GETS A LETTER FROM BAD AX, WIS., AND IS ALMOST OVERCOME WITH JOY.
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 make{151} 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 socks{152} 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
the{153} 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 hands{154} 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's{155} 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 made{156} 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 using{157} 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.
[Illustration: SHORTY WANTS TO FIGHT GROUNDHOG 157]
"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 the{159} 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 as{160}
carefully as if it had been a rare flower, and with palpitating heart
slowly spelled out the words, one after another:
[Illustration: SHORTY READING THE LETTER 160]
"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 joying{161} 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 your{162} 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.