground in view, and without rising they deliberately aimed their pieces whither the volley had come and fired. A suppressed yell of pain came from the other side.
"We salted one of 'em, anyway," chuckled Shorty, as he raised on his knee to reload his gun.
"Gosh all Chrismus," said Si, using his most formidable swear-word, for he was very angry. "What was you brats shootin' at? Squirrels or angels? A rebel'd had to be 80 cubits high, like old Haman, for one o' you to've hit him. Lots o' good o' your packin' around guns and cartridges, if you're goin' to waste your ammynition on the malaria in the clouds. Load agin, now, carefully, and when you shoot agin be sure to fetch something. I'll take my ramrod to the next boy that I ketch shootin' higher'n a man's head. This ain't no Fourth-o'-July business. Our job's te kill them whangdoodles over there, and I want you to 'tend strictly to that."
The threat of a real boyish thrashing and the cool, matter-of-fact way that Si and Shorty conducted themselves—precisely as if chopping trees or mowing a field—steadied the boys wonderfully.
"They're about ready to shoot agin," Si spoke down the line, in a penetrating whisper. "Everybody hug the ground, and watch the flashes. Each feller git a good line on the flash straight in front of him, and let the hound have a chunk o' lead just below his belt. If you're all real good, and shoot just right, I'll take you on a rush right at them fellers, and we'll scatter what's left like a flock o' quail. Lay low. There it comes agin. Lay low."
An irregular volley burnt out in the blackness beyond. The bullets sang around much closer than before, and several of them struck near Si, one landing in the leaves and moss directly in front of him, and throwing a wet sprinkle in his face.
"Like the parrot, I was talkin' too much and too loud," thought Si. "They wuz all reachin' for me, and one feller made a mighty good line shot. Le's see if I can't better him."
He drew down in his sights as carefully as he could in the darkness, and pulled the trigger. As the smoke thinned out a little he thought he saw something beyond which indicated a man staggering and falling.
This time the boys seemed to be firing effectively. There was a commotion in the woods beyond, and the sound of groans on the damp air.
"Raise up!" shouted Si. "Forward! Forward! Jump 'em. Jump 'em before they kin load agin!"
Loading his gun with the practiced ease of a veteran as he rushed forward, Si led his squad directly against the position of the rebels. Part of the rebels had promptly run away, as they heard Si order the charge, but part boldly stood their ground, and were nervously reloading, or fixing bayonets, as the squad came crashing through the brush. One of the rebels fired a hasty, ineffectual shot, and by its light Shorty saw the nervous little Pete, who had torn off his cumbering haversack, letting his hat go with it, slip between him and Si, and gain a pace in advance.
"Git back, you little rat," said Shorty, reaching out a long arm, catching the boy by the collar, and yanking him back. "Git behind me and stay there."
The flash revealed another rebel fumbling for a cap. Shorty's gun came down, and the rebel fell, shot through the shoulder. The rebel leader, a long haired, lathy man, with the quickness of a wildcat, sprang at Si with his bayonet fixed. Heavy-footed and deliberate as Si usually was, when the electricity of a fight was in him there was no lack of celerity. He caught the rebel's bayonet on his musket-barrel and warded it off so completely that the rebel shot by him in the impetus of his own rush. As he passed Si delivered a stunning blow on the back of his head with his gun-barrel.
"That zouave drill was a mighty good thing, after all," thought Si, as he turned from his prostrate foe to the others.
While this was going on, the boys were imitating Shorty's example, getting their guns loaded, and banging away as fast as they did so into the rebels, who went down under the shots, or ran off, leaving one of their number, a tall, lank mountaineer, who seemed beside himself with rage. He had grasped his empty gun by the stock, and was swinging it around his head, yelling fierce insults and defiance to the whole race o' Yankees.
"Come on, you infernal pack o' white-livered, nigger-stealin', house-robbin', hell-desarvin' hypocrites," he shouted. "I kin lick the hull bilin' o' yo'uns. This is my wounded pardner here, and yo'uns can't have neither me nor him till yo'uns down me, which y' can't do. Come on, y' pigeon-livered cowards."
The boys who had pressed lip near him, shrank back a little, out of possible range of that violently brandished musket, and began loading their guns.
Shorty had stopped for an instant to turn over into an easier position the rebel he had shot.
Si paced up. His gun was loaded, and he could have easily brought the rebel down. But the rebel's devotion to his partner touched him.
"Don't shoot, boys," he commanded; "leave me to 'tend to him. Say, Johnny," he addressed the rebel, in a placatory way, "don't make a fool o' yourself. Come down, we've got you, dead. Drop that gun."
"Go to brimstone blazes," shouted the rebel. "If yo'uns have got me, why don't y' take me. I kin lick the hull caboodle o' y' sneakin' mulatters. Come on, why don't y'?"
"Give him a wad, Si," said Shorty, reloading his own gun. "We haint no time to lose. They need us over there."
"No, don't anybody shoot," commanded Si; "he's just crazy about his partner. He's too brave a man to kill. Say, Johnny, have a little sense. We haint goin' to hurt your partner, nor you, if you'll behave. Drop that gun at once, and surrender."
"Go to blazes," retorted the rebel, swinging his gun more wildly than ever. "Yo'uns is all liars. No dependence kin be placed on y'. If y' want me, come and git me."'
Shorty had begun to think the thing somewhat humorous. "Look here, Johnny," said he, "wouldn't you like a big chaw o' navy terbacker—bright plug. Genuine Yankee plug? Swingin' that ere gun that way is awful tiresome."
"Eh—What's that?" said the rebel, startled by the new proposition and its coolness.
"I say, don't you want a big chaw o' terbacker? You must need it. I always do after I've bin workin' hard. Drop your gun, and have one with me. We're Injiannians, and we don't mean no harm to your partner, nor to you. We'll take care o' him, if he's hurt. Here, cut your own chaw."
"Air yo'uns from Injianny?" said the rebel, bringing his gun down to a less menacing attitude. "I've done got two brothers in Injianny, and I hear they'uns 've done inlisted in Yankee rijiments. Mebbe yo'uns know 'em."
"Mebbe we do," said Shorty, handing him a long plug and his knife. "But we hain't time to talk it over now. We'll do that in the mornin', when business ain't so pressin'. Le' me hold your gun while you cut your terbacker."
"Now, look here," said Si, "time's jumpin', and we must talk quick. If we parole you, will you stay here, and take care o' your partner and the others, and be here in the mornin', when we send for you?"
"You won't send for me, if yo'uns is a-gwine on ter fout we'uns up at the mill. We'uns chaw yo'uns up, or run y' outen the country."
"We'll take care o' that," said Si sharply. "Will you promise on your honor to stay with these men, and take care o' them till daylight, if we don't come sooner?"
"Sartin,—'pon honor," answered the rebel, with his mouth full of tobacco.
"All right, then. Load at will. Load! Forward!—March!" commanded Si.
Si moved on cautiously, for he feared that the runaways had told those attacking the mill about his advance, and would bring them all down upon him. The dying down of the firing about the mill confirmed this opinion. He warned his boys to make as little noise as possible, and went ahead of them some distance, to reconnoiter, slipping along the side of the road, under the shadow of the trees. He arranged a system of signals with Shorty, by which one click of his gunlock meant halt, and two to come ahead. Presently he came in sight of the broad race which ran to the mill. The starlight was sufficient to show its width and its banks, with the logs lying along, which had been cut when it was dug. A bridge crossed the race for the road to the mill. Beyond the ground rose sharply, and looking at the crest against the sky, he could see the rebels, one by one, file over, and come down to where they could crouch behind the logs and ambuscade the bridge.
Si clicked his gunlock, and waited till he had counted 25 rebels gathered there, which seemed to be all, as no more appeared. Then he slipped back to Shorty, and hurriedly explained the situation.
The boys listened with sinking hearts. More than three times as many rebels as they themselves numbered, and perhaps fiercer and stronger than those they had already encountered.
The elation of their recent victory subsided. Again the woods became ominously dark and gloomy, the soaking dampness very depressing. They huddled together to brace each other up.
"Si," said Shorty, "didn't you say that it was a squad o' the Maumee Muskrats in the mill, and that we wuz goin' to relieve 'em."
"Yes, and the Orderly said that railroad 'Mick'—Hennessey—was the Sarjint in command."
"O, that bog-trottin' old section boss, that hairy-handed artist with the long shovel, is there, is he with his crucifix and his prayers to the Saints. That's all right. He's bin stormin' and swearin' ever since the fight begun; because he's bin obliged to stay inside and shoot, and instid of making a grand rush and settling things, according to Donnybrook Fair rules. I tell you what you do. You work the boys carefully down through the brush toward the race, and git 'em into position in easy range of the rebels, covering 'em behind logs. I'll take a circuit around to the left, and git over to the hill, behind the rebels, and near enough the mill for Hennessey to hear me. Then I'll fire a shot and yell for Hennessey. He knows my voice, and he'll bring his men out like a pack o' hornets. Then you let into the rebels from your side. They can't git across the race at you, and we'll have 'em where we kin whipsaw 'em."
"Shorty," said Si admiringly, "Gen. Grant 'll hear o' you some day, and then Co. Q will lose its brightest star, but the army'll gain a great General."
"I know it; I know it," said Shorty, modestly; "but don't stop to talk about it now. I think I've got the lay o' the mill in mind. I'll just cut around that way. Don't shoot till you hear me."
Si quietly deployed his boys to the left of the road, and worked them through the brush until they came to the crest overlooking the mill-race. They took readily to this sort of work. They had all hunted rabbits over the hills of southern Indiana, and they came into position so softly that the rebels beyond did not suspect their presence.
Then came a long wait for the signal from Shorty. The rebels seemed to get tired first. Presently they could be seen moving around, and Si had hard work restraining his squad from shooting at the tempting marks. Then the rebels began talking, at first in murmurs, and then louder. There seemed to be a division of opinion among them. Those who had been run back were sure that the Yankee were coming on to the relief of their comrades in the mill. The others thought that their comrades had run the other away just as fast.
"I tell you, hit's no use to wait for they'uns no longer," said one strong voice. "Them Yankees is runnin' back to their camps as fast as they'uns's legs 'll carry they'uns. If yo'uns 'd had any sand, and stood yer ground, you'd 'a seed 'em. But yo' yaller hammers allers git the ager when ever a cap's busted, and run yer rabbit-gizzards out."
"Y're a liar," hotly responded another voice. "Thar was more'n 50 o' them Yankees, if thar was a man. We fit 'em awful, before we give away, and they'd killed Burt Dolson and Bob Whittyker, and I don't know how many more. They come bulgin' right on toward the mill, arter they'd reformed. I know hit, bekase Eph and me staid and watched 'em, and shot at 'em, till we thought hit best to run back and warn ye."
"Ye wuz in a powerful hurry to warn us," sneered the other. "Well, thar's no Yankees over thar, and none haint a-comin' till daylight. I've ketched all the ager and rhematiz here that I'm a-gwine ter. Le's go back and salivate them fellers in the mill, and set fire to it."
This seemed to be the prevailing sentiment, and Si began to fear that they would all go, and might intercept Shorty. He was on the point of ordering the boys to fire, and attract their attention, when Shorty's rifle rang out, and the next instant came a roar from Shorty's powerful lungs, with each word clear and distinct:
"Hennessy—you—red—mouthed—Mick—come out. The 200th Injianny is—here. Come out—with a rush—you—imported spalpeen—and jump—'em—in—the—rear!"
"Now, boys," commanded Si, "keep cool, pick your man, and fire low. I'm goin' to take the feller that's bin doin' the big talkin'."
Each of the boys had already picked his man, and was eagerly waiting the word. Their fire threw their enemies into confusion, and as their guns rattled, the barricaded doors of the mill were thrown open, and Hennessey rushed out with a wild Irish "hurroo." The rebels incontinently fled, without an attempt at resistance.
After it was ascertained that every unhurt rebel was running for dear life to get away, after Hennessey and his squad had gathered up the wounded and carried them into the mill, and after the boys had yelled themselves hoarse over their victory gained with such unexpected ease, they suddenly remembered that they were so tired that they could scarcely drag one foot after another, and hungrier than young wolves at the end of a hard Winter.
"Gewhillikins," murmured Jim Humphreys, "I wonder when we're going to have supper. I'm as holler as a stovepipe."
"You've got your suppers in your haversacks," said Si. "We'll go into the mill and build a fire and make some coffee and fry some meat."
"In my haversack," said Jim ruefully, after they had entered the mill, and he had run his hand into his forgotten haversack, and withdrawn it covered with a viscid greasy mush. "My haversack's full o' water, that's soaked everything else in it to a gruel."
"So's mine; so's mine," echoed the rest, as they examined.
"Confound it," said Si' wrathfully, as he looked into one after another. "Didn't none o' you have sense enough to fasten down the covers carefully, so's to keep the water out? Here it is—salt and sugar and coffee, bread and greasy pork all in one nasty mess. I declare, you don't seem to have the sense you wuz born with. You've bin breakin' yourselves down luggin' around 10 or 15 pounds o' water, besides spilin' your rations."
"Probably Sarjint Hennessey has some rations that he kin give us," suggested Shorty, who was genuinely sorry for the poor boys.
"Dade I haint—not a smidgeon," answered Hennessey. "We ixpicted ye's to git here this forenoon and relieve us, and we et up ivery spoonful of our grub for breakfast, so's to lighten us for a quick march back to camp. They've not bin runnin' in the mill for several days, and've carted off ivery bit of the male they ground. We're nigh starved oursilves, but we've had a lovely little foight, and we forgive ye's for not coming airlier. Oi wouldn't 've missed that last rush on thim divil's for a month's double rations."
"Well," said Si, encouragingly, "we'll have to make mine and Shorty's rations go around as well as they kin, among all of you. Fish the meat out o' your haversacks, boys, and wash the dope off it. It ain't spiled, anyway. We kin each of us have a little to eat tonight, and we'll trust to Providence for termorrer."
WITH the elasticity of youth the boys slept away their fatigue during the night, but woke up the next morning ravenously hungry.
"What in the world are we goin' to do for grub, Si?" asked Shorty, as soon as he got his eyes fairly open.
"Oi know what Oi'm goin' to do," said Hennessey. "Oi'm goin to show the foinest pace av shprinting back to camp that has been sane in these parts since our roight bruk that day at Chickamaugy. No grass'll grow under me fate, Oi tell yez. And as I pass through your camp Oi'll foind yer Captain, and tell the fix you're in, and to sind out some rations."
"But even if he does send them at once, they can't git here till evenin', and I hate powerfully to let him and the rest know that we didn't have sense enough to take care o' our victuals after we'd drawed 'em," said Si.
"If it was only one, or even two days, I'd let the boys starve it out, as a good lesson to 'em," said Shorty. "But three seems like cruelty to dumb beasts."
"But what'll they say about us in camp?" groaned Si. "They'll have the grand laugh on me and you, and every one o' the boys. I'd ruther go on quarter rations for a month than stand the riggin' they'll give us, and have Capt. McGillicuddy give me one look when he asks the question about how we come to lose all our rations so soon? He'll think me a purty Sarjint to send out into the country in charge o' men, and you a fine Corpril."
"Say," said Shorty, his face illuminated with a bright idea. "We might report the rations 'lost in action.' That'd fix it fine. We had two good fights, and come out ahead. That'll tickle the Captain so that he won't be partickler what we report."
"Hurroo!" echoed Hennessey; "that's the ticket."
"But we didn't lose 'em in action, and to say so'd be a lie," answered Si, whose conscience had none of the easy elasticity of his partner's. "We could report 'em burnt up by lightnin','but we won't. They was lost by sheer, dumbed carelessness, that me and you and the boys should knowed better than to've allowed. That's all there is of it, and that's what I'm goin' to report, if I have to."
"Great Jehosephat," exploded Shorty; "you kin certainly be the stubbornest mule over nothin', Si Klegg, that I ever seen. We've done fightin' enough to excuse sich a report, or any that we've a mind to make."
"Nothin' kin justify a lie," persisted the obdurate Si.
"Holy smoke! bigger men than you—lots bigger—have squared up their accounts that way. Didn't all the Captains in the rijiment, and the Quartermaster and Commissary, and, for what I know, the Chaplain and the Colonel, git clean bills o' health after the battle o' Stone River, by reportin' everything that they couldn't find 'lost in action?'"
"Yis," added Hennessey, "and didn't my Captain, after Chickamaugy, git us all new uniforms and complete kits, by reportin' iverything 'lost in action?' Smart man, my Captain, Oi tell yez."
"Well, I don't think any the more o' them for it. We spiled our rations before the fightin' begun, they'd bin spiled if there'd bin no fightin', and I haint going to send no other words, if I've got to send any word."
"Who the divil's goin' to carry this word, Oi'd like to know, Misther Klegg?" broke in Hennessey. "Are you goin' to put words into my mouth, Misther Klegg? Oi'll tell your Captain just fwhat Oi plaze, about you and your foight and your rations. Oi want no more worrids wid ye. Attintion, min! Shoulder, a-r-m-s! Roight face! Forward, foile left!—M-a-r-c-h!"
"I s'pose I ain't responsible for any o' the fairy tales with which that wild Mick'll fill up the Captain," said Si, self-consolingly, as Hennessey and his squad marched away in quick time. "He'll put a rich, red, County Connaught color on everything that's happened out here, and the Captain'll believe as much as suits him. Anyhow, Hennessey'll not say anything to our disadvantage, and probably the Captain'll send out some rations by fast mule express."
"Yes," accorded Shorty; "we'll git some rations from camp by this evenin'. Cap will look out for that. Meanwhile, I'll take out two or three o' the boys on a scout into the country, to see if we can't pick up something to eat."
"Humph," said Si, skeptically, "you'll find mighty poor pickin', after them Ohio boys 's bin out here three days. What they haint taken has been rooted in the ground."
"Yes; they're awful foragers and thieves," assented Shorty. "All Ohio boys is. I'm glad I'm from Injianny. Still, I've generally bin able to find something, even after the Ohio boys had bin there."
"Well, I think we'd better first go back and see about them rebels that we wounded last night. They may be sufferin' awfully, and we oughtn't to think about something to eat, before doin' what we kin for them."
"That's so," assented Shorty. "I'd a-gone back last night, but we was all so dead tired."
"Well, I'll take two o' the boys and go back. You stay here with the rest, and hold the mill. I'll git back as soon's I kin, and then you kin take a couple o' the boys and go out foragin'."
Calling Alf Russell and Monty Scruggs to follow him, Si started back to the scene of the skirmish of the night before. The woods looked totally different, under the bright Spring sunshine, from what they had seemed in the chill, wet blackness of the previous night. Buds were bursting and birds singing, and all nature seemed very blithe and inspiring.
"Gracious, what a difference daylight makes in the woods," murmured Monty Scruggs. "Tain't a bit like Hohenlinden.
"'Tis morn, but scarce yon lurid sun
Can pierce the war-clouds rolling dun,
Where furious Frank and fiery Hun
Shout 'mid their sulphurous canopy."
"You'd think, from the way the bird 's singing, and the flowers blooming, that there'd never been a gun fired within a hundred miles o' here."
"Seems like we only dreamed all that happened last night," accorded Alf Russell. "There's nothing in the woods or the ground that looks as it did then, and I can't hardly make myself believe that this is the way we come."
"Well, here's something that'll convince you it wasn't a dream," said Si, as they made their way through the broken and trampled brush, and came to a little knoll, on which the final fight had been made, and where were gathered the wounded rebels. There were three of these; the man whom Shorty had shot in the shoulder, the one whom Si knocked down by a stunning blow on the head, and the one who had been hit in the thigh by a shot from the boys, and who was the "pardner" of the recalcitrant man of the previous evening. He was still there, caring for his comrades. The men who had been shot were so faint from loss of blood that they could scarcely move, and the man whom Si had struck was only slowly recovering consciousness.
The unhurt rebel was standing there with his gun in hand, and had apparently been watching their approach for some time.
"My parole was out at daylight," he said, as they came up. "The sun's now nearly an hour high. I ain't obleeged to be good no more, and I could' 've drapped one o' yo'uns when y' fust turned offen the road, and got away. I s'pose I'd orter've done hit, and I'd a great mind ter, but suthin' sorter held me back. Onderstand that?"
"You'd a' bin a nice man to've shot at us when we wuz comin' to help your comrades," said Si, walking up coolly toward him, and getting near enough to prevent his leveling his gun, while he held his own ready for a quick blow with the barrel. "We needn't've come back here at all, except that we felt it right to take care o' the men that got hurt."
"Come back to take keer o' the men that yo'uns swatted last night?" said the rebel incredulously. "That haint natural. 'Taint Yankee-like. What'd yo'uns keer for 'em, 'cept to see if they'uns's dead yit, and mebbe gin 'em a prod with the bayonit to help 'em along? But they'uns's mouty nigh dead, now. They'uns can't last much longer. But I'll kill the fust one o' yo'uns that tries to prod one o' they'uns with a bayonit. Let they'uns alone. They'll soon be gone."
"What're you talkin' about, you dumbed fool?" said Si, irritably. "We haint no Injuns nor heathens, to kill wounded men. We're Injiannians and Christians, what read the Bible, and foller what it says about lovin' your enemies, and carin' for them what despitefully use you—that is, after you've downed 'em good and hard."
"Does your Bible say that ere?" asked the rebel.
"Yes, indeed."
"Well, hit must be a new-fangled kind of a Yankee Bible. The only Bible I ever seed was a piece o' one that used t' be in dad's house, and I've done heared strangers read hit aloud hundreds o' times, and hit said nothin' like that. Hit had lots in it 'bout killin' every man and man-child, and hewin' 'em to pieces afore the Lord, but nothin' 'bout lovin' and takin' keer o' them that wuz fernest ye."
"Well, it's in there, all the same," said Si impatiently, "and you must mind it, same's we do. Come, drop that gun, and help us take care o' these men. They ain't goin' to die. We won't let 'em. They're all right. Just faint from loss o' blood. We kin fix 'em up. Set your gun agin' that beech there, and go to the branch and git some water to wash their wounds, and we'll bring 'em around all right."
There was something so masterful in Si's way, that the rebel obeyed. Si set his own gun down against a hickory, in easy reach, and had the boys do the same. He had naturally gained a good deal of knowledge of rough surgery in the army, and he proceeded to put it to use. He washed the wounds, stayed the flow of blood, and to take the rising fever out of the hurts, he bound on them fresh, green dockleaves, wet with water. After the man he had struck had had his face washed, and his head thoroughly doused with cold water, he recovered rapidly and was soon able to sit up, and then rise weakly to his feet.
The rebel looked on wonderingly.
"Well, yo'uns is as good doctrin' hurts as ole Sary Whittleton, and she's a natural bone-setter," he said.
"Well, don't stand around and gawk,", said Si snappishly. "Help. What's your name?"
"Gabe Brimster."
"Well, Gabe, go down to the branch and git some more water, quick as you kin move them stumps o' your'n. Give the men all they want to drink, and then pour some on their wounds. Then go there and cut some o' them pawpaws, and peel their bark, to make a litter to carry your pardner back to the mill. Boys, look around for guns. Smash all you kin find on that rock there, so they won't be of no more use. Bust the locks good, and bend the barrels. Save two to make the handles of the litter."
Si proceeded to deftly construct a litter out of the two guns, with some sticks that he cut with a knife, and bound with pawpaw strips.
A few days before, Si, while passing near the hospital, saw a weak convalescent faint and fall. He rushed to the Surgeon's tent, and that officer being busy, handed him a small bottle with a metal top, and filled with strong ammonia, telling him to unscrew the top and hold the bottle under the man's nose. He did so, with the effect of reviving him. Si thrust the bottle into his pocket, to help the man back to the hospital, and forgot all about it, until one after another of his present patients overdid himself, had a relapse, and fainted away. Si happened to feel his bottle, drew it out, unscrewed the top, thrust it under their noses, and revived them.
Gabs's eyes opened wider at each performance. He had never seen a bottle with a metal top, or one that unscrewed, or anything that seemed to effect such wonderful changes by merely pointing it at a man. His mountaineer intellect, prone to "spells" and "charms," saw in it at once an instrument of morta: witchcraft. With a paling face, he began edging toward his gun. Busy as Si had been, he had kept constantly in mind the possibility of Gabe's attempting some mischief, and did not let himself lose sight of the rebel's gun. He quickly rose, and with a few strides, placed himself between Gabe and his gun.
"Where are you goin'?" he said sternly.
"I'm a-gwine away," replied the man, in terror-stricken accents. "I'm a-gwine away mouty quick. I don't want to stay here no longer."
"Indeed you're not goin' away. You'll stay right with us, and help us take care o' your comrades."
"I'm a-gwine away, I tell y'," shrieked Gabe. "I'm gwine right away. I'm skeered o' yo'uns. Yo'uns is no doctor, nor no sojer. Yo'uns is a conjure-man, and a Yankee conjure-man, too—wust kind. Yo'uns 've bin puttin' spells on them men, and yo'uns'll put a spell on me. I've felt hit from the fust. I'm a-gwine away. Le'me go, quick."
Si caught the man roughly by the shoulder with his left hand, and raised his right threateningly. It still had the bottle in it. "You're not goin' a step, except with us," he said. "Go back there, and 'tend to your business as I told you, or I'll break you in two."
The sight of the dreadful bottle pointed at him completely unnerved the rebel. He fell on his knees.
"O, Mister Yank—Mister Conjure-man! don't put no spell on me. Pray to God, don't! I had one on me wunst, when I was little, and liked to've died from hit. I haint no real rebel. I wuz conscripted into the army, or I wouldn't be foutin' yo'uns. I won't fout no more, if yo'uns'll not put a spell on me. 'Deed I won't! I swar to God I wont!"
And he raised his right hand in testimony.
"Put a spell on you? Conjure you? What dumbed nonsense!" ejaculated Si, and then his eyes caught the rebel's fastened on the bottle in his hand, and a gleam of the meaning entered his mind. He had no conception of the dread the mountaineers have of being "conjured," but he saw that something about the bottle was operating terrifically on the rebel's mind and took advantage of it. He was in too much of a hurry to inquire critically what it was, but said: "Well, I won't do nothin' to you, so long's you're good, but mind that you're mighty good, and do just as I say, or I'll fix you. Git up, now, and take hold o' your pardner's feet, and help me lift him on the litter. Then you take hold o' the front handles. Monty, throw your gun-sling over your shoulder, and take hold o' the rear handles. The two o' you carry this man back. Alf, throw your gun-sling over your shoulder, put your arm under this man's, and help him along. I'll help this man."
They slowly made their way back toward the mill. As they came on the crest of the last rise, they saw Shorty and the rest eagerly watching for them. Shorty and the others ran forward and helped them bring the men in. Shorty was particularly helpful to the man he had shot. He almost carried him in to the mill, handling him as tenderly as if a child, fixed a comfortable place for him on the floor with his own blankets, and took the last grains of his coffee to make him a cup. This done, he said:
"I'm goin' out into the country to try and find some chickens to make some broth for you men. Come along, Harry Joslyn, Gid Mackall and little Pete."
The country roundabout was discouragingly poor, and had been thoroughly foraged over. But Shorty had a scent for cabins that were hidden away from the common roads, and so escaped the visitations of ordinary foragers. These were always miserably poor, but generally had a half-dozen chickens running about, and a small store of cornmeal and sidemeat. Ordinarily he would have passed one of these in scorn, because to take any of their little store would starve the brood of unkempt children that always abounded. But now, they were his hope. He had been playing poker recently with his usual success, and as the bets were in Confederate money, he had accumulated quite a wad of promises to "Pay in gold, six months after the ratification of a Treaty of Peace between the Confederate States and the United States." He would make some mountaineer family supremely happy by giving them more money than they had ever seen in their lives, in exchange for their stock of meal, chickens and sidemeat. They would know where to get more, and so the transaction would be a pleasant one all around.
In the meanwhile, little Pete had visions of killing big game in the mountain woods. The interminable forest suggested to him dreams of bear, deer, buffalo, elk, and all the animals he had read about. It would be a great thing to bring down an elk or a deer with his Springfield rifle, and then be escorted back' to camp in triumph, with the other boys carrying his game. He kept circling through the woods, in sight or hearing of the others, expecting every minute to come upon some animal that would fill his youthful sanguine hopes.
Shorty at last found a poor little cabin such as he had been looking for. It was hidden away in a little cove, and had never been visited by the men of either army. It had the usual occupants—a weak-eyed, ague-smitten man, who was so physically worthless that even the rebel conscripters rejected him; a tall, gaunt woman, with a vicious shrillness in her voice and a pipe in her mouth; a half score of mangy yellow dogs, and an equal number of wild, long-haired, staring children. They had a little "jag" of meal in a bag, a piece of sidemeat, and a half-dozen chickens. The man had that morning shot an opossum, lean from its Winter fasting. Shorty rejected this contemptuously.
"I've bin mighty hungry in my time," said he, "but I never got quite so low down as to eat anything with a tail like a rat. That'd turn my stummick if I was famishin'."
The man looked on Shorty's display of wealth with lack-luster eyes, but his wife was fascinated, and quickly closed up a deal which conveyed to Shorty all the food that they had. Just as Shorty had completed payment, there came a shot from little Pete's rifle, and the next instant that youth appeared at the edge of the cornpatch extending up hill from the cabin, hatless, and yelling at the top of his voice. Shorty and the others picked up their guns and took position behind the trees.
"What's the matter, Pete?" asked Shorty, as the boy came up, breathless from his long run. "Rebels out there?"
"No," gasped Pete. "I was hunting out there for a deer, or a elk, or a bear, when suddenly I come acrost the queerest kind of an animal. It looked more like a hog than anything else, yet it wasn't a hog, for it was thinner'n a cat. It had long white tusks, longer'n your hand, that curled up from its mouth, little eyes that flashed fire, and great long bristles on his back, that stood straight up. I shot at it and missed it, and then it run straight at me. I made for the fence as hard as I could, but it outrun me and was gaining on me every jump. Just as I clim the fence it a-most ketched me, and made a nip not six inches from my leg. I could hear him gnash them awful tusks o' his'n."
"Humph," said the woman. "He's run acrost Stevenson's old boar, that runs in them woods up thar, and is mouty savage this time o' year. He'd take a laig offen a youngster quicker'n scat, if he ketched him. He done well to run."
Shorty and the others walked up to the fence and looked over. There was the old razor-back King of the woods still raging around sniffing the air of combat.
"Why, it's only a hog, Pete!" said Shorty.
"Only a hog!" murmured Pete with shamed heart.
"That a hog?" echoed the others. "Well, that's the queerest looking hog I ever saw."
"It's a hog all the same," Shorty assured them. "A genuine razor-back hog. But he's got the secession devil in him like the people, and you want to be careful of him. He ain't fit to eat or I'd kill him. Let's git back to the mill."
WHAT an ineffably imposing spectacle of military power was presented to the May sun, shining on the picturesque mountains and lovely valleys around Chattanooga in the busy days of the Spring of 1864.
Never before, in all his countless millions of journeys around the globe, had he seen a human force of such tremendous aggressive power concentrated on such a narrow space. He may have seen larger armies—though not many—but he had never seen 100,000 such veterans as those—originally of as fine raw material as ever gathered under a banner, and trained to war by nearly three years of as arduous schooling as men ever knew, which sifted out the weaklings, the incompetents, the feeblewilled by the boisterous winnowing of bitter war.
Thither had been gathered 35,000 of the Army of the Tennessee, who had "Fort Donelson," "Shiloh," "Corinth," "Chickasaw Bayou," "Big Black," "Jackson," and "Vicksburg" in letters of gold on their tattered regimental banners, and whom Sherman proudly boasted were "the best soldiers on earth." The courtly, idolized McPherson was their leader, with such men as John A. Logan, T. E. G. Ransom, Frank P. Blair and P. J. Osterhaus as lieutenants and subordinates.
There was the Army of the Cumberland, 60,000 strong, from which all dross had been burned by the fierce fires of Shiloh, Perryville, Stone River and Chickamauga; and the campaigns across two States. "The noblest Roman of them all," grand old "Pap" Thomas, was in command, with Howard, Stanley, Newton, Wood, Palmer, Davis, Joe Hooker, Williams and Geary as his principal lieutenants.
And thither came—15,000 strong—all of the Army of the Ohio who could be spared from garrisoning dearly-won Kentucky and East Tennessee. They were men who had become inured to hunting their enemies down in mountain fastnesses, and fighting them wherever they could be found. At their head was Gen. J. M. Schofield, whom the Nation had come to know from his administration of the troublous State of Missouri. Gens. Hovey, Hascall and Cox were division commanders.
With what an air of conscious power; of evident mastery of all that might confront them; of calm, unflinching determination for the conflict, those men moved and acted. They felt themselves part of a mighty machine, that had its work before it, and would move with resistless force to perform the appointed task.
The men fell instinctively into their ranks in the companies. Without an apparent effort the companies became regiments, the regiments quietly, but with swift certainty, swung into their places in the brigade, and the brigades massed up noiselessly into divisions and corps.
And while the 100,000 veterans were drilling, organizing and manuvering the railroad was straining every one of its iron and steel tendons to bring in food and ammunition to supply the mighty host, and provide a store from which it could draw when it went forth upon its great errand. There were 35,000 horses to be fed, in addition to the 100,000 veterans, and so the baled hay made heaps that rivalled in size the foothills of the mountains. The limitless cornfields of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois heaped up their golden harvests in other hillocks. Every mountain pass was filled with interminable droves of slow-footed cattle, bringing forward "army beef on the hoof." Boxes of ammunition and crackers, and barrels of pork covered acres, and the railroad brought them in faster than the hundreds of regimental teams could haul them out.
There is no place in the world where the assembling of such a mighty host could be seen to such an advantage as at Chattanooga. The mountains that tower straight up into the clouds around the undulating plain on which the town stands form a glorious natural amphitheater about an arena for gigantic dramas.
Naturally, the boys were big-eyed all the time with the sights that filled the landscape near and far. Wherever they looked they were astonished, and when in a march they came out on a crest that commanded a wide view, they could not help halting, to drink all its wonders in. Even the experienced Si and Shorty were as full of amazement as they, and watched with fascination the spectacle of mighty preparation and concentrated power.
One day they got a pass and took the boys over to Lookout Mountain, for a comprehensive survey of the whole scene. They trudged over the steep, rough, winding road up the mountainside, and mads their way to Pulpit Rock, on the "nose" of the mountain, which commands a view that is hardly equalled in any country. From it they overlooked, as upon a map, the wide plain around Chattanooga, teeming with soldiers and horses, and piled-up war material, the towering line of Mission Ridge, the fort-crowned hills, the endless square miles of white camps.
"'The King sat on the rocky brow
That looks o'er sea-born Salamis,
And ships by thousands lay below,
And men and Nations, all were his,'
murmured Monty Scruggs. "I didn't suppose there was as many soldiers in all the world before."
"Si," said Shorty, "we thought old Rosecrans had heaped up the measure when we started out from Nashville for Stone River. But that was only the beginning for the gang he got together for the Tullyhomy campaign, and 'taint more than onct to what old Sherman's goin' to begin business with. I like it. I like to see any man start into a game with a full hand and a big stack o' chips."
"Well, from the talk that comes down from headquarters," said Si, "he may need every man. We've never had enough men so far. The rebels have always had more men than we did, and had the advantage of position. We only won by main strength and bull-headedness, and Rosecrans's good management. The rebels are straining every nerve to put up the fight o' their lives, and they say old Jo Johnston's got nearly as many men over there at Buzzard Roost as we have, and works that beat them we hustled Bragg out of around Tullyhomy."
"Well, let's have it as soon as possible," said Shorty. "I'm anxious to see if we can't make another Mission Ridge over there at Buzzard Roost, and run them fellers clean back to the Gulf of Mexico. But, great Jehosephat, won't there be a Spring freshet when all them men and horses and cattle break camp and start out over the country."
"Goodness, what kin I do to keep from gitting lost in all that crowd?" wailed Pete Skidmore, and the others looked as if his fears also struck their hearts.
"Just stick closs to the 200th Injianny and to me, and you won't git lost, Pete," said Shorty. "The 200th Injianny's your home, and all real nice boys stay around home."
They made a little fire on the broad, flat surface of Pulpit Rock, boiled some coffee, and ate their dinner there, that they might watch the wonderful panorama without interruption. As the afternoon, advanced, they saw an unusual commotion in the camps, and the sound of enthusiastic cheering floated faintly up to their lofty perch.
"I'll bet a big red apple orders to move has come," said Si. "Le's git back to camp as quick as possible."
They hurried down the mountain-side, and turned sharply to the right into the road to Rossville Gap.
"Yes, the orders to move has come," said Shorty. "See them big fires, and the boys burnin' up things."
In every camp the cheering men were making bonfires of the furnishings of their Winter camps. Chairs, benches, tables, checker-boards, cupboards, what-nots, etc., which had cost them considerable pains to procure, and upon which they had lavished no little mechanical skill, and sometimes artistic ornamentation, were ruthlessly thrown to feed the joyful fires which blazed in each camp which had been lucky enough to receive orders. The bands were playing, to emphasize and give utterance to the rejoicings of the men.
Shorty took little Pete by the hand to assist him in keeping up with the rapid pace Si and he set up to get back to their own camp, and participate in its demonstrations.
"Of course, our rijimint's goin' too—goin' to have the advance," Si said to Shorty, more than anything else to quiet a little disturbing fear that would creep in. "They wouldn't leave it behind to guard one o' these mud-piles they call forts, would they?"
"They never have yit," answered Shorty, hopefully. "They say old Sherman is as smart as they make 'em. He knows a good rijimint when he sees it, and he's certain to want the 200th Injianny in the very foremost place. Hustle along, boys."
As they neared their camp they were delighted to find it in a similar uproar to the others, with the men cheering, the brigade band playing, and the men throwing everything they could find on the brightly blazing bonfires. Ordinarily, such a long march as they had made to the top of the Lookout Mountain and back again would have been very tiresome, but in the enthusiasm of the occasion they forgot their fatigue—almost forgot their hunger.
"The orders are," the Orderly-Sergeant explained to Si, as they were cooking supper, "that we're to move out tomorrow morning in light marching order, three days' rations, 80 rounds of cartridges, only blankets, no tents, but one wagon to a regiment, and one mule to a company to carry ammunition and rations. O, we're stripped down to the skin for a fight, I tell you. It's to be business from the first jump, and we'll be right in it. We're to have the advance, and clear away the rebel cavalry and pickets, to open up the road for the rest of the division. You'll find your rations and ammunition in front of my tent. Draw 'em and get everything ready, and go to sleep as soon as possible, for we'll skin out of here at the first peep of day. There's a whole passel of sassy rebel cavalry out in front, that's been entirely too familiar and free, and we want to get a good whack at them before they know what's up."
And the busy Orderly passed on to superintend other preparations in the company.
After drawing and dividing the rations and cartridges. Si gave the boys the necessary instruction about having their things ready so that they could get them in the dark the next morning, and ordered them to disregard the bonfires and mirth-making, and lie down to get all the sleep they could, in preparation for the hard work of the next day. Then, like the rest of the experienced men, who saw that the campaign was at length really on, and this would be the last opportunity for an indefinite while to write, he sat down to write short letters to his mother and to Annabel.
Influenced by the example, Shorty thought he ought to write to Maria. He had received a second letter from her the day that he had gone out to the mill, and its words had filled his soul with a gladness that passed speech. The dispassionate reader would not have seen anything in it to justify this. He would have found it very commonplace, and full of errors of spelling and of grammar. But Shorty saw none of these. Shakspere could have written nothing so divinely perfect to him. He had not replied to it sooner, because he had been industriously thinking of fitting things to say in reply. Now he must answer at once, or postpone it indefinitely, and that meant so much longer in hearing again from her. He got out his stationery, his gold pen, his wooden inkstand, secured a piece of a cracker box for a desk, and seated himself far from Si as possible among the men who were writing by the light of the pitch-pine in the bonfires. Then he pulled from his breast the silk bandana, and carefully developed from its folds the pocket-book and Maria's last letter, which he spread out and re-read several times.
Commonplace and formal as the letter was, there was an intangible something in it that made him feel a little nearer the writer than ever before. Therefor, he began his reply:
Dere Miss Maria Klegg:
"I talk mi pen in hand to inform you that our walkin'-papers has at last come, and we start termorrer mornin' for Buzzard Roost to settle jest whose to rool that roost. Our ideas and Mister Jo Johnston's differ on that subjeck. When we git through with him hele no more, though he probably won't be so purty as he is now."
He stopped to rest after this prodigious literary effort, and wipe the beaded sweat from his brow. He saw little Pete Skidmore looking at him with troubled face.
"What're you doin' up, Pete? Lay down and go to sleep."
"Say, Corpril, the Orderly said we wuz goin' to fight a whole passel of rebel cavalry, didn't he?"
"Um-hum!" assented Shorty, cudgeling his brain as to what he should next write.
"Them's them awful kind o' rebels, ain't they—the John Morgan kind—that ride big horses that snort fire, and they have long swords, with which they chop men's heads off?"
"A lot o' yellin', gallopin' riff-raff," said Shorty, with the usual contempt of an infantryman for cavalry. "Ain't worth the fodder their bosses eat."
"Ain't they terribler than any other kind o' rebels?" asked Pete, anxiously.
"Naah," said Shorty, sharply. "Go to sleep, Pete, and don't bother me with no more questions. I'm writin' a letter." He proceeded with his literary effort:
"I was gladder than I kin tell you to git yore letter. You
do write the best letters of any woman in the whole world."
He looked up, and there was little Pete's face before him.
"What do you do when one o' them wild rebels comes cavorting and tearing toward you, on a big hoss, with a long sword, and yelling like a catamount?" he asked.
"Paste him with a bullet and settle him," said Shorty testily, for he wanted to go on with his letter.
"But s'pose he comes on you when your gun ain't loaded, and his sword is, or you've missed him, as I did that hog?"
"Put on your bayonet and prod his hoss in the breast, and then give him 18 inches o' cold steel. That'll settle him. Go and lay down, Pete, I tell you. Don't disturb me. Don't you see I'm writing?"
Shorty went on with his letter.
"How I wish you wood rite offener. Ide like to get a letter from you every—"
"Say, Corpril," broke in little Pete, "they say that them rebel cavalry kin reach much further with their swords when they're up on a hoss than you kin with your gun and bayonit, especially when you're a little feller like me, and they're quicker'n wildcats, and there's just millions of 'em, and—"
"Who says?" said Shorty savagely. "You little open-mouthed squab, are you lettin' them lyin', gassin, galoots back there fill you up with roorbacks about them triflin', howlin', gallopin', rebel cavalry? Go back there, and tell 'em that if I ketch another man breathin' a word to you about the rebel cavalry I'll come and mash his head as flat as a pancake. Don't you be scared about rebel cavalry. You're in much more danger o' bein' struck by lightnin' than of bein' hit by a rebel on hossback. Go off and go to sleep, now, and don't ask me no more questions."
"Can't I ask you just one?" pleaded Pete.
"Yes, just one."
"If we form a holler square agin cavalry will I be in the holler, or up on the banks?"
For the first time in his life, Shorty restrained the merciless jeer that would come to his lips at any exhibition of weakness by those around him. The thought of Maria softened him and made him more sympathetic. He had promised her to be a second father to little Pete. He saw that the poor boy was being frightened as he had never been before by the malicious fun of the veterans in pouring into his ears stories of the awful character of the rebel cavalry. Shorty sucked the ink off his pen, put his hand soothingly on Pete, and said in a paternally comforting way:
"My boy, don't let them blowhards back there stuff you with sich nonsense about the rebel cavalry. They won't git near enough you to hit you with a sword half a mile long. They're like yaller dogs—their bark's the wust thing about 'em. I'll look out for you. You'll stay right by me, all the time, and you won't git hurt. You go back there to my blankits and crawl into 'em and go to sleep. I'll be there as soon's I finish this letter, Forgit all about the rebel cavalry, and go to sleep. Ter-morrer you'll see every mother's son o' them rebels breakin' their hoss' necks to git out o' range o' our Springfields."
Then Shorty finished his letter:
"Ime doin' my best to be a second father to little Pete.
Heze as good a little soul as ever lived, but when I talk
another boy to raise it'll be sumwhair else than in the
army.
"Yores, till deth."
Just then the silver-voiced bugles in hundreds of camps on mountain-sides, in glens, in the valleys, and on the plains began ringing out sweetly mournful "Taps," and the echoes reverberated from the towering palisades of Lookout to the rocky cliffs of the Pigeon Mountains.
It was the last general "Taps" that mighty army would hear for 100 days of stormy battling.
The cheering ceased, the bonfires burned out. Shorty put his letter in an envelope, directed it, and added it to the heap at the Chaplain's tent.
Then he went back and arranged his things so that he could lay his hands unfailingly on them in the darkness of the morning, straightened little Pete out so that he would lie easier, and crawled in beside him.
AS usual, it seemed to the boys of the 200th Ind. that they had only lain down when the bugle blew the reveille on the morning of May 3, 1864.
The vigilant Orderly-Sergeant was at once on his feet, rousing the other "non-coms" to get the men up.
Si and Shorty rose promptly, and, experienced campaigners as they were, were in a moment ready to march anywhere or do anything as long as their rations and their cartridges held out.
The supply of rations and cartridges were the only limitations Sherman's veterans knew. Their courage, their willingness, their ability to go any distance, fight and whip anything that breathed had no limitations. They had the supremest confidence in themselves and their leaders, and no more doubt of their final success than they had that the sun would rise in the morning.
Vigorous, self-reliant manhood never reached a higher plane than in the rank and file of Sherman's army in the Spring of 1864.
Si and Shorty had only partially undressed when they lay down. Their shoes, hats and blouses were with their haversacks under their heads. Instinctively, as their eyes opened, they reached for them and put them on.
That was a little trick only learned by hard service.
The partners started in to rouse their boys. As soon as these were fairly awake they became greatly excited. They had gone to sleep bubbling over with the momentousness of the coming day, and now that day had opened.
There was a frantic scrambling for clothing, which it was impossible for them to find in the pitchy darkness. There were exclamations of boyish ill-temper at their failure. They thought the enemy were right upon them, and every instant was vital. Monty Scruggs and Alf Russell could not wait to dress, but rushed for their guns the first thing, and buckled on their cartridge-boxes.
"Gid Mackall, you've got on my shoes," screamed Harry Josyln. "I can't find 'em nowhere, and I laid 'em right beside me. Take 'em off this minute."
"Hain't got your shoes on; can't find but one o' my own," snorted Gid in reply. "You helter-skelter little fly-up-the-crick, you never know where your own things are, and you lose everybody else's."
"There's my shoe," exclaimed Harry, as he stumbled over one.
"No; that's mine. Let it alone—give it to me," yelled Gid, and in an instant the two were locked together in one of their usual fights.
Si snatched them apart, cuffed them, and lighted a bit of candle, which he kept for emergencies, to help them and the rest find their things. He improved the occasion to lecture them as to the way they should do in the future.
After awakening him, Shorty had calmed down the excited little Pete, found his shoes and other clothes for him, and seen that he put them on properly.
"Have everything all right at startin', Pete," said he, "and you'll be all right for the day. You'll have plenty o' time. The rebels'll wait for us."
"Aint them them, right out there?" asked Pete nervously, pointing to the banks of blackness out in front.
"No; them's the same old cedar thickets they wuz when you went to bed. They hain't changed a mite durin' the night, except that they've got some dew on 'em. You must git over seein' bouggers wherever it's dark. We'll build a fire and cook some breakfast, and git a good ready for startin'. You must eat all you kin, for you'll need all you kin hold before the day's over."
Si was employed the same way in quieting down the rest, seeing that every one was properly clothed and had all his equipments, and then he gathered them around a little fire to boil their coffee and broil a piece of fresh beef for their breakfast. He had the hardest work getting them to pay attention to this, and eat all they could. They were so wrought up over the idea that the battle would begin at any minute that the sound of a distant bugle or any noise near would bring them up standing, to the utter disregard of their meal.
"Take it cool, boys, and eat all you kin," he admonished them. "It's generally a long time between meals sich times as these, and the more you eat now the longer you kin go without."
But the boys could not calm themselves.
"There, ain't that rebel cavalry galloping and yelling?" one exclaimed; and they all sprang to their feet and stared into the darkness.
"No," said Shorty, with as much scorn as he could express with his mouthful of the last issue of soft bread that he was to get. "Set down. That's only the Double Canister Battery goin' to water. Their Dutch bugler can't speak good English, his bugle only come to this country at the beginning o' the war, and he's got a bad cold in his head besides. Nobody kin understand his calls but the battery boys, and they won't have no other. They swear they've the best bugler in the army."'
"Set down! Set down, I tell you," Si repeated sternly, "and swaller all the grub you kin hold. That's your first business, and it's just as much your business as it is to shoot when you're ordered to. You've got to lay in enough now to run you all day. And all that you've got to listen for is our own bugle soundin' 'Fall in!' Don't mind no other noise."
They tried to obey, but an instant later all leaped to their feet, as a volley of mule screechers mixed with human oaths and imprecations came up from a neighboring ravine.
"There! There's the rebels, sure enough," they ejaculated, dropping their coffee and meat and rushing for their guns.
"Come back and set down, and finish your breakfast," shouted Si. "That ain't no rebels. That's only the usual family row over the breakfast table between the mules and the teamsters."
"Mules is kickin' because the teamsters don't wash their hands and put on white aprons when they come to wait on 'em," suggested Shorty.
The boys looked at him in amazement, that he should jest at such a momentous time.
"There's the 'assembly' now," said Si, as the first streak of dawn on the mountain-top was greeted by the bugler at the 200th Ind.'s Headquarters, filling the chill air with stirring notes.
"Put on your things. Don't be in a hurry. Put on everything just right, so's it won't fret or chafe you during the march. You'll save time by takin' time now."
He inspected the boys carefully as it grew lighter, showed them how to adjust their blanket-rolls and canteens and heavy haversacks so as to carry to the best advantage, examined their guns, and saw that each had his full allowance of cartridges.
"Here comes meat for the rebel cavalry," shouted one of the older members of the company, as Si brought his squad up to take its place on the left of Co. Q.
"I wouldn't say much about rebel cavalry, if I was you, Wolf Greenleaf," Si admonished the joker. "Who was it down in Kentucky that was afraid to shoot at a rebel cavalryman, for fear it would make him mad, and he might do something?"
The laugh, that followed this old-time "grind" on one of the teasers of new recruits silenced him, and encouraged the boys.
As the light broadened, and revealed the familiar hills and woods, unpeopled by masses of enemies, the shivery "2 o'clock-in-the-morning-feeling" vanished from the boys' hearts, and was succeeded by eagerness to see the redoubtable rebels, of whom so much had been said.
The companies formed up into the regiment on the parade ground, the Colonel mounted his horse, took his position on the right flank, and gave the momentous order:
"Attention, battalion—Right face—Forward—file left—March!"
The first wave rolled forward in the mighty avalanche of men, which was not to be stayed until, four months later, Sherman telegraphed North the glad message:
"Atlanta is ours, and fairly won."
As they wound around and over the hills in front, they saw the "reserves," the "grand guard," and finally the pickets with their reserves drawn in, packed up ready for marching, and waiting for their regiments to come up, when they would fall-in.
"There's a h—l's mint of deviling, tormenting rebel cavalry out there beyond the hills," they called out to the regiment. "Drop onto 'em, and mash 'em. We'll be out there to help, if you need it."
"The 200th Injianny don't need no help to mash all the rebel cavalry this side o' the brimstone lakes," Si answered proudly. "Much obliged to you, all the same."
"Capt. McGillicuddy," commanded the Colonel, as they advanced beyond where the picket-line had been, "deploy your company on both sides of the road, and take the advance. Keep a couple hundred yards ahead of the regiment."
"Hooray," said Si, "we're in the lead again, and we'll keep it till the end o' the chapter. Co. Q, to the front and center."
They advanced noiselessly over the crest of a ridge, and the squad, which gained a little on the rest, saw a rebel videt sitting on his horse in the road some 200 or 300 yards away. The guns of the nervous boys were up instantly, but Si restrained them with a motion of his hand.
"What's the matter with him?" he asked Shorty, indicating the rebel.
"Him and his hors's wore out and asleep," answered Shorty, after a minute's study. "Look at his head and his hoss's."
"Kin we sneak up on him and git him?" asked Si.
"Scarcely," answered Shorty. "Look over there."
A squad of rebels were riding swiftly up the road toward the videt.
"Shan't I shoot him?" asked the nervous little Pete, lifting his gun to his face.
"No, no; give him a show for his life," answered Shorty, laying his hand on Pete's gun.
"It'd be murder to shoot him now. Gi' me your gun, Pete. Run down the road there apiece, and hit him or his horse with a stone and wake him up."
The boys, to whom a rebel was a savage wolf, to be killed any way that he could be caught, looked wonderingly at Si, who responded by a nod of approval.
"Won't he chop me with his sword?" asked Pete, still full of the terrors of that weapon.
"We'll look out for that. Go ahead, quick, Pete," said Si.
Poor little Pete, looking as if he was being sent to lead a forlorn hope, rushed frantically forward, picking up a stone as he ran, and hurled it with a true aim squarely against the rebel's breast, who woke with a start, clutched his carbine, and stared around, while little Pete dashed into the brush to avoid his dreaded saber.
"Look out for yourself, reb. We're a-coming," shouted Si.
The rebel whirled his horse about, fired his carbine into the air, and sped back to his friends, while the squad rushed forward and took position behind trees. The rebels came plunging on.
"Fire!" shouted Si.
The guns of the squad crashed almost together. The bullets seemed to strike near, but without taking effect on any one of the rebels, who seemed to catch sight of the rest of Co. Q coming over the crest. They whirled their horses around, and started back on a sharp trot, while the boys were reloading.
"Go ahead. Sergeant," shouted Capt. McGillicuddy, from the rear. "Follow them up. We're right behind you. Push them back on their reserves."
"All right, Cap. Back they go," shouted Si, leading forward his squad in a heavy-footed run down the road. They soon came to an opening of somewhat level ground, made by the clearing around a cabin.
The rebel squad halted beyond the cornfields, turned about, and opened fire.
"Holy smoke, look there," gasped Monty Scruggs, as a company of rebel cavalry came tearing over the hill in front, to the assistance of their comrades.
"Them ain't many for cavalry," said Shorty, as he and Si deployed the boys behind fence-corners, and instructed them to shoot carefully and low.
"Sargint, see there, and there," shouted Alf Russell, as other companies of rebels came galloping through over the crest, while the first arrivals began throwing down the fences, preparatory to a charge.
"Yes, there's about a rijimint," Si answered coolly. "We'll need the most o' Co. Q to 'tend to them. Here they come."
"Sergeant, what's all this disturbance you're kicking up in camp?" said Capt. McGillicuddy playfully, as he deployed Co. Q. "Can't you take a quiet walk out into the country, without stirring up the whole neighborhood?"
"They seem to've bin at home and expectin' us, Capt," grinned Si, as he pointed to the augmenting swarm of horsemen.
"There does seem to be a tolerably full house," answered the Captain with a shrug. "Well, the more the merrier. Boys, shoot down those fellows who're tearing down the fences. That'll stop any rush on us, and we'll develop their force."
"It's developing itself purty fast, seems to me. There comes another rijimint," remarked Si.
The firing grew pretty noisy.
Si was delighted to see how naturally his boys took to their work. After the first flurry of excitement at confronting the yelling, galloping horde, they crouched down behind their fence-corners, and loaded and fired as deliberately as the older men.
"What sort of a breach of the peace is this you are committing, Capt. McGillicuddy?" asked Col. McBiddle, coming up at the head of the 200th Ind. "And do you want some accomplices?"
"I believe if you'll give me another company I can make a rush across there and scatter those fellows," answered the Captain.
"All right. Take Co. A. Push them as far as you can, for the orders are to develop their strength at once. I'll follow close behind and help you develop, if you need me."
An instant later the two companies rushed across the field, making a bewildering transformation in the rebels' minds from charging to being charged. The rebels were caught before they could complete their formation. There was a brief tumult of rushes and shots and yells, and they were pushed back through the woods, with some losses In killed and wounded and stampeded horses.
Si had led his squad straight across the field, against a group engaged in pulling down the fence. They were caught without their arms, and two were run down and captured. Palpitating with success, the boys rushed over to where the regiment was gathering itself together at the edge of the woods on the brow of the ridge.
"Why don't they go ahead? What're they stoppin' for? The whole rijimint's up," Si asked, with a premonition of something wrong.
"Well, I should say there was something to stop for," answered Shorty, as they arrived where they could see, and found the whole country in front swarming with rebel cavalry as far as their eyes could reach.
"Great Scott," muttered Si, with troubled face, for the sight was appalling. "Is the whole Confederacy out there on hossback?"
"O, my, do we have to fight all them?" whimpered little Pete, scared as much by the look on Shorty's face as at the array.
"Shut up, Pete," said Shorty petulantly, as a shell from a rebel battery shrieked through the woods with a frightful noise. "Git behind this stump here, and lay your gun across it. I'll stand beside you. Don't shoot till you've a bead on a man. Keep quiet and listen to orders."
A rebel brigade was rapidly preparing to charge. It stretched out far beyond the flanks of the regiment.
"Steady, men! Keep cool!" rang out the clear, calm voice of the Colonel. "Don't fire till they come to that little run in the field, and then blow out the center of that gang."
The brigade swept forward with a terrific yell. Si walked behind his squad, and saw that every muzzle was depressed to the proper level.
The brigade came on grandly, until they reached the rivulet, and then a scorching blast broke out from the muzzles of the 200th Ind., which made them reel and halt.
Yells of "Close up, Alabamians!" "This way, Tennesseeans!" "Form on your colors, Georgians!" came from the rebels as the boys reloaded. Then all sounds were drowned in the rattling musketry, as the rebels began a hot fire from their saddles, in answer to the Union musketry.
"Captain, they are moving out a brigade on either flank to take us in the rear," said Col. McBiddle calmly to Capt. McGillicuddy. "We'll have to fall back to the brigade. Pass the word along to retire slowly, firing as we go. The brigade must be near. You had better move your company over toward the right, to meet any attack that may come from that direction. I'll send Co. A toward the other flank."
It was a perilous movement to make in front of such overwhelming force. But the smoke curtained the manuver and the rebels only discovered it by the diminution of the fire in their front. Then they and the flanking brigades came on with ringing yells, and it seemed that the regiment was to be swept off the face of the earth. The 200th Ind. was not to be scared by yells, however, and sent such a galling fire from front and flanks, that the rebel advance lost its rushing impetus. The regiment was reaching the edge of the woods. The clear fields would give the rebel cavalry its chance.
The whole command advanced, the moment the rebels began to break under the fire, across the fields and through the woods to the crest where the 200th Ind. had first tried to stop the swarming rebel horsemen. From there they could see the broad plain rapidly vacated by their enemies, hurrying away from the pursuing shells.
The Colonel's clear, penetrating tones rang above the tumult:
"Attention, 200th Ind.! Every man for himself across the fields. Rally on the fence beyond."
Shorty, whose face had been scratched by a bullet, took little Pete by the hand. "Now, run for it, my boy, as you never run before in your life. Hold on to your gun."
There was a wild rush, through a torrent of bullets, across the cleared space, and as he jumped the fence, Si was rejoiced to see his squad all following him, with Shorty dragging little Pete in the rear.
They had scarcely struck the ground beyond, when it shook with the crash of artillery on the knoll above, and six charges of double canister tore wickedly into the surging mass of rebel cavalry.
"The Double Canister Battery got up jest in the nick o' time," gasped Shorty, as he shoved little Pete down behind a big log. "It generally does, though."
"I'm glad the brigade wasn't a mile off," puffed Si, listening with satisfaction to the long line of rifles singing tenor to the heavy bass of the cannon.
"Capt. McGillicuddy," said the Colonel, "I ordered you to develop the enemy's strength. Has it occurred to you that you somewhat overdid the thing?"
"GREAT Jehosephat, how hungry I am," suddenly ejaculated Shorty, stopping his cheering, as the thunder of the guns died away into an occasional shot after the rebels galloping back to the distant woods on the ridge from which they had emerged.
"I must make some coffee. Wonder where I put my matches?"
"Here, Pete," continued Shorty, as he broke off some splinters from the rails and started a little fire, "take my canteen and Si's and yours, and run down there and find a spring, and fill 'em, before the others make a rush. Be spry about it, for there'll be a rush there in a minute, and you won't have no chance."
The excited boy had to be spoken to a second time before he would come back to earth, much less comprehend the want of water and food. Like the rest of his companions, the terrific drama which had just been enacted had wrought him to a delirium, in which he could think of nothing but a world full of bellowing cannon, and a nightmare of careering, plunging horses, with savagely-yelling riders.
They could not realize that the battlecloud had rolled away just as suddenly as it had burst upon them, and they stood there tightly grasping their reloaded guns, and staring fixedly into the distance for the next horrid development.
"I think you'll find a spring right over there where you see that bunch o' young willers, Pete," said Si, handing him his canteen. "Break for it, before anybody else gets there and muddies the water."
But Pete still stood rigid and unhearing, clutching his gun with a desperate grip, and glaring with bulging, unmoving eyes across the plain.
"Come, wake up, Pete," said Shorty, giving him a sharp shake. "Do as I tell you, and on the jump. The fight's over."
"The fight's over?" stammered the boy. "Ain't they coming back again?"
"Not on their butternut-dyed lives they ain't," said Shorty scornfully. "They've got their dirty hides as full o' lickin' as they kin hold for one day. They'll set around for a while, and rub their hurts, and try to think out jest how it all happened."
"Skip out, Pete," Si reminded the boy. "The rest o' you boys stack your guns and foller Pete."
"Hadn't we batter take our guns along?" suggested Monty, holding on to his with grim fearfulness.
"No. Stack 'em; stack 'em, I tell you," said Si impatiently. "And be quick about it. They'll all git ahead o' you. Don't you see the rest stackin' arms?"
The boys obeyed as if dazed, and started to follow little Pete's lead toward the clump of willows.
The boy, full of the old nick, found an Orderly's horse nipping the grass close by the path to the spring and, boy like, jumped on its back. The clatter of the canteens frightened the horse, and he broke into a dead run.
"Do ye s'pose the fight's really over?" whispered Pete to Alf Russell, who was just behind him. "Don't you think the rebels just let go to get a fresh hold?"
"Seems so to me," answered Alf. "Seems to me there was just millions of 'em, and we only got away with a little passel, in spite of all that shootin'. Why, when we come out on the ridge the valley down there seemed fuller of 'em than it was at first."
"We oughtn't to get too far away from our guns," said Monty Scruggs. "Them woods right over there may be full o' rebels watching to jump us when we get far enough away."
"I don't like the looks of that hill to the left," said Gid Mackall, nervously. "An awful lot o' them went behind it, and I didn't see any come out."
"There, them bushes over there are shaking—they're coming out again," said Harry Joslyn, turning to run back for his gun.
"No, not there," nervously interjected Humphrey's, turning with him; "ain't there something stirring down there by the crick?"
"No, no," said Sandy Baker, desperately. "It's just that blame fool Pete. Come on! Come on! We've got to. We were ordered to. Le's make a rush for it, like the men in the Indian stories done when they was sent for water."
They acted on the suggestion with such vim that when Pete's horse tripped at the edge of the little run, and sent Pete over its head with a splash into the mud and water, the rest tumbled and piled on top of him.
The men on the hill, who had noticed it, set up a yell of laughter, which scared the boys worse than ever, for they thought it meant the rebels were on them again.
"Now, what new conniption's struck them dumbed little colts?" said Si, irritably, as he strode down to them, pulled them out, and set them on their feet, with a shaking and some strong words.
"Is the rebels coming again?" gasped Pete, rubbing the mud and water out of his eyes.
"No, you little fool," said Si. "The rebels ain't comin'. They're goin' as fast as their horses kin carry 'em. They've got through comin' for today.
"There ain't one of 'em within cannon-shot, and won't be till we go out and hunt 'em up again. You've come near spilin' the spring with your tormented foolishness. What on earth possessed you to climb that boss? You need half killin', you do. Go up higher there and fill your canteens from where the water's clear. Be slow and careful, and don't rile the water. Say, I see some nice sassafras over there. I always drink sassafras tea this time o' year. It cleans the blood. I'm goin' over and see if I can't git a good root while you're fillin' your canteens."
Si walked out some distance in front of them, pulling as he walked some of the tender, fragrant, spicy young leaves of the sassafras, and chewing them with gusto. Arriving at the top of a rise he selected a young shrub, pulled it up, carefully loosed its root from the mulchy soil, and cut it off with his knife. His careless deliberation calmed the overwrought nerves of the boys, and when he returned they had their canteens filled, and walked back composedly to the fires, when they suddenly remembered that they were as hungry as Si and Shorty, and fell to work cooking their suppers.
"Is that the way with the rebel cavalry?" asked Monty Scruggs, with his mouthful of crackers and meat. "Do they come like a hurricane, and disappear again like an April shower?"
"That's about it," answered Shorty disdainfully. "That's the way with all cavalry, dad-burn 'em. They're like a passel o' fice pups. They're all yelp and bark, and howl and showin' o' teeth. They're jest goin' to tear you to pieces. But when you pick up a stone or a club, or git ready to give 'em a good kick they're gone, the devil knows where. They're only an aggravation. You never kin do nothin' with 'em, and they kin do nothin' with you. I never kin understand why God Almighty wasted his time in makin' cavalry of any kind, Yank or rebel. All our own cavalry's good for is to steal whisky and chickens from honest soldiers of the infantry. The infantry's the only thing. It's like the big dog that comes up without any special remarks, and sets his teeth in the other dog. The thing only ends when one dog or the other is badly whipped and somethin's bin accomplished."
"Will we have to fight them cavalry again tomorrow jest the same way?" asked little Pete, still somewhat nervously.
"Lord only knows," answered Shorty indifferently, feeling around for his pipe. "A feller never knows when he's goin' to have to fight rebel cavalry any more'n he knows when he's goin' to have the toothache. The thing just happens, and that's all there is of it."
Si and Shorty, having finished their suppers, lighted their pipes, and strolled up through the regiment to talk over with the others the events of the day and the probabilities of the morrow.
Left alone, the tongues of the excited boys became loosened, and ran like the vibrations of a cicada's rattle.
"Wasn't it just wonderful?" said Monty Scruggs. "It looked as if a
million circuses had suddenly let out over there.
"'The Assyrians came down like a wolf on the fold,
And their cohorts were gleaming with purple and gold.'
"Only there didn't seem much purple and gold about them. Seemed mostly brown rags and slouch hats and long swords. Gracious, did you ever see anything as long and wicked as them swords! Seemed that every one was pointing directly at me, and they'd reach me the very next jump."
"Of course, you thought they were all looking at you," said Alf Russell. "That's your idea, always, wherever you are. You think you're spouting on the platform, and the center of attraction. But I knew that they were all looking at me, as folks generally do."
"More self-conceit," sneered Harry Joslyn. "Just because you're so good looking, Alf. I knew that they weren't bothering about any boy orator, who does most of his shooting with his mouth, nor any young pill-peddler, who sings in the choir, and goes home with the prettiest girl. They were making a dead set on the best shot in the crowd, the young feller who'd come into the war for business, and told his folks at home before he started that he was going to shoot Jeff Davis with his own hand before he got back. That was me, I saw the Colonel of one o' the regiments point his sword straight at me as they came across the run, and tell his men to be sure and get me of all others."
"Why didn't you shoot him, if you're such a deadshot?" asked Gid Mackall.
"Why, I was just loading my gun, when I saw him, and as I went to put on the cap you were shaking so that it jarred the cap out of my hand, and before I could get another, the smoke became so thick I couldn't see anything."
"I shaking?" said Gib, with deep anger. "Now, Harry Josyn—"
"Come, boys; don't have a scrap, now," pleaded the serious-minded Alf. "Just think how many dead men are lying around. It looks like raising a disturbance at a funeral."
"That's so," said Jake Humphreys. "I don't think any of us is in shape to throw up anything to another about shaking. I own up that I was never so scared in all my life, and I feel now as if I ought to get down on my knees before everybody, and thank God Almighty that my life was spared. I ain't ashamed to say so."
"Bully for you, Jake," said Monty Scruggs, heartily. "We all feel that way, but hain't the nerve to say so. I wish the Chaplain would come around and open a meeting of thanksgiving and prayer."
"I tell you what's the next best thing," suggested Jake Humphreys. "Let Alf Russell sing one of those good old hymns they used to sing in the meetings back at home."
"Home!" How many thousands of miles away—how many years of time away—seemed to those flushed, overwrought boys, bivouacking on the deadstrewn battlefield, the pleasant cornfields, the blooming orchards, the drowsy hum of bees, the dear homes, sheltering fathers, mothers, and sisters; the plain white churches, with their faithful, grayhaired pastors, of the fertile plains of Indiana.
Alf Russell lifted up his clear, far-reaching boyish tenor, that they had heard a thousand times at devout gatherings, at joyful weddings, at sorrowing funerals, in that grandest and sweetest of hymns:
"All hail the power of Jesus' name;
Let angels prostrate fall.
Bring forth the royal-diadem.
And crown Him Lord of All."
As far as his voice could reach, the rough soldiers, officers and men, stopped to listen to him—listened to him with emotions far too deep for the cheers that usually fly to the lips of soldiers at anything that stirs them. The higher officers quit talking of the plans of the morrow; the minor ones stopped, pen in hand, over their reports and requisitions; the busy Surgeons stayed their keen knives; the fussy Orderly-Sergeants quit bothering about rations and details; the men paused, looked up from their cards and cooking until the hymn was sung through.
The voice was so pure, so fresh, so redolent of all that had graced and sweetened their far-off past, that it brought to each swarming emotions for which there was no tongue.
"Bully for you, Alf; you're a sweet singer in Israel," said Si, brushing away a suspicion of a tear. "Spread out your blankets, boys, and lay down. Git all the sleep you kin, for there's lots o' work for us tomorrow. There goes tattoo!"
FOR the next few days there was a puzzling maze of movements, which must have completely mystified the rebel Generals—as was intended—for it certainly passed the comprehension of our own keen-eyed and shrewdly-guessing rank-and-file and lower oflficers.
Regiments, brigades and divisions marched hither-and-yon, wound around and over the hills and mountains, started out at a great rate in the morning, marched some distance, halted apparently halfway, and then perhaps went back. Skirmishing, that sometimes rose to the proportions of a real battle, broke out at unexpected times and places, and as unexpectedly ended. Batteries galloped into position, without much apparent warning or reason, viciously shelled some distant point, and then, as the infantry were girding up themselves for something real to follow all the noise, stopped as abruptly as they had begun, and nothing followed.
This went on so long, and apparently so purposelessly, that even the constant Si and Shorty were shaken a little by it.
"It can't be," said Shorty to Si, one evening after they had gone into bivouac, and the two had drawn away from the boys a little, to talk over things by themselves, "that old Sherman's got one o' his crazy fits again, can it? They say that sometimes he gits crazier 'n a March hare, and nobody kin tell just when the fit'll come on him. I never did see so much criss cross work as we've bin doin' for the last few days. I can't make head nor tail of it, and can't find anybody else that kin."
"I can't make it out no more than you kin," assented Si. "And I've thought o' that crazy idee, too. You know them boys over there in Rousseau's old division was under Sherman once before, when he was in command at Louisville, and they say that he got crazier'n a locoed steer—actually looney, so's they had to relieve him and send him back home to git cured. They'd be really scared about things, but their officers heard old Pap Thomas say that things wuz goin' along all right, and that satisfied 'em. I ain't goin' to worry so long's old Thomas is in command o' the Army o' the Cumberland, and we're in it. He'll take care that things come out straight."
"You bet," heartily agreed Shorty. "The Army o' the Cumberland'll be all right as long as he's on deck, and he kin take care o' the other armies, too, if they git into trouble. I struck some o' the Army o' the Tennessee when I went back with them prisoners today, and got talkin' with 'em. I asked 'em if Sherman wasn't subject to crazy fits, and they said yes, he had 'em, but when he did he made the rebels a mighty sight crazier'n he was. They went on to say that we'd git used to Sherman after awhile, and he'd show us some kinks in soljerin' that we never dreamed of."
"Sich plaguey conceit," muttered Si.
"I should say so. But I never seen anybody so stuck on theirselves as them Army o' the Tennessee fellers. Just because they took Vicksburg—"
"With all the navy to help 'em," interjected Si.
"Yes, with more gunboats than we have army wagons. They think they know more about soljerin than anybody else in the world, and ackchelly want to give us p'ints as to how to git away with the rebels."
"The idee," said Si scornfully. "Talkin' that way to the best soljers in the world—the Army o' the Cumberland. I hate conceit, above all things. I'm glad I hain't none of it in me. 'Tain't that we say it, but everybody knows it that the Army o' the Cumberland's the best army in the world, and the 200th Injianny—"
"I told 'em that the Army o' the Cumberland was the best army, because it had the 200th Injianny in it, and, would you believe me, they said they'd never even heard o' the 200th Injianny?"
"Sich ignorance," groaned Si. "Can't they read? Don't they git the papers?"
"There'd bin a fight right, there, if it hadn't bin for the officers. I wanted awfully to take a fall out of a big Sergeant who said that Thomas might be a good enough man for Chairman of a convention o' farmers, but when he went to war he wanted to have sich leaders as Sherman, McPherson, and Logan, and Osterhaus. But he'll keep. We agreed to see each other later, when we'll have a private discussion, and if he has any head left on him he'll freely acknowledge that nobody in the Army o' the Tennessee is fit to be named in the same day with Pap Thomas."
"Better turn him over to me, Shorty," said Si, meditatively. "I think I'm in better shape for an argument just now than you are. You've bin doing a good deal in the last few days, and I'm afraid you're a little run down."
"No; he's my meat. I found him, and I'll take care o' him. But there's just one thing that reconciles me to this business. In spite o' all this sashayin' and monkeying we seem to be continually edgin' up closter to them big cliffs where the rebels are, and something's got to bust purty soon. It's jist like it was at Tullyhomy, but old Rosecrans ain't runnin' things now."
"But Thomas is in the center, as he was then, and we're with him," said Si hopefully. "There's tattoo, Le's crawl in."
The other boys had been affected according to their various temperaments by the intricate and bewildering events of the past few days. The first day or two they were all on the tenter-hooks of expectation and anxiety. Every bugle-call seemed to be a notice for them to rush into the great battle. Every time they saw a regiment moving, they expected to follow and fall into line with it. They wondered why they were not sent in after every skirmish-line they saw advancing. When a rebel battery opened out in the distance they girded themselves in expectation of an order to charge it. But Si and Shorty kept admonishing them that it would be time enough for them to get excited when the 200th Ind. was called on by name for something; that they were not expected to fight the whole campaign, but only to do a limited part of it, and they had better take things easy, and save themselves for their share when it should come to them.
It was astonishing how soon they recognized this, and settled down to more or less indifference to things that did not directly concern their own regiment. They were just at the age to be imitative, and the example of the veterans around them had a strongly-repressive effect.
So, after the second or third day of the turmoil of the opening campaign, they ceased to bother themselves openly, at least, as to why their regiment did not move when others did, as to why they did not go to the help of others that were fighting, and as to when they were to be summoned to make a desperate assault upon the frowning palisades of rock which were literally alive with rebels and belching cannon.
When the regiment was lying still they occupied and amused themselves, as did the others, according to their several bents. The medical-minded Alf Russell watched the movements and deportment of the Surgeons at every opportunity, and was especially interested in everything that he could catch a glimpse of, from feeling a man's pulse to extracting a bullet. The lathy Gid Mackall, whose appetite did not need the sharpening it got from the free mountain air, put in much of his time cooking, all possible variations of his rations with anything else that he could get hold of, and devouring the product with eagerness. In spite of Si's strict prohibition against card-playing, the sleepy headed Jim Humphreys was rapidly, but secretly, mastering all the tricks and mysteries of camp gambling, and becoming an object of anxiety to the older gamesters whenever he pitted himself against them. Sandy Baker, whose tastes ran to mechanics, "tinkered" constantly with his rifle and equipments, studying the nature and inner workings of every part, and considering possible improvements. Sprightly Harry Joslyn was fascinated with the details of soldiering, and devoted himself to becoming perfect in the manual of arms and the facings. Little Pete Skidmore was keenly alive to all that was going on, and wanted to know everything. When he could trust himself not to get lost from his regiment, he would scurry over to the nearest one, to find out who they were, where they had come from, what they had been doing, and whither they were likely to go. But Monty Scruggs was constantly in the public eye, as he loved to be. His passion for declamation pleased officers and men. He really declaimed very well, and it was a reminder to them of home and the long-ago school days to hear him "spout" the oldtime Friday afternoon favorites.
Therefore he was always called upon whenever there was nothing else to engage the men's attention, and his self-confidence and vanity grew rapidly upon the liberal applause bestowed on him. He was a capital mimic, too, and daring as well, and it was not long before he began to "take off" those around him, which his comrades enjoyed even more than his declamations.
The llth of May, 1864, saw all the clouds of battle which had been whirling for days in such apparently diverse directions, gathering about the deep gorge in Rocky Face Ridge through which the railroad passed. "Buzzard Roost," as this was named, was the impregnable citadel behind which the rebel army had taken refuge after its rout at Mission Ridge the previous November, and the rebel engineers had since exhausted every effort to make it still more unassailable. The lofty mountain rose precipitously for hundreds of feet on either side the narrow gorge, and the last hundred feet was a sheer wall of perpendicular rock. The creek which ran through the gorge had been dammed, so that its waters formed a broad, deep moat before the mouth of the gorge. The top of the ridge swarmed with men, and to the rear of the gorge guns were massed in emplacements to sweep every foot of the passage.
It seemed madness to even think of forcing such a pass. A thousand men in the shelters of that fastness could beat back myriads, and it was known that Joe Johnston had at least 50,000 behind the Ridge. Yet Sherman was converging great rivers of men from the north, the northwest and west down upon that narrow gap, as if he meant to move the eternal rocks by a freshet of human force.
The rebels thrown out in advance of the gorge, on outlying hills, rocks and cliffs, were swept backward and into the gap by the resistless wave of blue rolling forward, fiery and thundering, gathering force and vehemence as it converged into a shortening semi-circle about the rugged stronghold.
The 200th Ind. moved forward and took its place in the line on a hill commanding a view of the entrance to the gorge, and there waited its orders for the general advance, which seemed imminent any instant.
For miles to the right and left the woods were crackling with musketry, interspersed with the booming of fieldpieces.
The regiment had stacked arms and broken ranks.
For an hour or two the men had studied with intense eagerness the bristling fortifications of the gap and the swarming foemen at the foot of and on the summit of the high walls of rock. They had listened anxiously to the firing to the right and left, and tried to make out what success their comrades on other parts of the long crescent were having. They had watched the faces of the officers to read there how the battle was going.
But one after another found this tiresome after awhile and set himself to his usual camp employments and diversions. Some got out needles and thread, and began repairing their clothes. Some gathered in groups and smoked and talked. Many produced the eternal cards, folded up a blanket for a table, and resumed their endless sevenup and euchre or poker for buttons and grains of corn. Jim Humphreys found his way into one of these games, which was played behind a clump of bushes, and the buttons represented dimes. He was accumulating fractional currency. Gid Mackall embraced the opportunity to cook for himself a savory stew with some onions distributed by the Sanitary Commission. Sandy Baker went over his gun, saw that every screw was properly tight, and dropped the tiniest amount of oil on the trigger and the hammer, to ease their working. Pete Skidmore wandered down to the flank of the next regiment to find out if anything new had occurred. Harry Joslyn got himself into the exact "position of a soldier," with his heels together, his toes pointed at an angle of 45 degrees, and went through the manual of the piece endlessly. Si and the Orderly-Sergeant communed together about the rations for the company, and the various troubles there was always on the Orderly's mind about the company's management. Shorty got off by himself, produced from his breast his mementoes of Maria, and read over her last letter for the thousandth time, though he knew every word in it. But he seemed to get a new and deeper meaning every time he read it.
Groups of officers would come up to a little rise in front, study the distant ridge with their glasses for awhile, and then ride away.
A couple of natty young Aids followed their superiors' example, rode up, dismounted, and studied the enemy's position with great dignity and earnestness, that it might have full effect upon the brigade behind them.
Monty Scruggs saw his opportunity. He bound some tin cans together to represent field glasses, mounted a stump, and began intently studying Buzzard Roost.
This attracted the attention of the others.
"What do you see, Monty?" they shouted.
"See?" answered he. "Just lots and gobs. I see old Joe Johnston over there, with Pat Cleburne, and Hood and Bragg, and Joe Wheeler. They're all together, and pulling off their coats, and rolling up their sleeves, and shaking their fists at the 200th Ind., and daring it to come on."
"Tell 'em not to sweat. Just hold their horses. We'll be over presently," shouted the others, with yells of laughter. "What else do you see?"
The young Aids turned around and glanced angrily at Monty and the laughing crowd.
"I see old Jeff Davis there, with his Cabinet of traitors. He's writing a fresh proclamation to his people, with his blind eye, and has got his good one fixed on the 200th Ind., which he's telling Joe Johnston is bound to give him more trouble than all the rest o' the army."
"Good! Good!" yelled the rest. "So we will. Old Jeff's right for once. What else do you see?"
"Stop that, my man," said one of the Aids savagely. "You're disturbing us."
"Go ahead, and don't mind 'em," shouted the others. "They're only Second Lieutenants any way. Tell us what you see."
"I see way by Richmond, old Unconditional Surrender Grant's got Bob Lee by the throat, and's just wipin' up the State of Virginny with him. Lee's eyes is bulging out like gooseberries on a limb, and his tongue's hanging down like a dog's on a hot day—"
"Get down off that stump at once, and go back to your place," said the Aid authoritatively.
"Don't mind him. He's only a staff officer. He can't order you. Go ahead," shouted the rest.
"I see a couple o' young Second Lieutenants," started Monty, but the Aid sprang at him, and in an instant there was a rush of the other boys to defend him. Capt. McGillicuddy, who was usually conveniently deaf and blind to the boys' skylarking, looked up from the paper he was reading, hurried to the scene, quieted the disturbance, ordered Monty to get down and go back, and spoke sharply to the Aid about paying any attention to the men's harmless capers.
The bugle blew "Attention," and everybody sprang to his place, and waited eagerly for the next command.
"Men," said the Colonel, in his gentle, sweet voice, which, however, was distinctly audible to the farthest flank of the regiment, "we are ordered to help our comrades by attacking the mountain over there. You see what is before you, and that it will be terrible work, but I know that you will do all that you can do for the honor of dear old Indiana."
An enthusiastic cheer answered him.
"Battalion—Take—Arms!" commanded the Colonel. "Right face—Forward—File left—March!"
The regiment filed down through the woods on the hillside, and as it came into the opening at the bottom was greeted by a volley from a battery on Rocky Face Ridge. The shells screamed viciously over the heads of the men, and cut through the tops of the trees with a deafening crash.
"Wastin' good cast-iron on the landscape, as usual," laughed Shorty, to encourage the boys. "I always wonder how the rebels pick out the fellers they make cannoneers of. When they git hold of a feller who can't shoot so's to hit anything less'n a Township set up edgewise, they put him in the artillery."
"Mebbe they'll come closter next time," said little Pete with a shiver, as he trotted a little nearer Shorty.
"Naah, they'll never come no closter," said Shorty, contemptuously. "They couldn't hit even the side o' the mountain if it wasn't in their way and no place else for the ball to go."
Just then a shell screamed so close above Shorty that he involuntarily ducked his head.
"What makes you juke, if they can't hit nothing?" inquired little Pete, and the rest of them had regained composure enough to laugh.
"O," said Shorty composedly, "that feller wasn't shootin' at me. He was shootin' at the 1st Oshkosh, which is a quarter of a mile behind. If he'd hit me it'd 'a bin an accident, and I don't want no accidents to happen just now."
Approaching the cleared space in the center of the valley, the regiment went into line in the brush and pushed through to the edge of the woods. The moment that it appeared in the fringe of brushwood a sharp volley came from the line of rebels in the brush along the opposite side of the clearing. Evidently they were not expecting an advance at that moment, for their firing was wild, and wounded but a few men.
"Hold your fire till we are across," shouted the Colonel. "Forward—Guide center—Double-quick—March!"
With a yell the regiment swept across the clearing into the brush beyond. A furious, noisy scrambling ensued in the thickets. Neither side could see 10 yards ahead, and the firing, though fierce and rapid, was not very effective. Men shot at sounds, or motions of the bushes, and the bullets, glancing on the limbs, whistled in all directions. But the 200th Ind. pressed furiously forward, and though the rebels resisted stubbornly they were gradually pressed back up the hill. Occasionally one was killed, many were wounded, and squads were caught in clumps of brush and compelled to surrender. Si and Shorty kept their boys in hand, on the left of Co. Q, restrained them from firing until they saw something to shoot at, and saw that they did not advance until their guns were loaded. They heard a crashing volley delivered on their right front, and springing swiftly in that direction, came to a little break, across which they saw a squad of 15 or 16 rebels under the command of a Captain, with their guns still smoking, and peering into the woods to see the result of their fire. Si rushed at the Captain, with leveled gun, and ordered him to surrender.
"Are you an officer?" said the startled Captain as soon as he could gain words. "I'm a Captain. I'll not surrender to any one under my rank."
"I'm Captain enough for you," answered Si, thrusting the muzzle of his gun close to his face. "Surrender this minute, or off goes your head."
The Captain dropped his sword, and his men yielded.
The prisoners were conducted to the rear, and when Si returned with his squad to the regiment he found it had forced its way to the foot of the high wall of rock that rose straight up from the slope.
The rebels on the crest, 100 feet above, had been trying to assist their comrades below, by firing with their muskets, and occasionally sending a shell, where they could get their howitzers sufficiently depressed. Now they had bethought themselves to roll rocks and heavy stones off the crest, which fell with a crash on the treetops below.
The 200th Ind. was raging along the foot of the wall, trying to find a cleft in it by which they could climb to the top and get at their foes. Standing a few yards in the rear, under a gigantic white-oak, whose thick branches promised protection from the crashing bowlders, the Colonel was sending parties to explore every place that seemed hopeful, and report to him. When Si came up with his squad he was directed to go to the extreme left, and see what he could find.
He did so, and came to a little open space made by the washings which poured over the crest of the rock when the rain descended in torrents. There was a cleft there, but it was 40 feet above them, and surrounded by rebels, who yelled at the sight of his squad, and sent down a volley of bowlders. Si and his squad promptly dodged these by getting behind trunks of trees. They fired at the rebels on the crest, who as promptly lay down and sheltered themselves.
The firing and stone-throwing lasted an hour or more, and then seemed to die down from sheer exhaustion.
As the stones begun to come down more fitfully, and at longer intervals. Shorty shouted to those on top:
"Say, you fellers up there, ain't you gittin' tired o' that work? You ain't hurtin' nobody with them dornicks. We kin dodge 'em easy, and you're just strainin' yourselves for nothin'. Let up for awhile, till we both rest and git a fresh hold. We'll amuse you if you will."
"What'll you do?" asked one of the rebels, peering over the crest.
"Lots o' things. I'll turn one o' my famous doubleback-action flip-flaps, which people have come miles to see, when I was traveling with Dan Rice. Or we'll sing you a song. We've here the World Renowned Ballad-Singer of Bean Blossom Crick. Or we'll make you a speech. We have here the Justly-Famous Boy Orator of Pogue's Run."
Everything had become quite still all around during this dialog.
"Give us a song," said the rebel, and his comrades' heads began showing over the edge of the rock.
"Now, no rock-throwing and no shootin' while he's singing'," said Shorty. "Give the boy a chance to git back to his tree after he's done."
"All right. We'll play fair. But no politics," came back from the rock.
"Go out there, Alf, on the gravel, and sing to 'em," said Shorty.
Alf Russell hesitated a moment, and then climbed up on the pile of washings and after clearing his throat, sang "When This Cruel War is Over" in his best style, and was applauded from the top of the rock and below.
"Now, give us your speech. But no politics," the rebels shouted.
Monty Scruggs stepped up on the mound and recited "Bingen on the Rhine" in his best school-exhibition style. The delight of the rebels was boundless.
"Hip-hip—Hooray! Good! Good!" they shouted. "Give us another."
Monty scratched his head to think of something appropriate, and then occurred to him Webster's great speech in defense of the Union, which was then a favorite in the schools.
"When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, with fraternal blood. Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable."
The rebels listened with growing impatience to the words, and as Monty concluded with his best flourish they yelled angrily:
"Heah, we told you no politics. Git back thar, now, quick, or we'll bust your haid with this heah rock."
Shorty and Si raised their guns to shoot the man with the bowlder, and Monty skipped back to the shelter of his tree, saying with a grin:
"I was bound to give 'em a little straight goods before I quit, and they got it. Old Dan Webster's very words."
"The orders is to stay right here for the night," said the Orderly-Sergeant, coming up through the brush to Si, "and be ready for anything that comes. I don't know what old Sherman means—whether he is going to send over some balloons to lift us to the top of the rocks, or set us to tunneling through. I suppose it ain't my business to know. I've got enough to do running this company. But something's got to bust inside the next 24 hours, and when it does there'll be the dumbedest smash this country ever saw. Stay where you are till further orders, and make yourselves as comfortable as possible."
The rebels on the rocks having quieted down, the boys stowed themselves around the roots of the trees, made little fires under the shelter of the rocks, cooked their suppers, smoked their pipes, and finally rolled themselves in their blankets and went to sleep.
Little Pete "snugged" in with Shorty, but when that gentleman was awakened by Si a little after daylight, Pete was gone.
Shorty fumed around at this while he was cooking his breakfast, for he wanted Pete to be there and eat heartily, in preparation for the arduous struggles of the momentous day which was breaking for them.
But little Pete continued to be absent. No one had seen him, no one had heard his voice, no one know anything about him. Shorty became greatly worried, and the others shared his feelings, and began beating up the woods around in search of some place that he might have fallen into.
With the daybreak the firing away to the left, where a lodgment had been made on Rocky Face Ridge, beyond the gap, broke out afresh, and rolled down toward the gap. The squad listened intently to it as it came nearer, for they felt that it meant the beginning of the day's bloody business. The crests above them remained silent.
Suddenly they heard little Pete's voice calling:
"Sergeant Klegg! Corporal Elliott!"
They looked in every direction, but could see no Pete.
"Sergeant Klegg! Corporal Elliott! Look up here. I'm up here on the rocks."
They turned their eyes to the crest, and there saw Pete waving his hat to them.
"Come up here," he called. "There ain't no rebels up here. They've all gone off down into the valley."
From their tense hearts the boys sent up a cheer, which drew all attention to them. The news quickly spread along the line, and was received with cheers.
"Go down that way about 100 yards," Pete called down, "and you'll find a tall pine blowed down agin the cliff. You kin climb that, and git up to where its top lays right agin a bunch of bushes. Shorty rolled on my leg this morning, and waked me up before daylight. I then thought I'd git up and take a look, and see how things appeared before they got to shooting. I found the pine tree, and dumb it mighty quiet, intending to sneak up close to the rebels. But I couldn't find none. They was all gone."
THERE were the same perplexing sounds of battle in many places and directions when the 200th Ind. went into line as there had been around Buzzard Roost.
Joe Johnston was fiercely contesting every hilltop and narrow gorge to gain time to adjust his army to the unexpected movement through Snake Creek Gap, and save the stores he had accumulated behind the heavy fortifications around Dalton.
Though they had felt themselves completely worn out by the work with the train, the prospect of a fight put new life into the 200th Ind., and they leaned on their guns and listened to the crackling of musketry and booming of artillery far away to their left, to their right, and apparently in their rear. Sometimes the sounds would come so near that the wave of battle would seem to be surely rolling down on them. Then they would clutch their guns more firmly, and their hands instinctively seek their cartridge-boxes. Then the firing would as inexplicably die down and stop, when they would again sink on the ground with fatigue.
So the late afternoon wore on. It grew very quiet all around. Even the dull booming of the cannon far up the valley where Howard and Schofield were advancing on the heavy works immediately in front of Dalton, died down into sullen fitfulness.
The silence of the woods and the mountains as night drew on became more oppressive than the crashing sounds, the feverish movements, and the strained expectancy of the day had been.
The whip-poor-wills began to fill the evening air with their mournful calls, which accentuated and intensified the weird loneliness of the scene, where but a little while before there had been no thought but of deadly hatred and bitter strife.
"I never heard the whip-poor-wills whip so gloomily," remarked the sentimental Alf Russell, after the regiment had stacked arms, and the men were resting, exhausted and out of temper, on the ground. "Seems to me it sounds altogether different from the way they do at home; got something savage in it."
"Probably they're yelling their satisfaction over the number of men they've seen killed and wounded today," ventured Monty Scruggs. "Does 'em good to see men shooting at one another instead of birds."
"Dumbed little brutes," grumbled Shorty, nursing his hurt foot, "if they'd bin wrastlin' all day with a mule train they'd be too tired to go yellin' around like that. I always did hate a whip-poor-will, anyway. They hain't got sense enough to do anything but yell, jest like a pasel o' rebel cavalry."
"Great Scott! I wisht I knowed whether we're goin' to stay here tonight," said Si, handling his blanket roll with a look of anticipation.
"No," said the Orderly, coming down from the right of the regiment. "We're to move forward about a mile, and establish a line for the rest of the brigade to form on. We're to go quietly, without noise or commands, and then bivouac without fires. Get your guns and fall in quietly."
As ill-tempered as tired, the boys roused up from the ground, and began taking their guns from the stacks. Harry Joslin snatched his out first, and the stack, falling over, the bayonet points struck Gid Mackall's face. The angry Gid responded with a blow landed on the side of Harry's head. In an instant the two clinched, and the others, who were in no better humor, began striking at one another in blind temper. Si and Shorty snatched the two principals apart with a good deal of violence and much show of their own tempers.
"You long legged sand hill crane," said Si, shaking Gid. "Will you always be kickin' up a rumpus? I'll break your neck if you don't act better."
"You senseless little bantam," said Shorty, with his grip on Harry's throat; "will you always be raising a ruction? Will I have to wring your neck to learn you to behave?"
"Let him alone, Shorty," said Si irritably. "He ain't to blame. This gangling fly-up the crick started it." And he gave Gid another shake.
"You let him alone. Si," said Shorty crossly. "I know better. This whelp started it, as he always does. I'll throw him down and tramp on him."
"You won't do nothin' o' the kind. Shorty. Don't you contradict me. Let him go, I tell you."
"You take your hands off that boy, or I'll make you, Si Klegg," said Shorty hotly. "I won't see you imposin' on somebody's that's smaller'n you."
The spectacle of the two partners quarreling startled them all. They stopped and looked aghast.
"Here, what's all this disorder here," said the Orderly, coming up, impetuously, and as cross as any one. "Why don't you get into line as ordered? Sergeant Klegg, you're always making trouble for me."
"I ain't doin' nothing o' the kind. What's the sense o' your sayin' sich a thing?" Si retorted. "You know it ain't true."
"Si Klegg, be careful how you call me a liar," answered the Orderly. "I'll—"
"What in the world does all this mean?" said Capt. McGillicuddy angrily, as he stepped back to them. "What are you wasting time squabbling before the men for? Fall into your places at once, and don't let me hear another word from any of you. Don't you see the regiment is moving?"
"We'll finish this later," the Orderly whispered to Si, as he went to his place on the right.
"I'll settle with you, Shorty, when I have more time," Si remarked as he took his place.
"The sooner the better," grunted Shorty. "You can't run over me, if you are a Sergeant."
The wearied men went stumbling along the rough road for what seemed the longest mile ever known. It had grown very dark. At last a form separated itself from the bank of blackness on the left, and a voice said in a penetrating whisper:
"Is this the 200th Ind?"
"Yes," answered the Colonel.
"I'm Lieut. Snowden, of the General's staff," said the whisper.
"Yes; I recognize your voice," answered the Colonel.
"I was sent here," continued the Whisper, "to post you when you came up. You will make this your right, and form out there to the left. Do it without the slightest noise. There is a strong force of rebels out there in front. They have a line of works with abatis in front, and a fort on the hill there to the right, as you can see by looking up against the sky. You will not allow any fires to be made or lights to be shown. The other regiments will come up and form on your right and left, and you will be ready to attack and carry the line immediately in front of you the moment that it is light enough to see to move. The signal will be given by the headquarters bugle."
"Very good," replied the Colonel. "Tell the General that we'll be ready, and he'll find us inside the rebel line five minutes after the bugle sounds."
"In the meanwhile," continue the Aid, "you will keep a sharp lookout. You may be attacked, and if you see signs of evacuation you are to attack, and the other regiments will support you. The General will come up later and give you further instructions. Good night."
The men nearest the Colonel heard plainly all that was said, and it was soon known throughout the regiment. The men seemed to forget their fatigue as they moved alertly but warily into line to the left, and studied intently the sky-line of the rising ground in front.
The whip-poor-wills were still calling, but at the flanks and rear of the regiment. None of them called in front.
"It's full o' rebels over there; that's the reason," said Si to himself, as he noted this. "Yes, they're all at home, and goin' to shoot," he added in a loud whisper. "Lay down, everybody."
He was none too soon. The tramping through the bushes, and the various noises that bodies of men will make when in motion, had reached the ears of the alert rebels. A dazzling series of flashes ran along the sky-line, and a flight of bullets sang wickedly over the heads of the 200th Ind., striking in the bushes and trees far behind them.
"Don't anybody yell! Don't anybody shoot!" called the Colonel in a loud whisper, and it was repeated by the line oflficers. "It will reveal our position. Lie down and keep perfectly quiet. They're overshooting us."
The rebel battery in the fort waked up, and, more to show its good will than anything else, began shelling the surrounding landscape.
One of our batteries, a mile or so to the rear, which had not had an opportunity to fire during the day, could not resist this challenge, and began throwing shells at the fort with so fair an aim as to draw the attention of the rebel battery to it.
The lurid flashes of the muskets, cannon, and shells revealed a belt of jagged abatis several rods wide covering the entire front of the fort and breastworks.
"Great Scott!" muttered Si to himself, for he was not on speaking terms with Shorty, and would not alarm the boys; "there's a porcupine nest to git through. How in the Nation are we ever goin' to do it?"
"Unroll your blankets and lie down on them," came down the line from the Colonel. "Lay your guns beside you. Don't attempt to stack them. You may attract the attention of the rebels. Everybody keep his place, and be ready to form and move at once."
"Stop firing. What are you shooting at?" said a voice of authority in the rebel works. "Who gave the order to fire?"
"The men began it themselves," said a second voice. "They heard Yankees moving over there, and commenced shooting at them."
"How do you know there are any Yankees out there? I don't believe they have advanced beyond the crest of the hill. I think they are all going down toward Resaca. Haven't you any pickets out there?"
"No. We only moved in here this afternoon, and did not know how long we were going to stay. I was ordered to stay here till further orders, to protect the road beyond."
"Well, we haven't any ammunition to waste firing at uncertainties. There's enough Yankees in sight all the time for all the bullets we have, without wasting any on imaginary ones. It'll be time enough for you to begin shooting when you see them coming to the edge of the abatis there. Before they get through that you'll have time enough to shoot away all the ammunition you have."
"I'm going to see whether there are any Yankees there," said the second voice in the rebel works.
"Jim, you and Joe go down to the edge of the abatis and see what you can see."
The wearied boys had nearly all fallen asleep on their blankets. Even the noisy artillery duel had not kept Jim Humphreys awake, and Monty Scruggs and Alf Russell followed his example soon after the firing ceased. Then Harry Joslyn and Gid Mackall, spreading their blankets apart for the first time since they had been in the service, sought rest from their fatigue and forgetfulness of their mutual anger. Si and Shorty kept sternly apart. Shorty occupied himself in fixing the blankets comfortably for a nest for little Pete Skidmore, while Si, brooding over the way that Shorty "had flared up about nothin' at all," and the Orderly-Sergeant's and Capt. McGillicuddy's unjust heat to him, had kept his eyes fixed on the skyline beyond, and had listened to the conversation of the rebel officers. It occurred to him that by watching the two rebels come down he might get an idea of a passage through the abatis, which would be useful in the morning. He strained his eyes to catch sight of their movements.
He saw two projections against the sky-line, which he knew were the men crossing the works. They separated, and he could make out two black blotches above the level of darkness and moving down the slope. One came almost directly toward him, the other going to the left. It occurred to him to capture one of the men. He would have suggested to Shorty to get the other, but he could not bring himself to speak to his partner. Keeping his eyes fixed on the man directly in front, he slowly wriggled forward without rising. The man was evidently coming cautiously, halting every few steps, and looking and listening.
Perfect quiet reigned in the regiment. The men were mostly asleep. Those who were awake were intently watching the hill for some sign of the enemy, or as silently foreboding the happenings of the morrow.
Without making the least noise, Si reached the edge of the abatis. There a young tulip tree had been left standing, and its plentiful branches and large leaves made a thick mass of darkness. He rose upright behind, but his foot came down on a dead stick, which broke with a sharp crack. All the blood rushed to his heart. But at the same instant his head had disturbed a whip-poor-will who had taken refuge there from the noise. She flew away with a tumult of plaintive "whips." The rebel in front halted for a long time. Then he apparently concluded that an owl was after the whip-poor-will, and, reassured, came forward.
As he had crawled along. Si had felt with his hands that he was on a tolerably beaten path, which ran by the sapling he was now standing behind. He was sure that this led through the abatis, and the rebel was coming down it. The rebel came on so near that Si could hear his breathing, and Si feared he could hear his. The rebel was carrying his gun at a trail in his right hand, and putting all his powers into his eyes and ears to detect signs of the presence of Yankees. He hesitated for a little while before the sapling, and then stepped past it.
As he did so Si shot out his right arm and caught him around the neck with so quick and tight a hug that the rebel could not open his mouth to yell. Si raised his arm so as to press the rebel's jaws together, and with his left hand reached for his gun. The rebel swayed and struggled, but the slender Southerner was no match for the broad-shouldered Indiana boy, whose muscles had been knit by hard work.
The struggle was only momentary until Si secured the gun, and the rebel's muscles relaxed from the stoppage of his breath.
"If you say a word, or try to, you're a dead man," Si whispered, as he dropped the gun, and substituted his left hand at the man's throat for his right arm. Taking silence for acquiescence, Si picked up his own gun and started with his prisoner for the Colonel. He walked upright boldly now, for the watchers on the rebel works could not see that there was more than one man in the path.
The Colonel ordered Si to bring his prisoner back into a gully some distance behind the line, where he could be interrogated without the sound reaching the men in the works.
"Where do you belong?" asked the Colonel.
"To Kunnel Wheatstone's Jawjy rijimint."
"How many men have you got over there in the works."
"Well, a right smart passul."
"What do you mean by a right smart parcel?"
"Well, a good big heap."
"What, a thousand?"
"Yes, I reckon so."
"Ten thousand?"
"I 'spects so."
"Twenty thousand."
"Mouty likely."
"You don't seem to have a clear idea of numbers. How many regiments have you got over there?"
"Well, thar's Kunnel Wheatstone's Jawjy rijimint—that's mine; then thar's Kunnel Tarrant's South Carliny rijimint, and then thar's Kunnel Bird's Tennessee rijimint, and I don't mind how many others. They've bin comin' and goin' all day, and I hain't paid no attention to 'em. I only know that thar's enough to give yo'uns a wallopin' if yo'uns only come on."
"Sergeant," said the Colonel, "you did a splendid thing in capturing this man and bringing him to me, but I fear I shall not get as much information out of him as I'd like to. I don't presume anybody really knows just how many men are over there. We've got to jump the works and take the chances on what we find."
"We're ready the minute you give the word. Colonel," said Si, saluting.
"Colonel," said Shorty's voice out of the darkness, "I've brung you one o' the rebel scouts that was piroutin' out there. I don't know as you kin make much out o' him, though, for the welt I fetched him with my gun bar'l seems to've throwed his thinkery out o' gear, and he can't talk straight."
"And so you got the other one," Si started to say to his partner, but then he remembered Shorty's "flarin' up," and held his tongue.
"I don't imagine that his 'thinkery,' as you call it, was of much account when it was in order, if it was no better than this other man's," said the Colonel, with a smile. "Perhaps, if he could think better he wouldn't be in the rebel army. Sergeant (to the Provost-Sergeant), take charge of these two men. Give them something to eat, and send them to Division Headquarters."
Si and Shorty carefully avoided one another on their way back to the company, and declined to discuss their exploits with either the Orderly-Sergeant or Capt. McGillicuddy.
"Go out and git you a rebel for yourself, if you want to know about 'em," Shorty had snapped at the Orderly. "There's plenty more up there on the hill. It's full of 'em."
As everything now seemed quiet in front, the two partners sat down with their back against trees to catch a little sleep before the momentous movement in the morning.
It seemed to Si that he had hardly closed his eyes when the Orderly shook him and whispered an order to help arouse the men and get them into line.
"Don't make the least noise," whispered the Orderly. "I hear the rebels moving around, but we want to jump 'em before they know we're up. The further we can get through that abatis before they discover us, the fewer we'll have killed. It's going to be mighty tough work at best, and I wish that we were going over the works now."
It was the chill gray of the morning, when every man's spirits and courage are at ebb-tide. For an instant, Si felt his heart sink at the thought of the awful ordeal that confronted them. There came across his mind a swift vision of the peaceful home back in Indiana, with the pleasant fields lying about, over which he used to go on sweet Spring mornings like this and note the flowers that had bloomed over night, and the growth the wheat had made. How sickening to be now starting to open up a hell of pain, wounds, and death. Then his natural courage and will reasserted themselves, and he began rousing the boys, but with a tenderness born of the thought that their hearts would be as low as his in that bleak hour.
Jim Humphreys waked up stolidly, and without a word began preparing to fall in. Alf Russell's and Monty Scruggs's faces turned ashy after they had fairly awakened, and they picked up their guns with nerveless fingers.
Harry Joslyn took the position of a soldier, with his gun at an order, his lips tightly closed, and his eyes fixed on the rebel position, as the spreading light developed it. Sandy Baker fidgeted about at one time tinkering with his gun and equipments, and then stopping half-way in the task he had started and falling into a fit of musing. Little Pete Skidmore wandered about, looking into Si's and Shorty's grave faces, and then into others equally solemn, and finding no comfort in any. It was the first time that he heard no joke or quip flash along the forming line to bring cheers or laughter.
"Come, boys," said Si, kindly, "eat your breakfasts. You can't make no coffee nor fry no meat, but you'd better fill up on cold grub. You'll need all you can eat."
The mention of something to eat seemed to remind Gid Mackall of his usual appetite. He pulled a cracker out of his haversack and bit it, but it seemed distasteful, and he spat the piece out.
"The orders are," said the Orderly-Sergeant in a low tone, as he passed down in front of the company, "to strip off your bankets, canteens, and haversacks, and pile them. They'll be in the road in the rush, and catch in going through the abatis."
"Orderly," said Shorty in his most conciliatory way, "if you want to do me a favor make Pete Skidmore one of the detail."
"I ain't asking suggestions from you," said the Orderly, still surly. "But I shall detail Baker and Skidmore for the duty."
The boys flung their things off with something like desperation in their looks.
It was now daylight, but a dense fog prevented seeing more than a few feet.
"We can't wait any longer," said the Colonel. "Pass the word down the line to move forward. Make no noise till the enemy opens fire. Then everybody push forward as rapidly as possible for the works."
"The first fire will probably go over our heads and do little damage," said Capt. McGillicuddy, stepping down to the center, so that his whisper could be heard by all. "It's always so when men fire downhill. Then, you all want to be careful and fire low, so as to hit as many as possible, and rattle them in their future firing. The more of them we can hit the less of us will be hit afterward. Forward—Guide right!"
It seemed as if the crashing of their marching feet was so loud that the rebels on the hill could not fail to hear it, and they held their breaths in painful expectancy of the volley. But they had gotten a rod or more into the entangling brush of the abatis, and were stumbling and crashing amid the baffling branches, before they heard the voice of the previous night command:
"Ready—Aim—aim low—Fire!"
The rebel muskets crashed together in a terrific volley, which generally passed over the heads of the 200th Ind., though a few men fell into the brush with wounds.
Si had gone up the path that he had found the night before, and therefore had no struggle with the fallen trees to shake his nerves and disturb his aim. He had calculated upon this. He brought his musket down deliberately and took good aim at the point whence the voice of command had come. As his gun cracked he heard voices cry:
"The Kunnel's shot. Look out for the Kunnel thar."
Another voice immediately spoke up in command: "Steady, men! Keep cool! Fire low, and give it to the blue-bellied scoundrels!"
Then broke out a mad rage of death and destruction, in which both sides seemed in the fiercest insanity of murder. The 200th Ind., encouraged by the shouts of their officers, pressed forward through the baffling tree-tops, stumbling, falling, rising again, firing as fast as they could load their guns, and yelling like demons. They were frantic to get through the obstructions and come to hand-to-hand struggle with the fiends who were yelling and firing from the top of the breastworks.
The rebel battery in the fort began hurling a tornado of shells as near as they could bring their guns to bear on the yelling. This aroused its enemy battery of the night before, and it opened up viciously. The regiments to the right and left of the 200th Ind. moved forward at the sound of the firing, and added to the dinning turbulence.
Si had kept to the path, firing coolly and with deadly aim as he kept pace with the line, which was fiercely forging through the brush. There had gathered behind him Jim Humphreys, Harry Joslyn, and Gid Mackall. The rest had gathered over toward Shorty, who was raging through the abatis, tearing aside the branches which impeded the others, yelling, swearing most horribly, and firing as a loaded gun would be handed him. He happened to look around to see who was handing him guns, and saw that it was Pete Skidmore and Sandy Baker.
"I thought you little brats was ordered to stay behind with the things," he gasped.
"I know we was," whimpered little Pete as he capped a gun and handed it to Shorty; "but we couldn't stay when we heard the yelling and shooting. We was so scared that we was afraid to stay there, so we hunted you up, and—"
"Come on, boys," yelled Shorty to the others. "Go ahead. We're almost through, and then we'll salivate them whelps of damnation."
A bullet came so nigh Si's face that it seemed to burn him, and then he heard it strike. Jim Humphreys fell without a groan—a bullet through his brain.
"Don't mind that. Forward, boys," shouted Si. "Here's the end of the abatis."
Gid Mackall fell, and Harry Joslyn turned to help him.
"Don't mind him. Come on," Si called over his shoulder, as he rushed in the clear place, just at the edge of the shallow ditch in front of the works. "Everybody this way."
All that was left of the regiment was now through the abatis. The fog suddenly lifted, and showed the combatants face to face, with only the ditch and the bank of earth between them. The sight was so startling that both sides paused for an instant.
"Forward, 200th Ind.! Rally on your colors!" rang out the clear, sweet, penetrating voice of the Colonel, as he snatched the colors from the hand of the third man who had borne them since the regiment moved forward, and sprang up the side of the works.
Of the pandemonium that reigned inside the rebel works for the next few minutes Si only recollected seeing the Orderly-Sergeant, bareheaded, and with bayonet fixed, leap down from the bank and transfix a man who tried to snatch the flag from the Colonel's hand. Si arrived just in time to shoot the rebel officer who was striking at the Orderly with his sword, while Shorty came up, knocking down a winrow of men with his gun swung by the butt as a club, to rescue Si from three rebels who were trying to bayonet him.
All at once the entire rebel line broke and ran down the hill in a wave of dingy brown, while another wave of blue rolled over the works to the right and left of the 200th Ind.
"I hope you ain't hurt, Orderly," said Si, dropping the butt of his musket on the ground, and wiping his flushed face. "I thought that officer was goin' to git you, sure."
"He would, if it hadn't been for you, Si. He got in one slash on me, but it ain't much, I think. But Shorty helped you out of a tight box."
"Yes; Shorty generally does that," said Si, with a beaming look on his partner. "He's the best soldier in the regiment, and kin always be trusted to git in on time anywhere."
"Well, I'm afraid it 'll be a short roll I'll have to call this evening," said the Orderly, with a sorrowful expression. "I suppose we'd better go back through that brush and look up the boys that were dropped."
"HOORAY for Injianny. Injianny gits there every time," roared Si, joining the yelling, exultant throng crowding around the Colonel. "The old 200th wuz the first to cross the works, and miles ahead o' any other rejimint."
"Bully for the Wild Wanderers of the Wabash," Shorty joined in. "They're the boss regiment in the army o' the Cumberland, and the Army o' the Cumberland's the boss army on earth. Hooray for US Co. Le's have a speech. Where's Monty Scruggs?"
"Yes, Where's Monty?" echoed Si, with a little chill at his heart, for he had not remembered seeing the boy since they emerged from the abatis, just before the final rush.
"Well, le's have a song, then," said Shorty, as Si was looking around. "Where's Alf Russell?"
"Yes, Where's Alf Russell?" echoed Si, with a new pang clutching at his heart, for he then recalled that he had not seen Alf since he had helped him up the embankment, immediately after which Si's thoughts, had been engrossed by the struggle for the flag. "Did any of you boys see either Alf or Monty?" he asked nervously.
"And has anybody seen Pete Skidmore?" chimed in Shorty, his voice suddenly changing from a tone of exultation to one of deepest concern. "Why don't some o' you speak? Are you all dumb?"
Somehow everybody instinctively stopped cheering, and an awed hush followed.
"All of Co. Q step this way," called out the Orderly-Sergeant. All of the usual "rasp" had left the strong, rough voice. There was a mournful tremor in it. "Fall in, Co. Q, over there by this pile of picks and shovels."
Scarcely 20 of the 80 stalwart youths who had lined up at the foot of the rugged palisades of Rocky Face two evenings before grouped themselves together in response to the Orderly's call.
Capt. McGillicuddy, the Orderly, Si, and Shorty strained their eyes to see more of the company disengaging themselves from the throng around the Colonel.
The Orderlies of the other companies called to their men to fall in at different places.
The Colonel looked at the muster with sad eyes.
"Didn't nobody see nothin' o' little Skidmore?" savagely repeated Shorty, walking back to the works and scanning the country round. "Was you all so blamed anxious lookin' out for yourselves that you didn't pay no attention to that little boy? Nice gang, you are."
"Orderly, take the company back into the abatis, and look for the boys," ordered Capt. McGillicuddy.
"'Tention, company!" commanded the Orderly. "Stack arms! Right face—Break ranks—March!"
"Hello, boys," said Monty Scruggs's voice, weak but unmistakably his, as the company recrossed the works.
"Great heavens! he's bin shot through the bowels?" thought Si, turning toward him with sickening apprehension of this most dreaded of wounds. Then, aloud, with forced cheerfulness—"I hope you ain't hurt bad, Monty."
"I was hurt bad enough, the Lord knows," answered the boy with a wan smile. "I hain't been hurt so bad since I stubbed by sore toe last Summer. But I'm getting over it pretty fast. Just as I started up the bank a rebel threw a stone as big as my fist at me, and it took me square where I live. I thought at first that whole battery over there in the fort had shot at me all at once. Goodness, but it hurt! My, but that fellow could throw a stone! Seemed to me that it went clear into me, and bent my back-bone. I've been feeling to see if it wasn't bent. But we got the works all right, didn't we?"
"You bet we did," Si answered exultantly. "Licked the stuffin' out of 'em. Awful glad you're no worse hurt, Monty. Make your way inside there, and you'll find the Surgeon. He'll bring you around all right. We're goin' to look for the other boys."
"Alf Russell caught a bullet," said Monty Scruggs. "I heard him yell, and turned to look at him, when that rebel's bowlder gave me something else to think about, so I don't know where he is."
"Gid Mackall's lying over there, somewhere," said Larry Joslyn, who was all anxiety in regard to his old partner and antagonist. "Let me go and find him."
"Go ahead," said Si, helping Monty to his feet. "I'll be right with you."
While Si was going back the way he had come Shorty was tearing through the tangled brush, turning over the tree-tops by main strength, searching for Pete Skidmore. The rest of the company were seeking out the fallen ones hither and thither, and calling to one another, as they made discoveries, but Shorty only looked for Pete Skidmore. Si and Harry presently came to Gid Mackall's body, lying motionless in a pool of blood that dyed crimson the brown leaves thickly covering the ground. His cap had fallen off, and his head had crushed down into a bunch of slender oak twigs; his eyes were closed, and his callow face white as paper.
"O, he's dead! He's stone dead," wailed Harry Joslyn. "And just think how I quarreled and fought with him this morning."
"Mebbe not," said Si, to whom such sights were more familiar, "That bullet hole in his blouse is too low down and too fur out to've hit either his heart or his lungs, seems to me. Mebbe he's only fainted from loss o' blood. Ketch hold o' his feet. I'll take his head, and we'll carry him back to the Surgeon. Likely he kin bring him to."
The rough motion roused Gid, and as they clambered back over the works, Harry was thrilled to see him open his eyes a little ways.
"Apparently," said the busy Surgeon, stopping for a minute, with knife and bullet-forceps in his bloodstained hands, to give a brief glance and two or three swift touches to Gid, "the ball has struck his side and broke a rib or two. He's swooned from loss of blood. The blood's stopped flowing now, and he'll come around all right. Lay him over there in the shade of those trees. Put something under his head, and make him as comfortable as possible. I'll attend to him as soon as I can get through with these men who are much worse off than he is."
And the over-worked Surgeon hurried away to where loud groans were imperatively calling for his helpful ministrations.
Si and Harry broke down a thick layer of cedar branches to make a comfortable bed for Gid, placed a chunk under his head, and hurried away again to search for Alf Russell. They went over carefully that part of the works they had crossed, and the abatis in front, but could find no trace of him. They feared that after he had been shot he had crawled back under the shelter of some tree-tops, to protect him from the flying bullets, and died there. They turned over and pulled apart the branches for a wide space, but did not succeed in finding him, or any trace. But they found Bob Willis, stark in death, lying prone in the top of a young hickory, into which he had crashed, when the fatal bullet found him pressing courageously forward. Him they carried pitifully forward, and added to the lengthening row of the regiment's dead, which was being gathered up.
Then they went reluctantly back—shuddering with the certainty of what they should find, to bring in Jim Humphreys's body.
Harry Joslyn was so agitated by the sight of Humphreys's mangled head and staring eyes that Si made him turn his back, place himself between the feet, one of which he took in each hand, and go before in carrying the body back. Si stripped the blouse up so as to cover the head, and took the shoulders between his hands, and so another body was added to the row of the regimental dead.
Si himself was so sick at heart that he had little inclination to continue the search farther than to look over the wounded, as they were brought in, in hopes of finding some of his squad there.
"There are three of us yet missing," he said. "Mebbe they've got mixed up with the Kankakee boys on our left, and'll come in all right after awhile. Mebbe they're out with Shorty somewhere. I'll wait till he comes in. Harry, I expect me and you'd better dig poor Jim's grave. There's no tellin' how long we'll stay here. Jim 'd rather we put him under than strangers what don't know and care for him. It's all we kin do for the poor feller; I'll git a pick and you take a shovel. We'll make the grave right here, where the Colonel lit when he jumped over the works with the flag. That'll tickle Jim, if he's lookin' down from the clouds. Too bad, he couldn't have lived long enough to see us go over the embankment, with the Colonel in the lead, wavin' the flag."
"The best thing," said Harry, forgetting his sorrow in the exciting memories of the fight, "was to see the Orderly sock his bayonet up to the shank in the rebel, and you blow off that officer's head—"
"Hush, Harry. Never speak o' that," Si admonished him.
"And see you," continued Harry, "stand off all three of them rebels, who was tryin' to bayonet you, until Corp'l Elliott came raring down, swinging his gun like a flail. Great Scott! didn't he lay 'em out, though! I saw it all, as I was loading my gun in nine times to shoot one of the rebels attacking you, I'd just got the cap on, when Corp'l Elliott loped in."
"Orderly," said Si a little later, "we've got Jim Humphreys's grave dug. Will you take the things out of his pockets to send to his folks? and then we'll bury him."
"Better wait till the Captain comes back and gives the orders," said the Orderly. "I don't want to touch his pockets without the Captain's orders. Then, we ought to have his blanket to bury him in. You go ahead and dig Bob Willis's grave, and I'll take a detail back and bring up the blankets and things."
Shorty had pushed his unavailing search for little Pete far past the point where he remembered to have seen the boy, in the midst of the fighting. He had torn his hands and worn out his strength in tearing aside the brush to expose every possible place that the dying boy or his dead body might be concealed. He had reached the further side of the obstruction, and sat down on a stump, in despair of heart and exhaustion of body.
Those with him, more intent on getting something to eat, had pushed on back to where their haversacks and canteens and blankets had been left.
Presently Shorty heard a call across the little valley:
"Cor—po—ral Ell—iott. Cor—po—ral Ell—iott!"
"Well, what is it?" Shorty called back, crustily.
"Lit—tle—Pete—and—Sandy—Ba—ker—is—o—ver—here," came back upon the bright Spring air.
Shorty sprang up electrified, and tore across the intervening space at the double-quick. He found Pete and Sandy Baker standing soberly on guard over the line of the company's blankets and belongings.
"Great Jehosephat, you little brats, how did you git here?" he exclaimed, snatching little Pete up and hugging him.
"Why shouldn't we be here?" asked Pete, as soon as he could get breath. "Didn't the Captain order us to stay here? Me and Sandy follered you fellers until you jumped inside the works, and the rebels was a runnin'. We stood on top o' the bank and shot at the rebels as fast as we could load our guns. We kept shootin' at 'em till they got clean down to the road. Then we saw the Captain lookin' over our way, and we thought he was comin' over there to skin us alive for leaving the things, and we ducked down behind the bank and run back here as fast as we could fetch it. You ain't goin' to tell the Captain on us, and have us tied up by the thumbs, are you, Corporal? Everything's safe. Nothing's gone. You won't tell, will you?"
"O, you worthless little scamp," said Shorty, with tears of joy in his eyes. "You ain't worth the powder that'd blow you up. I could pound you for the worry you've given me in the last hour. But you ain't hurt a bit, are you?"
"Nope," answered Pete. "But we both got awfully scratched runnin' through that brush. Say, wasn't the way the boys jumped the works and waded into them sardines just grand?"
The Orderly-Sergeant and his detail came back for the things, and Shorty and the boys, picking up those belonging to the squad, made their way to the company.
By the time they got back everybody's emotions had subsided sufficiently to allow him to remember that he was terribly hungry, and that the next business in order should be the cooking of the first warm meal they had had for more than a day. Fires were soon blazing in every direction, and the air was fragrant with the smell of hot coffee and cooking meat. Even Monty Scruggs felt that the kink had gone out of his backbone, and the disturbance in his dietetic department had sufficiently subsided to allow him to enjoy a cup of coffee and piece of toasted meat on a hardtack. The Surgeon had reached Gid Mackall, and had put him in comfortable shape.
The bodies of Bob Willis and Jim Humphreys were wrapped in their blankets, and mournfully consigned to the earth. A cedar bush was stuck in the head of each grave, and Si, finding a piece of smooth board and a chunk of soft charcoal from a fire, sat down on the bank, and begun laboriously composing the following inscription:
JAMES HUMFRI
CO. Q.
200th injianny VolunTer Infantry
KiLD may, 15th 1864
He dide For His country
The lord luvs a
Braiv man
"That's all right. Si," said Shorty coming up with his mouthful of hardtack and meat, and inspecting Si's work with critical approval. "You kin lay away over me and all the rest when it comes to writin' and composin'. And you know how to spell, too. I wish I had your education. But I never had a chance to go to school."
"Then you think it'll do, Shorty," said Si, much flattered by his partner's approval.
"Yes, it's just bully. But I think you ought to say something about Jim's good character. That's usual on tombstones. You might say of him that he had in him the makin' of the finest poker player in the Army of the Cumberland. I never see a sleepyheaded boy pick up the fine pints o' the game like he did, and he had nerve, too, along with his science."
"No, it wouldn't do at all to put anything o' that kind on," answered Si, going to the grave, and driving the board down with a pick. "Mustn't let Jim's folks know for the world that he gambled. It'd be the last straw on his poor old mother, who's a strict Baptist. She may stand hearing that he's killed, but never could that he played cards. What in the world's become of Alf Russell, do you s'pose?"
"Who in Jeff Davis's dominions is that comin' up?" said Shorty, scanning an approaching figure. "Looks as if he'd had his head busted and then tied up agin with strings."
The figure certainly looked like Alf Russell and wore Alf Russell's clothes, but the head was unrecognizable. A broad white bandage encircled the face, going from the top of the forehead around under the chin, and there were several folds of it. Then it ran around the head transversely, covering the nose and the cheeks, and only allowing the mouth and the eyes to show.
"Hello, boys," said a weak voice, which was unmistakably Alf Russell's.
"Hello, Alf," said Si delightedly. "I'm so glad to see you. I've bin huntin' everywhere for you. What's happened to you? Badly hurt?"
"Nothing, only the left side o' my head tore out," said Alf feebly. "Something struck me, probably a bomb-shell, just as I was going up the bank after you. I went down to our Surgeon, but he was too busy to attend to me. I then found the brigade hospital, but the Surgeons there were too busy, too. They gave me a roll of bandages, and told me to fix it up myself. I did it with the help of one of the men who was waiting to have his leg dressed. I fancy I did quite a neat piece of bandaging, as well as the Surgeons themselves could've done it. Don't you think so?"
"Great Scott!" gasped Si, "you couldn't be walkin' around with the side of your head knocked out. I'm astonished at you."
"So'm I," returned Alf placidly. "I'm surprised that I'm doing as well as I am. But I gave myself good attendance, and that's a great thing. I'm awful hungry. Got anything to eat? Where's my haversack?"
"Here it is," said Si, readily. "And here's a cup o' hot coffee. I'll brile you a piece o' meat. But really, I don't think you ought to eat anything before the Surgeon sees you. Mebbe it won't be good for you."
"I'll chance it," said Alf desperately, reaching for the cup of coffee. "I'm sure it'll be better for me to eat something."
"Le's go down and see the Surgeon," insisted Si.
"No," protested Alf, "it ain't hurting me much now, and he's awful busy with other men, so we hadn't better interrupt him."
"The Surgeon ought to see you at once, Alf," interjected Shorty. "Here comes one of 'em now. Doctor, will you please look at this boy."
"Certainly," said the Surgeon, stopping on his way. "I guess I can spare a minute. Take off that bandage, my boy."
"Don't mind me. Doctor," said Alf. "'Taint hurting me now, at all, scarcely. I did it up very carefully."
"Take off the bandage at once, I tell you," said the Surgeon imperatively. "I haven't any time to waste. Let me see your wound."
Alf set down his cup of coffee, and began laboriously unwinding the long bandage, while the rest stood around in anxious expectation. Yards of folds came off from around his forehead and chin, and then he reached that around his nose and the back of his head. Still the ghastly edges of the terrible wound did not develop. Finally the blood-soaked last layer came off, and revealed where a bullet had made a shallow but ugly-looking furrow across the cheek and made a nick in the ear.
"Alf, that rebel come dumbed nigh missin' you," said the greatly relieved Si.
"If you should happen to ketch cold in that it wouldn't git well for a week," added Shorty.
"Give me that bandage," said the Surgeon just before he hurried away. "Take this sticking-plaster and draw the lips of the wound together, and if you keep the dirt out it may heal without a scar."
"RUSSELL, that ain't going to heal without a A scar," Alf Russell consoled himself, as he studied his hurt with a little round pocket looking-glass, a screen of bushes concealing him from his unappreciative comrades. "It's more than Monty Scruggs nor Harry Joslyn nor Sandy Baker'll have to show for the fight. It's even more than Gid Mackall has, even though he is knocked out. I ought to be sent to the hospital, too. It'll be something to write home to father and mother, and they'll put it in the paper and the folks'll talk about it. Gracious, there's a bugle blowing again. Wonder what that means?"
"That's the Headquarters bugle," said Si, pricking up his ears. "That's 'Attention.' Git your traps together, boys. 'Assembly' 'll come next."
"Good gracious!" gasped Alf Russell, coming out from behind the bushes, "they don't expect us to do any more fighting today, do they?"
"Very likely," said Shorty, helping Pete Skidmore on with his blanket-roll. "The job ain't done till it is done, and there's lots o' rebels over there yit who need lickin'. Now's the best time to finish it. This ain't nothin' to Stone River and Chickamaugy. Got your canteen full, Pete? Better fill it before we start. Take mine, too. Don't go any further'n that first spring there, for I don't want to take no chances on losin' you again."
The cannonading in the distance grew fiercer, and regiments could be seen rushing up at the doublequick. Long, shrill rebel yells came from the hilltops, and were answered by volleys and deep-toned cheers.
Another bugle-call rang out from Brigade Headquarters.
"Fall in, Co. Q," sharply commanded the Orderly-Sergeant.
With a shiver of apprehension, with a nervous memory of the bitter hours just past, with the sight before their eyes of the scarcely-cold dead, the remainder of the company fell in with sadly-shrunken ranks.
"Orderly, we need some more cartridges," suggested Shorty.
"I've been thinking of that," replied the Orderly, "and wondering where to go for them."
"I saw some boxes of Enfields up there toward the battery," said Si. "The rebels left 'em. They'll fit our guns, and them English cartridges is just as good as ours."
"Pike over and get them, quick, before the other fellows drop on to 'em," said the Orderly.
"Gracious! going to shoot the rebels with their own bullets," remarked Monty, who had nearly recovered, and came up pluckily to take his place in the ranks. "Isn't that great medicine! How I should like to pop one into that fellow that belted me with that bowlder."
"Hello, Monty," called Shorty jovially to drive out the sad thoughts. "Got that kink out o' your backbone? Bully boy. You've got the right kind of nerve. You'll be a man before your mother yet."
"Yes, and I'm here, too, and don't you forget it," said Alf Russell, not to be outdone by Monty nor unnoticed. "By rights, I ought to be in the hospital."
"By rights, I ought to be a Jigadier-Brindle," retorted Shorty, "but I never could git Abe Lincoln to take that view of it. Here, fill up your cartridgebox. You'll need lots of 'em, if you're only goin' to shoot to crease your rebels, as that feller did you."
It was not brilliant pleasantry, but it served. It set them to thinking of something else. They hastily filled their cartridge-boxes, adjusted their blankets, and when the bugle sounded forward they started with something of their original nerve.
The regiment moved off at the head of the brigade, and after a march of a mile or so came out upon a hill from which they could see one of our batteries having an unequal fight with several of the rebel batteries in a fort far to its front. Our cannoneers were standing up bravely to their work, but the rebel shells were bursting about them in a wild storm of crashing, deafening explosions, and hurtling, shrieking masses of iron. The sharp crack of their own rifles was at times drowned by the ear-splitting din of the bursting shells.
"Goodness!" murmured Monty Scruggs, with colorless lips, as the regiment came into line and moved forward to the battery's line of caissons at the bottom of the hill. "I'm so glad I didn't enlist in the artillery. I don't see how anybody up there can live a minute."
"Yes, it looks like as if those artillery boys are earnin' their $13 a month about every second of their lives," remarked Shorty. "There ought to be some other batteries loafin' around somewhere that could join in."
The boys leaned on their muskets and watched the awful spectacle with dazed eyes. It seemed far more terrible even than the ordeal through which they had just been.
The battery was one of the oldest and best in the army, and its "fire discipline" was superb.
The Captain stood on a little elevation to the rear and somewhat apart, intently studying the rebel line through his field-glasses. After a few words of direction as to the pointing of the guns, and the command, "Begin firing," he had given no orders, scarcely spoken. He could not have been heard in that terrible turmoil. He had simply brought his terrible engine of destruction—the engine upon which he and his men had lavished years of laborious drilling and training—into position, and set it going.
What the result would be fate alone would determine. That was a matter that neither he nor his men regarded. If it destroyed or crippled its opponents it was simply doing the work for which it had been created. If its opponents destroyed it, that was a contingency to be accepted. It was there to endure that fate if so ordered.
Behind the wings of the battery stood the Lieutenants, leaning on their sabers, and gazing with fixed, unmoving eyes on the thunderous wrack and ruin.
They said nothing. There was no reason for saying anything. Everything was working systematically and correctly. Every man was doing his best, and in the best way. Nobody needed reminder, reprimand, direction or encouragement.
Similarly, the Sergeants stood behind their sections, except that one after another they stepped forward to the guns to take the places of men who had fallen and could not be replaced. At the guns the men were working with the swiftness of light flashes, and the unerring certainty of machines. To the watchers at the base of the slope they seemed to weave back and forth like some gigantic, demoniac loom, as they sprang at their guns, loaded them, "broke away" as they fired, leaped back again, caught the gun in its recoil, hurled it forward, again reloaded, "broke away" and fired, all quicker than thought. A shell took off a sponger's head, but the sponge-staff was caught by another before it fell, and the gun fired again without a pause. A shrapnel swept away every man about one gun. The Lieutenant looked inquiringly at the Sergeant, and in an instant another squad seemed to spring up from the ground to continue the firing without missing a note in the battery's rhythm.
The groups about each gun thinned out, as the shrieking fragments of shell mowed down man after man, but the rapidity of the fire did not slacken in the least. One of the Lieutenants turned and motioned with his saber to the riders seated on their horses in the line of limbers under the cover of the slope. One rider sprang from each team and ran up to take the place of men who had fallen.
The next minute the Lieutenant turned and motioned again, and another rider sprang from each team and ran up the hill. But one man was now left to manage the six horses attached to each limber. He soon left, too, in obedience to the Lieutenant's signal, and a faint, bleeding man came back and climbed into his place.
A shrapnel shell burst almost under the left gun and lifted it up in the air. When the smoke opened a little not a man could be seen about the cannon. A yell of exultation floated over from the rebel line.
The Lieutenant unbuckled his saber, dropped it to the ground, and ran forward to the cannon. Two or three men rose slowly from the ground, upon which they had been prostrated, and joined the Lieutenant in running the gun back to its place, and reloading it.
"Hooray for the old battery! Bully boys! Made o' right stuff," shouted Shorty enthusiastically. "Never ketch me saying nothin' agin' the artillery agin. Men who act like that when they're standin' right in the middle o' hell with the lid off are 18karat fine."
"Captain," suggested Si, who was fidgeting under the excitement of a scene in which he was taking no part, "wouldn't it be well for some of us to go up there and help the battery boys out? I could sponge and ram."
"No," answered the Captain; "help has been sent for for them, and there it comes."
He pointed back over the hill to where two batteries were coming from different directions on a dead run. It was a magnificent sight. One battery was following the road, and the other cutting across the open space in a hot race to get ahead and be in action first.
The Captains were galloping ahead to point out the way. The Sergeants were alongside, seconding the whips of the drivers with strokes of the flats of their sabers on the animals' hanches. The six horses to each gun were galloping like mad, snatching the heavy piece over gullies, bumps, logs, and rocks as if it were a straw. The gunners had abandoned their usual calm pose with folded arms on the limber chests, and were maintaining their seats only by a desperate clutch on the side-irons.
The boys turned even from the storm in front to watch the thrilling spectacle.
The two Captains were fairly abreast as they led their batteries up the long slope, crushing the brush, sending sticks and stones flying from the heavy, flying wheels. Both reached the crest at the same time, and the teams, wheeling around at a gallop, flung the muzzles of the cannon toward the enemy. Without waiting for them to stop the nimble cannoneers sprang to ground, unlimbered the guns, rolled them into position, sent loads down their black throats, and before it was fairly realized that they had reached the crest hurled a storm of shells across the valley at the rebel batteries.
"Hooray! Hooray! They're gittin' some o' their own medicine now," yelled the excited regiment. "Sock it to 'em. How do you like that, you ill-begotten imps of rebels?"
The rebel cannoneers seemed to lose heart at once under the storm of fire that beat upon them. The volume of their fire diminished at once, and then became fitful and irregular. Two of their limbers were blown up in succession, with thunderous noise, and this further discouraged them.
Obeying a common impulse, the 200th Ind., regardless of the dropping shells, had left its position, and pressed forward toward the crest, where it could see what was going on.
The Colonel permitted this, for he anticipated that a charge on the rebel works would follow the beating down of the artillery fire, and he wanted his regiment to be where it would get a good start in the race to capture a rebel battery. He simply cautioned the Captains to keep their men in hand and ready. As Capt. McGillicuddy called Co. Q closer together, it occurred to Shorty that in the interest he had taken in the artillery duel he had not looked after Pete Skidmore for some time, and he began casting his eyes around for that youth. He was nowhere to be seen, and, of course, no one knew anything about him.
"Why don't you get a rope. Shorty, and tie the blamed kid to you, and not be pestering yourself and everybody else about him all the time?" asked the Orderly-Sergeant irritably, for he was deeply intent upon the prospective charge, and did not want to be bothered. "He's more worry than he's worth."
"Shut up!" roared Shorty. "If you wasn't Orderly-Sergeant I'd punch your head. I won't have nobody sayin' that about little Pete. He's the best boy that ever lived. If I could only git hold of him I'd shake the plaguey life out o' him. Drat him!"
Shorty anxiously scanned the field in every direction, but without his eyes being gladdened by the sight of the boy.
The wounded being carried back from the batteries impressed him sadly with the thought that Pete might have been struck by a piece of shell.
"Him and Sandy Baker are both gone," said the Orderly, looking over the company. "I'll buck-and-gag both of 'em when I catch 'em, to learn 'em to stay in ranks."
"Indeed you won't," said Shorty, under his breath.
The rebel fire had completely died down, and our own ceased, to allow the guns to cool for a few minutes, in preparation for an energetic reopening when the anticipated charge should be ordered.
To be in readiness for this, the Colonel drew the regiment forward through the batteries, to lie down on the slope in front, that he might have a start on the other Colonels. As they passed through the batteries a little imp, about the size of Pete Skidmore, but with face as black as charcoal, pulled off the leather bag in which cartridges are carried from the limber to the gun, and handed it to one of the cannoneers, who said:
"Well, good-by, if you must be going. You done well. You ought to belong to the artillery. You're too good for a dough-boy. I'm going to ask the Captain to have you detailed to us."
A similar scene was taking place at the next gun, with a little blackamoor about the size of Sandy Baker.
The boys picked up their guns and belts from the ground, and fell in with Co. Q.
"Hello, Corporal," said Pete, with a capacious grin rifting the powder grime on his face. "We've just bin having lots o' fun."
"Pete, you aggravatin' little brat," said Shorty, giving him a cuff that started the boy's tears to making little white streaks through the black, "where in the world have you bin, and what've you bin doin'?"
"Why," whimpered Pete, "me and Sandy crept forward to a rock where we thought we could see better, and then we thought we could see better from another, and we kept a-goin' until we got clear up to where the limbers was, afore we knowed it. Just then a couple o' them powder-monkeys, as you call 'em, come runnin' back for cartridges, but they was both hit, and was all bloody, and both of 'em fell down and couldn't go no further, when they got the cartridges, though they wanted to. Me and Sandy thought it was too bad that the men up there at the guns shouldn't have no cartridges, when they was fighting so hard, so we picked up the boys' bags and run up to the cannon with 'em. The men there was so glad to git 'em, and told us to lay down our guns and run back for some more. They kept us goin' till the rebels was knocked out, and we thought we was doin' right and helpin', and they told us we was, and now you slap me. Boo-hoo-hoo!"
"Don't cry, Pete. I done wrong," said Shorty, melting instantly, and putting his arm around the boy. "You done right, and you're a brave, good little boy. Only you must not go away from the company without lettin' me know."
"Good God," groaned the Colonel, as he halted the regiment down the slope, and studied the opposite side with his glass. "There's another abatis, and it looks worse than the one in which we have just left half the regiment. But we'll go through if there's only one man left to carry the flag over the works. I don't suppose that we are any better than those who have already died, or got any better right to live."
"This is the dumbedest country for cuttin' down trees the wrong way," Si sadly remarked, as he surveyed the abatis. "It's meaner'n midnight murder. I'd like to git hold o' the pizen whelp what invented it."
"The devil invented abatis, just after he invented hell, and as an improvement on it, and just before he invented secession," Shorty judged hotly. "When we git through them abatis there I'm goin' to kill everything I find, just to learn 'em to stop sich heathenish work. It's sneakin' murder, not war."
"When we get through," murmured Alf Russell dolefully. "How many of us will ever get through?"
"Who'll be the Jim Humphreys and Gid Mackals this time?" said Monty Scruggs, looking at the tangled mass of tree-tops.
"Can you see any path through this abatis, Sergeant?" nervously asked Harry Joslyn.
"No, Harry," said Si, kindly and encouragingly. "But we'll find some way to git through. There's probably a path that we kin strike. Stay close by me, and we'll try our best."
"Well, I for one am goin' through, and I'm goin' to take Pete and Sandy with me," said Shorty, in a loud, confident tone, to brace up the others. "I've always gone through every one o' them things I've struck yit, and this ain't no worse'n the others. But we ought to jump 'em at once, while they're shiverin' over the shelling' we give 'em. They must be shakin' up there yit like a dog on a January mornin'. Why don't we start, I wonder?"
The batteries behind them began throwing shells slowly and deliberately, as if testing their range, before beginning a general cannonade. All along the crest, to their right and to their left, could be seen regiments moving up and going into line of battle.
"It's goin' to be a big smash this time, sure," said Si. "And the 200th Injianny's got a front seat at the performance. We'll show them how to do it, and we're just the ones that kin. Brace up, boys. The eyes of the whole army's on us. They expect big things from us."
"Here she goes, I guess," he continued, as a bugle sounded at headquarters. "Everybody git ready to jump at the word, and not stop goin' till we're inside the works."
The lines stiffened, every one drew a long breath, gripped his gun, and braced himself for the fiery ordeal. There was an anxious wait, and then the Adjutant came walking quietly down the line, with his horse's bridle over his arm.
"It seems," he explained to Capt. McGillicuddy, loud enough for the company to hear, "that we are not to make an assault, after all. There's enough rebels over there in the works to eat us up without salt. We are ordered to only make a demonstration, and hold them, while the rest work down on their flanks toward Calhoun, which is six miles below, and get in their rear. You can let your men rest in place till further orders."
"Take the company Orderly," said the Captain, walking off with the Adjutant.
"'Tention! Stack arms; Place rest!" commanded the Orderly.
The revulsion of feeling among the keenly-wrought-up men was almost painful.
"Demonstration be blamed," said Si, sinking upon a convenient rock. "I always did hate foolin'. Gracious, how tired I am."
"Only a demonstration—only powow, noise, show and bluff," sneered Shorty, flinging his gun against the stack. "Why didn't they tell us this an hour ago, and save me all this wear and tear that's makin' me old before my time? When I git ready for a fight I want it to come off, without any postponement on account of weather. Come, Pete, go wash your face and hands, and then we'll spread our blankets and lay down. I'm tireder'n a mule after crossin' Rocky Face Ridge. I don't want to take another step, nor even think, till I git a good sleep."
"We don't have to go over that brush, then?" said Alf Russell, with an expression of deep relief. "I'm so glad. Great Jerusalem, how my wound begins to ache again. You fellows oughtn't to laugh at my wound. You don't know how it hurts to have all those delicate nerves torn up."
So it was with every one. The moment the excitement of the impending fight passed away, every one was sinking with fatigue, and all his other troubles came back. Monty Scruggs suddenly remembered how badly he had been hurt, and started to drag himself off in search of the Surgeon, while Harry Joslyn and Sandy Baker, chumming together for the first time, snuggled together in their blankets, and sought that relief from the excitement and fatigues of the day which kindly Nature never refuses to healthy young bodies.
THE next morning the rebels were found to be gone from the position in front of the 200th Ind;, and after breakfast the regiment marched leisurely by a road around the dreaded abatis, to the ground which had been scarred and mangled by our terrible artillery fire.
It was an appalling scene that the eyes of the boys rested upon. Every horrid form of mutilation and death which could be inflicted by the jagged shards and fiendish shells, or the even more demon-like shrapnel-balls, was visible.
Everything was torn, rent, and ragged, as if soma mighty giant, insane to destroy, had spent his fury there. Nothing had escaped the iron flail of devastation. Trees shattered or cut entirely down; limberchests and cannon-wheels merely bunches of blackened splinters; frightfully mangled horses, dead, or yet living in agony that filled their great plaintive eyes; lying in ghastly pools of blood, which filmed and clotted under the bright rays of the May morning sun.
"Looks like Judgment morn or the fall of Babylon," muttered the religious-minded Alf Russell, the first to break their awed silence.
"Or the destruction of Sennacherib," suggested Monty Scruggs—
"For the angel of death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed."
"I should say he had a mighty strong breath, Monty," Shorty interrupted. He liked to break in on Monty's heroics. "Excuse me from havin' a 12pounder breathin' around me."
"And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still," continued Monty.
"I'll bet there wasn't much sleepin' around here while that shell'n' was goin' on," broke in Shorty again. "Except the sleep that has the sod for a coverlet and Gabriel's trumpet for a breakfast bell."
Monty continued impressively:
"And there lay the steed, with his nostrils all wide,
But through them there rolled not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf."
"Poor horses," murmured Shorty. "I always feel mighty sorry for them. They hadn't nothin' to do with gittin' up this rebellion. We must go around and kill such as is alive, and put them out o' their misery."
Monty resumed:
"And there lay the rider, distorted and pale.
With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone.
The lances uplifted, the trumpets unblown."
"Serves 'em right, the yaller-bellied, clay-eatin' yowlers," said Shorty savagely, looking over the mangled corpses. "Pays 'em up for their murderin' abatis. We got it in this time worse on them than they did on us, though it'd take as much of this as'd make up several Counties to pay up for any one o' the good boys we lost yesterday. I hope they are all where they kin look down and see how we got it on the secesh hell-hounds. We'll do 'em up worse yit before we're through with 'em."
"Our batteries are improvin' wonderfully," commented the more practical Si, studying the field. "They seem to've socked every shell in just where it'd do the most good. No shootin' at the State o' Georgy generally and trustin' to luck to hit a rebel. Every shell seems to've landed just where it was needed, and then 'tended to its business and busted. You don't see no signs of any strikin' a quarter of a mile away, nor a whole one layin' around anywhere. That's good gunnin', and I'm glad our old six-hoss thrashin'-machine done the biggest share of it. Our brigade has the best battery in the whole army."
"The regiment will go on," reported Orderly-Sergeant, "but Co. Q will stay behind to bury the dead, gather up the arms and things, and then bring up the brigade ammunition train."
"Stay behind to bury the dead," grumbled Shorty. "Nice business that! Sextons to the Southern Confederacy. Hain't they got any niggers around here that they kin set at the work?"
Nor did Si like the job. "The artillery made the muss, and now the infantry's got to stay and clean up after it. That don't seem right."
"Well, orders is orders, and got to be obeyed," said the Orderly-Sergeant, cutting short the discussion with the usual formulary of his class. An Orderly-Sergeant is robbed of one of the cherished privileges of the other enlisted men. He can not criticise or grumble, but must stop the others from doing so beyond a certain point, and his refuge must be the prompt assumption that the orders are all right, and must be executed cheerfully. And he has not the satisfaction of the officers above him in knowing the why and wherefore of the orders, and perhaps advising as to them. He is "betwixt and between," as they say out West.
"The quicker we get at it," continued the Orderly, "the sooner it'll be over. Serg't Klegg, take eight or 10 men and hunt around for some picks and shovels. I think that deep trench over there behind the works 'll do for a grave. You can shovel the bank right down on them and save hard work. Serg't Wilson, you take eight or 10 men and gather up these pieces o' men and lay them in there. Corp'l Jones, you take another man or two and go around and kill those horses. Be careful how you shoot now. Don't hurt anybody with glancing bullets. Corp'l Elliott, you take the rest and go round and gather the guns and other things, and pile them up there by that tree to turn over to the ordnance officer. Hustle, now, all of you."
"They didn't think they were digging their own graves," philosophized Monty Scruggs, as he stood shovel in hand watching the remains being gathered into the trench.
"He digged a ditch, he digged it deep;
He digged it for his brother,
But for his great sin he fell in
The ditch he'd digged for t'other."
"Good, good, Monty," said Si. "That's the best thing I've heard you spout yit. Give us some more of it."
"There isn't any more of it. The only thing I can think of is:
"The rebel Solomon Grundy;
Born in Georgia on Monday;
Become a rebel on Tuesday;
Run off from Buzzard's Roost on Wednesday;
Got licked at Dalton on Thursday;
Worse whipped at Resaca on Friday;
Blown up by a shell on Saturday;
Died and buried on Sunday;
And this was the end of Solomon Grundy."
Alf Russell's interest in anatomy had led him to join Serg't Wilson's party in gathering up the ghastly fragments of bodies, but the sights were too much for his nerves, and as he perceived that he was growing sick at the stomach he went over to Shorty's squad.
It was astonishing what things they found, besides guns and equipments. Evidently, the rebels had left quite hurriedly, and many personal belongings were either forgotten or could not be found in the darkness. Samples of about everything that soldiers carry, and a good many that they are not supposed to, were found lying around. There were cooking utensils, some on the fire, with corn-pone and meat in them; some where the imperative orders to march found their owners with their breakfasts half-devoured; there were hats clumsily fashioned of wisps of long-leaved pine sewed together; there were caps which had been jaunty red-and-blue "Zouaves" when their owners had mustered around Nashville in 1861, but had been faded and tarnished and frayed by the mud and rain at Donelson, Shiloh and Stone River, and by the dust and grime of Perryville and Chickamauga, until they had as little semblance to their former perkiness as the grim-visaged war had to the picnic of capturing ungarrisoned forts and lolling in pleasant Summer camps on the banks of the Cumberland. There were coats of many patterns and stages of dilapidation, telling the same story of former finery, draggled through the injurious grime of a thousand camps and marches. There were patched and threadbare blankets, tramped-out boots and shoes, an occasional book, many decks of cards, and so on.
Shorty came across a new cedar canteen with bright brass hoops. He slung it over his shoulder, with the thought that it would be a nice thing to send back to Maria, as a souvenir of the battle. She might hang it up in her room, or make a pin-cushion or a work-basket out of it.
Presently he came to a box of shells, which he picked up and carried back to the tree. It was quite heavy, and when he set it down again he felt thirsty. The canteen occurred to him. It was full. He raised it to his lips and took a long swig.
"Great Jehosephat," he gasped, his eyes starting out with astonishment. "That ain't water. It's prime old applejack, smoother'n butter, and smellin' sweeter'n a rose. Best I ever tasted."
Shorty had been strictly abstinent since his return from Indiana, The rigid views of the Klegg family as to liquor-drinking had sunk into his heart, and somehow whenever temptation came his way the clear, far-seeing eyes of Maria would intervene with such a reproachful glance that the thought of yielding became repugnant.
But the smooth, creamy applejack had slipped past his lips so unexpectedly that it possessed him, before principle could raise an objection. Shorty was the kind of a man to whom the first drink is the greatest danger. After he had one almost anything was likely to happen.
Still, though his blood was already warming with the exhilarating thrill, there were some twinges of conscience.
"Now, I mustn't take no more o' that," he said to himself. "That one drink was good and all right enough, because I really thought I was goin' to take a drink of water when I put the canteen to my lips. I could swear that to Maria on a stack o' Bibles high as her dear head. God bless her!"
He began bustling about with more activity, and giving his orders in a louder voice. He saw Pete Skidmore pick up what had been once a militia officer's gaudy coat, and examine it curiously. He shouted at him:
"Here, drop that, drop that, you little brat. What 'd I tell you? That you mustn't fetch a rag of anything you see in here, except with the point o' your bayonet and with your bayonet on your gun. Drop it, I tell you."
"Why, what's the matter with that old coat?" asked Pete in an injured tone, astonished at Shorty's vehemence.
"Everything's the matter with it, and every stitch o' cloth you find. They're swarmin' with rebel bugs. I've trouble enough to keep the Yankee graybacks off you. If you git the rebel kind on you angwintum won't save you."
Pete dropped the coat in affright.
"And you, Sandy Baker," continued Shorty in a yell, "don't you walk through them piles o' brush and leaves, where the rebels has bin sleepin'. You'll git covered with rebel bugs, too, and we'll never git 'em out o' the company. How often 've I got to tell you that?"
Yelling so much made him dry, and the canteen hung so invitingly near his hand.
"I don't think another pull at that old applejack 'll hurt me a mite. I really didn't git a square drink the first time, because I was choked off by astonishment at findin' it wasn't water. I'll just take enough of a swig to finish up that drink."
"Jerusalem crickets," he exclaimed, wiping his mouth, "but that's good stuff. Wonder if bein' in cedar makes it taste so bang-up? If I though so I'd never drink out o' anything but cedar as long's I lived. Guess I'll keep this canteen to carry water in. I kin send Maria—"
He stopped. He was not so far gone as to forget that any thought of Maria was very inappropriate to his present condition. He started to blustering at the boys who were carrying in guns:
"Here, how often have I got to caution you galoots about bein' careful with them guns? Don't let the muzzles pint at yourselves, nor anybody else. They're all likely to be loaded, and go off any minute, and blow some o' your cussed heads offen you. Don't slam 'em down that way. Be careful with 'em, I tell you. I'll come over there and larrup some o' you, if you don't mind me."
"What's excitin' Shorty so, to make him yell that way? wondered Si, stopping in his shoveling down the embankment upon the rebel dead, and wiping his hot face.
"O, he's trying to keep them fresh young kids from blowin' themselves into Kingdom Come with the rebel guns," answered one of the veterans indifferently, and they resumed their shoveling.
Shorty started over to where some of the boys were trying to extricate a rebel limber abandoned in a ravine. He spied a pair of fine field glasses lying on the ground, and picked them up with an exclamation of delight.
"Great Jehosephat," he said, turning them over for careful inspection. "Ain't this a puddin'? Just the thing to give the Cap. He got his smashed with a bullet comin' through the abatis, and's bin mournin' about 'em ever since. These is better'n his was, and he'll be ticked to death to git 'em."
He put them to his eyes and scanned the landscape.
"Ain't they just daisies, though. Bring that teamster over there so close that I kin hear him cussin' his mules. Cap'll have a better pair o' glasses than the Colonel or the General has. He deserves 'em, too. Capt. McGillicuddy's good all the way through, from skin to bone, and as brave as they make 'em. He'll be tickleder than a boy with a new pair o' red-topped boots. He'll invite me to take a drink with him, but he won't have nothin' so good as this old apple-jack. I guess I'll give the rest to him, too, for his friends at headquarters. They don't often smack their lips over stuff like that. But I'll treat myself once more, just as Capt. McGillicuddy'd do."
The last drink was a settler. He was then in a frame of mind for anything—to tear down a mountain, or lift a hill, or to fight anybody, with or without cause. He looked over at the boys struggling with the limber, and yelled, as he laid his coat, hat, canteen, and cartridge-box down on the stump upon which he had been sitting, and placed the field-glass upon them:
"Hoopee! Yank her out o' there, boys. Yank h'er out, and don't be all day about it, either. Let me git at her and I'll fetch her out. Stand by, you kids, and see your uncle Eph snatch her."
He bolted in to the ravine, swung the limber-tongue about, and with aid of the rest, stirred to united effort by much profane vociferation on his part, disengaged the limber and trundled it up the bank.
The tall, very stiff young Aid, with whom Si and Shorty had had the previous affair, came stalking on to the ground, viewing everything with his usual cold, superior, critical gaze.
"You are doing well, my man," he remarked to Shorty, "but too much noise. A non-commissioned officer must not swear at his men. It's strictly against regulations."
"Go to blazes," said Shorty, scarcely under his breath. The Aid picked up the field-glasses, looked at them a minute, scanned the field with them, and then looked around for the case, as if to appropriate them himself.
"Here, drop them," said Shorty roughly. "Them's mine."
"How did they come to be yours, sir?" said the Aid sternly. "Picked them up, didn't you?"
"None o' your business how I got 'em. They're mine, I tell you. Give 'em to me."
"You picked them up on the battlefield, sir. They are military equipments which you must turn over to the proper officer. I'll take charge of them myself."
"You'll do nothin' o' the kind," roared Shorty, striding up to him. "Give me them glasses."
"I shall do nothing of the kind," said the Aid sternly. "Don't you dare approach me in that w-ay. Go back to your duties at once. I shall punish you for disrespect to me and threatening an officer. Fall back, sir, I tell you."
Shorty made a grab for the glasses, which the Aid tried to evade, but Shorty fixed his firm clutch upon them. The Aid held on tightly, but Shorty wrenched them from his grasp.
"You bob-tailed brevet West Pointer," said Shorty savagely, raising his fist, "I've a notion to break you in two for tryin' to beat me out o' what's mine. Git out o' here, or I'll—"
"Shorty! Shorty! Stop that!" shouted Si, rushing over to his partner, and catching his back-drawn fist. He had been suspicious as to the cause of his partner's noisiness, and ran up as soon as the disturbance began. "Stop it, I say. Are you crazy?"
Poor little Pete, badly excited as to what was happening to his best friend, was nervously fumbling his gun and eyeing the Aid.
"Si Klegg, go off and mind your own business, and let me attend to mine," yelled Shorty, struggling to free himself from his partner's iron grasp. "Am I goin' to be run over by every pin-feather snipe from West Point? I'll break him in two."
"Sergeant," commanded the Aid, reaching to take the field-glasses from Shorty's hand; "buck and gag that man at once. Knock him down if he resists. Knock him down, I say."
"You tend to your own business and I'll tend to mine. Go away from here, and don't say anything to make him madder, you wasp-waisted errand boy," said Si savagely, as he thrust himself in between the Aid and Shorty. "I've got enough to do to take care of him. Go off, if you don't want him to mash you."
Little Pete had an idea. He wriggled in between, snatched the glasses, and made off with them.
The Brigade Provost-Marshal rode up and sternly demanded what the disturbance was about. Shorty began a hot harrangue against young staff officers generally, and this particular offender, but Si got his arm across his mouth and muffled his speech. The Provost listened to the Aid's bitter indictment against both Si and Shorty.
"Put both those men under arrest," he said to the Orderly-Sergeant, "and make a list of the witnesses. I'll court-martial them at the first halting place."
TO REST, refit after the sharp fighting and marching, and to wait for the slightly wounded and other convalescents to come up, the brigade went into camp on the banks of the Oostenaula River, near Calhoun, Ga., and about 20 miles south of Dalton, which had been the objective at the opening of the campaign.
And while the men were washing and mending their clothes, it was decided to put the discipline of the brigade, which had suffered similarly by the rough campaign, through a somewhat like process of furnishing and renovation.
A court-martial was ordered, "to try such cases as may be brought before it."
The court convened with all the form and ceremony prescribed by the Army Regulations for tribunals which pass judgment upon the pay, honor and lives of officers and men.
The officers detailed for the court sent back to the baggage wagons, and got their wrinkled dress-suits out of the valises, they buttoned these to their throats, donned their swords, sashes and white gloves, and gathered stiffly and solemnly about a long, rough table, which had been put up under the spreading limbs of giant oaks. Guards pacing at a little distance kept all the curious and inquisitive out of earshot. The camp gossips, full of interest as to the fate of those who were to be tried, could see an aggravating pantomime acted out, but hear no word.
A squad of offenders of various degrees of turpitude ranging from absence without leave to sleeping on post, were huddled together under the Provost Guard, while Si and Shorty, being non-commissioned officers, were allowed to remain with their company, to be produced by Capt. McGillicuddy when wanted. They kept themselves rigidly apart from the rest of the company, repelling the freely-offered sympathy of their comrades. Si was most deeply concerned about Shorty, who was so desperate over his fall from grace, that he regretted that he had not killed the young Aid, while he was at him, so as to have relieved his comrades of him, and made his own condemnation and execution sure.
"Old Maj. Truax, of the 1st Oshkosh, is President of the court," said the Orderly-Sergeant, as the company was anxiously canvassing the boys' chances.
"Gosh, that settles it," groaned Jerry Wilkinson; "that old bull o' the woods 'd rather shoot a man than not. He's always lookin' around for some excuse for sculping a man, and the less he has the savager he is."
"I don't believe it," said the Orderly, "I've watched old Truax, when he's been roaring around, and I always found that he was after somebody that deserved it. Men of that kind are pretty certain to be very soft on good soldiers, like Si and Shorty, and I think he's all right. The boys of the 1st Oshkosh all swear by him, and you can trust a man's own regiment to know him surer than anybody else. And then there's Capts. Suter and Harris, of the Maumee Muskrats."
"Terrible strict," muttered Jerry despairingly.
"Lieuts. Newton and Bonesteel, of the Kankakees," continued the Orderly.
"Good men—promoted from the ranks, and remember that they once carried a gun themselves."
"Lieut. McJimsey, of the staff."
"A wasp-waisted West Pointer, raw from school; thinks he's learned all there's to know about war out of a book on triggernometry. Has no more feelin' for a private soljer than I have for a mule. Calls 'em 'my men,' roared Jerry.
"And as he's only a Second Lieutenant he'll have the first vote," sighed the Orderly. "And Lieut. Bowersox is to be the Judge-Advocate. He'll have to do the prosecuting. I know he hates the job. He thinks the world and all of Si and Shorty, but he's the kind of a man to do his duty without fear, favor or affection. And all of us 'll have to testify. Dumb Shorty's fool soul! Why didn't he get up his ruction somewhere where the boys couldn't see him, and know nothing about it! I've no patience with him or Si."
Lieut. Steigermeyer, the complainant, stalked by in solemn dignity.
"Can't I shoot that dod-blasted Aid, and save Shorty, and take it all on myself?" blubbered little Pete, who had been in tears ever since he had seen the grave assemblage of officers in full dress.
"Shut up, you little fool," said the Orderly savagely. In the selfishness of his sorrow it made him angry to see anybody else show more grief than his.
The Orderly, in stating Lieut. Bowersox's position, forgot, or was not aware of the fact, that while the Judge-Advocate represents the Government at a trial as the Prosecuting Attorney, he is also the counsel for the defense; a dual role which has important and frequently unexpected results.
After the members were duly seated according to rank, with Maj. Truax at the head of the table, Lieut. Bowersox read the order for holding the court, and called the names of the members. He then said:
"Gentlemen, the first case I shall present to your notice is one of exceeding gravity, affecting a member of my own regiment. As it is the most important case that you shall have to consider, I thought it best that it should be disposed of first. Sergeant, bring in Corp'l William L. Elliott, Co. Q, 200th Ind. Volunteer Infantry."
Shorty entered the court with an air of extreme depression in face and manner, instead of the usual confident self-assertion which seemed to flow from every look and motion. He stood with eyes fixed upon the ground.
"Prisoner," said Lieut. Bowersox, "this court has met to try you. Look around upon the members, and see if there is any one to whom you have objection. If so, state it."
Shorty glanced listlessly from the head of the table toward the foot. There his eye rested on the Second Lieutenant for a minute, and then he muttered to himself, "No, he's no worse than the rest ought to be on me," and shook his head in answer to the Judge-Advocate's formal question.
"You will each of you rise, hold up your right hand and be sworn," said the Judge-Advocate, and they each pronounced after him the prolix and ponderous oath prescribed by the regulations:
"You, Maj. Benjamin Truax, do swear that you will well and truly try and determine, according to evidence, the matter now before you, between the United States of America and the prisoner to be tried, and that you will duly administer justice, according to the provisions of an act establishing rules and articles for the government of the armies of the United States, without partiality, favor or affection; and if any doubt shall arise, not explained by said articles, according to your understanding and the custom of war in such cases. And you do further swear, that you will not divulge the sentence of the court, until it shall be published by proper authority; neither will you disclose or discover the vote or opinion of any particular member of the court-martial, unless required to give evidence thereof, as a witness, by a court of justice in due course of law. So help you God."
The President then took the book and administered the same oath to the Judge-Advocate.
"I shall now read the charges and specifications," said the Judge-Advocate, "which are as follows, and he read with sonorous impressiveness:
CHARGE:—Insulting, Threatening, and Striking Superior Officer.
Specification I.—That Corp'l William L. Elliott, Co. Q, 200th Ind. Vol. Inf., did strike and perform other physical violence upon Second Lieut. Adolph Steigermeyer, of the Second Corps, U. S. Engr's, who was his superior officer, and in the performance of his duty, in violation of the 9th Article of War, and contrary to the discipline of the Armies of the United States. This on the march of the army from Dalton, Ga., to Calhoun, Ga., and on the 16th day of May, 1864.
Specification II.—That said Corp'l William I.. Elliott, Co. Q, 200th Ind. Vol. Inf., did threaten physical violence to the said Second Lieut, Adolph Steigermeyer, Second Corps, U. S. Engr's, his superior officer, and who was in the performance of his duty, contrary to the 9th Article of War, and the discipline of the Armies of the United States. This on the march of the army from Dalton, Ga., to Calhoun, Ga., and on the 16th day of May, 1864.
Specification III.—That said Corp'l William L. Elliott, Co. Q, 200th Ind. Vol. Inf., did insult with many opprobrious words, the said Adolph Steigermeyer, Second Corps, U. S. Engr's, his superior officer, in the presence of many enlisted men, in violation of the 6th Article of War and of the discipline of the Armies of the United States. This on the march of the army from Dalton, Ga., to Calhoun, Ga., and on the 16th day of May, 1864.
CHARGE:—Drunkenness on duty.
Specification I.—That said Corp'l William L. Elliott, Co. Q, 200th Ind. Vol. Inf., being then on duty, and in command of a squad of men, was openly and noisily intoxicated and drunk, and incapable of performing said duty, in violation of the 45th Article of war, and the discipline of the Armies of the United States. This on the march of the army from Dalton, Ga., to Calhoun, Ga., and on the 16th day of May, 1864.
CHARGE 3.—Misappropriating Public Property.
Specification I.—That said Corp'l William L. Elliott, being charged with the duty of gathering up and accounting for the property captured from and abandoned by the enemy, did appropriate to himself, attempt to conceal, and refuse to deliver to his superior officer a portion thereof, to wit, one pair of field glasses, in violation of the 58th Article of War, and contrary to the discipline of the Armies of the United States. This on the march of the enemy from Dalton, Ga., to Calhoun, Ga., and on the 16th day of May, 1864.
"O, goodness gracious!" murmured little Pete Skidmore, almost fainting with terror, in the covert of oak leaves, just above the court's head, whither he had noiselessly climbed, to overhear everything. "He's a-goner, sure! They'll shoot him, sure as guns. Saltpeter won't save him. He's broke every Article o' War in the whole book. My, what will I do?"
He slipped down and communicated his information to the anxiously-expectant comrades of Co. Q.
"It mayn't be as bad as we expect," the Orderly-Sergeant tried to console them. "The bite of most of them regulations and charges and specifications ain't never near as bad as their bark. If they were, a good many of us would have been shot long ago. My experience in the army's been that the regulations are like the switches the teachers used to have in school—a willow for the good scholars, and a stout hickory for the bad ones. Still, I'm afraid that Shorty won't get off with less than hard labor for life on the fortifications."
"Prisoner, you have heard the charges and specifications," said Lieut. Bowersox, in a stern voice. "How do you plead to them?"
"O, I'm guilty—guilty o' the whole lot," said Shorty dejectedly.
"Inasmuch," said Lieut. Bowersox, with an entire change of tone, "as it is my duty to represent the prisoner's interests as counsel, I shall disregard his plea, and enter one of not guilty."
Shorty started to gasp. "But I done all that—"
"Silence," thundered Lieut. Bowersox, "you are only to speak, sir, when I or some other member of the court ask you a question."
"But has the Judge-Advocate the right to disregard the plain plea?" Lieut. McJimsey started to inquire, when the President interrupted with,
"Lieutenant, we can have no discussion of the court's practices in the presence of the prisoner. If you want to enter upon that we shall have to clear the court. Do you desire that?"
There was something in the bluff old Major's tone that made the Lieutenant think this inadvisable, and he signified the negative.
"Call your first witness, then, Judge-Advocate," said Maj. Truax, with a wave of his hand.
Lieut. Steigermeyer, in full-dress, even to epaulets, rigidly erect and sternly important as to look, testified that he was a Second Lieutenant in the Regular Army, but had the staff rank of Captain and Inspector-General, and after going out of his way to allude to the laxness of discipline he found prevailing in the Western armies, testified that on the day mentioned, while in pursuance of his duty, he was going over the battlefield, he came upon the prisoner, whose drunken yelling attracted his attention; that he had admonished him, and received insults in reply.
"My way is to knock a man down, when he gives me any back talk," remarked the Major, sotto voce, taking a fresh chew of tobacco. "That's better than court-martialing to promote discipline."
"Further admonitions," continued the Lieutenant, "had the same result, and I was about to call a guard to put him under arrest, when I happened to notice a pair of field-glasses that the prisoner had picked up, and was evidently intending to appropriate to his own use, and not account for them. This was confirmed by his approaching me in a menacing manner, insolently demanding their return, and threatening me in a loud voice if I did not give them up, which I properly refused to do, and ordered a Sergeant who had come up to seize and buck-and-gag him. The Sergeant, against whom I shall appear later, did not obey my orders, but seemed to abet his companion's gross insubordination. The scene finally culminated, in the presence of a number of enlisted men, in the prisoner's wrenching the field-glasses away from me by main force, and would have struck me had not the Sergeant prevented this. It was such an act as in any other army in the world would have subjected the offender to instant execution. It was only possible in—"
"Pardon me, Lieutenant—I should perhaps say Captain"—interrupted Lieut. Bowersox, with much sweetness of manner, "but the most of us are familiar with your views as to the inferiority of the discipline of the Western Armies to that of the Army of the Potomac and European armies, so that we need not take up the' time of the court with its reiteration. What farther happened?"
"Nothing. The Provost Guard came up at that moment, and I directed a Sergeant to place the two principal offenders in custody, and secure the names of the witnesses."
"Is that all, Captain?"
"Yes, except that in closing my testimony I feel that it is my duty to impress upon the court that so flagrant a case as this should be made the opportunity for an example in the interests of discipline in the whole army. I have known this prisoner for some time, and watched him. This is not the first time that he and the Sergeant have insulted me. They are leaders in that class of uneducated fellows who have entirely too little respect for officers and gentlemen. They should be taught a lesson. This is necessary for the dignity and effectiveness of gentlemen who bear commissions, and—"
"I will ask the witness if this lecture on military ethics is a part of his testimony?" asked the Major:
"I think it is needed," answered the Lieutenant tartly.
"Let me see, Steigermeyer," said the Major, adjusting another chew of tobacco to his mouth, and balancing the knife with which he had cut it off, judicially in his fingers, a favorite position of his when, as a lawyer, he was putting a witness through a cross-examination. "How long have you been with this army? Came West with the Eleventh Corps, didn't you?"
"No; I was left behind on duty. I didn't come for several weeks after."
"So I thought. You weren't with us at Stone River, or Chickamauga, or Mission Ridge. You'd know more if you had been. Your mental horizon would have been enlarged, so to speak. Aren't you from Milwaukee?"
"I was born and brought up there, until I went to West Point," answered the Lieutenant, rather uneasily.
"So I thought. The only man of your name that I ever heard of kept a saloon in Milwaukee—a great place for politicians to hang around. I used to go there myself when I was in politics. He was a sort of a ward boss. Was he your father?"
"Yes, sir," said the Lieutenant, with reddening face; "but I don't know what this has to do with the case that I have presented to your attention."
"It has a great deal to do with this lecture with which you have favored us," answered the Major dryly. "But we'll not discuss that in open court. Are you through with the witness, Judge-Advocate? If so, call the next."
"I'll just ask the Captain a few questions for the defense," said Lieut. Bowersox. "How did you know that the prisoner was drunk?"
"How did I know it? How does any man know that another is drunk? He was boisterous, excited and yelling—that kind of a drunk."
"But that does not prove that he was drunk. That may be his way of doing his work. Did you see him drink?"
"No."
"Did you ever see him before?"
"Yes."
"How was he acting then?"
"I shall have to say that he was boisterous and yelling then, but not so wildly excited."
"Then it was only a difference in degree, not kind. Was he not accomplishing what he was ordered to do?"
"Yes, he certainly did bring that limber out of the gulch."
"Then it is only a matter of opinion that he was drunk. You have nothing to guide you except your judgment that the man was drunk, who was still doing his duty pretty effectively."
"But there could be no mistake. I know that the man was raging drunk."
"As I said before, that is a matter of opinion and judgment which I will discuss with the court later. Did the prisoner actually strike you?"
"I cannot say that he actually did, farther than snatch out of my hand the field-glasses."
"He didn't do it! You're lyin'! I yanked the glasses out of your hand. 'Twas me," shouted little Pete, from the oak leaves.
The members all looked up in astonishment.
"Sergeant," said the Major to the Sergeant of the Provost Guard, "fetch that little rascal down and buck-an-gag him, until I can decide what further punishment he deserves for eavesdropping, and interrupting the court."
"I don't care if you kill me," whimpered little Pete, as they tied his hands together, "if you'll only let Corp'l Elliott off. He wasn't to blame. It was me.
"You can go," said Lieut. Bowersox to the Lieutenant. "Sergeant, bring in Orderly-Sergeant Jacob Whitelaw."
In response to the Judge-Advocate's direct questionings the Orderly-Sergeant had to sorrowfully admit that he thought that Shorty was drunk, very drunk, and exceedingly noisy. But when Lieut. Bowersox changed to the defense, the Orderly-Sergeant testified with great alacrity that he had not seen Shorty take a drink, that he did not know where he could have got whisky; did not know where in all that part of Georgia there was a drop of liquor outside of the Surgeon's stores and the officers' canteens; that he wished he did know, for he'd like to have a drink himself; and that Shorty, when he was putting forth his greatest strength, was generally very vociferous and not at all careful of what he said. This was one of the peculiarities of the man, that he was overlooked on account of his great effectiveness on the men when in that state.
The other members of the company testified in the same way, giving their belief even more emphatically against any liquor being found anywhere in that neighborhood, and the unlikelihood of Shorty's being able to obtain any. The other members of the court had "caught on" very quickly to the tactics of the President and Judge-Advocate. All except Lieut. McJimsey, whose prepossessions were decidedly and manifestly in favor of the attitude of his brother staff officer. He grew stiffer and more dogged as the case proceeded, and frequently asked embarrassing questions. The Judge-Advocate announced that "the case was closed, and the court would be cleared for deliberation.
"Before you open, Judge-Advocate," said Maj. Truax significantly, "I want to say something, not as a member of this court, but something between gentlemen, and I want to say it before we begin our deliberations, in order that it shall not be considered as part of them, or influencing them. The lecture by that self-sufficient fellow on our duties makes me tired. I remember his father—he sold the meanest whisky to be found in Milwaukee. I want to say right here that no man who sells lager beer can sell whisky fit for gentlemen to drink. Beer corrupts his taste, mind and judgment. Old Steigermeyer had a good deal of political influence of a certain kind, and he bulldozed the Representative from his District into giving his son an appointment to West Point. Now this young upstart comes around and absolutely lectures us who have always been gentlemen, and our fathers before us, on gentlemanliness. It was hard for me to keep from saying something right before him about the quality of whisky his father used to sell. I can stand a good deal, but the idea of a ginmill keeper's son lording it over others and over enlisted men who came of much better stock than he does sticks in my craw. Now, whenever I find one of these whose father got his appointment as Steigermeyer's father did (and the old Major's eye wandered down to where Lieut. McJimsey's air of sternness had given way to visible unrest) I'm tempted to say unpleasant things. Now, Judge-Advocate, proceed."
"The evidence in this case," said Lieut. Bowersox, with the severity proper to a vindicator of justice, "shows that it was a very flagrant breach of the essentials of discipline, and deserves stern treatment. A man wearing the chevrons of a Corporal, has, in the presence of a number of enlisted men, behaved in the most unseemly manner, showed gross disobedience to his superior officer, reviled him with opprobrious epithets, threatened to strike him, and actually did strike him. On the other hand (and the Lieutenant's tone changed to that of counsel for the defense), we all of us know that the prisoner is an excellent soldier of long service, that his influence has always been for the best, and that he was promoted to Corporal as an exceptional compliment for his part in capturing a rebel flag at Chickamauga, where he was wounded and left for dead on the field. It is for you, gentlemen, to take all these facts into consideration, and determine how men of this stamp should be dealt with for the best interests of the service. The evidence against him is in many respects conflicting, and rests upon mere judgment, in which the best of us are liable to err. I will not detain you farther, gentlemen."
"You say this prisoner was promoted for capturing a rebel flag at Chickamauga?" asked Maj. Truax, who was perfectly aware of the fact, but wanted to emphasize it upon the others.
"Yes," said Lieut. Bowersox, only too glad of the opportunity. "I saw it all. Gallant a thing as was ever done. Simply magnificent. Thrills me to think about it. I tell you that fellow's a soldier all the way through.
"That was before this Stiegermeyer fellow and a lot of other fellows (and again his eyes wandered carelessly down toward Lieut. McJimsey) had even joined us. I remember him also bringing up ammunition to his regiment at Stone River. He is one of those fellows that you can send to the rear, and always be sure that he'll come back as fast as his feet can carry him. I don't want to influence any member of this court, but the evidence that we have heard don't go an inch toward convincing me that he was drunk, or struck at his superior officer. There was some mistake, always liable to excited men. Lieut. McJimsey, you are the junior officer present. It is your right to speak and vote first. Let us hear from you."
The Lieutenant seemed to have recovered his sternness, and his expression showed a determination to wreak exemplary punishment on the man who had so grievously offended one of his class.
"It is clear to me," he began in a hard, set tone, "that an example should be made. These low, brutal fellows—"
"When I lived in Chicago," broke in the Major, in a conversational tone, apparently forgetful that he had called upon the Lieutenant to speak, but fixing a very piercing blue eye upon him, "I used to mix up a good deal with the boys who hung around a saloon kept by a ward politician, an unscrupulous, noisy, driving fellow named—But excuse me. Lieutenant, I forgot for the moment that I had called upon you to speak."
The Lieutenant's face had undergone a remarkable change, and as he sank back in his seat, he said in a forced voice:
"In consideration solely of the previous excellent character of the prisoner, I vote not guilty on all the charges and specifications, but with a distinct warning to the man as to the future."
"So do I!" "So do I!" said the rest, one after another, so quickly that it was almost a chorus.
"Judge-Advocate," said Maj. Truax, "when the General approves this finding, and you communicate it to prisoner, whisper in his ear that if he ever strains us this way again I'll take it upon myself to break his fool neck. Let him look a little out."
"The next case I have is that of Serg't Josiah Klegg, implicated in the same affair," said Lieut. Bowersox.
"Since we have acquitted the principal, it would be foolish to try the accessory," said Maj. Truax. "Say the same thing to him. Now, let's get down to business. Bring in that man that skulked when the boys were going for that abatis. I want to make an example of him, for the good of the service."