SI HAS A HARD TIME TRYING TO KEEP WHISKY OUT OF CAMP.
"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 has{166} 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 he{167} 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. He{168} 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. They{169} 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 jag{170} 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 lot{172} 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,
bony{174} 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 rest{175} 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 of{176} 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 law{177} 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."
{179}