GIVE A HOUSE-WARMING.
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.
Si Floors the Wagonmaster. 154
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."