SI AND SHORTY'S RECRUITS ENTER KENTUCKY.
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.
[Illustration: 'HERE, YOU YOUNG BRATS, WHAT ARE YOU UP TO 225]
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."