AND ENTERS UPON HIS PARENTAL RELATIONS TO LITTLE PETE SKIDMORE.
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 slink 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.