They cut off through a side-road, which gave promise of leading into a

better-settled part of the country than that they had been traversing. A

mile or so of walking brought them in sight of the substantial chimneys

of a farmhouse showing above the trees. A glimpse of a well-fenced field

roused warm hopes in Shorty's heart.

"Now, I think we're comin' to a better thing than we've ever struck

before," said he, as they stopped96 and surveyed the prospect. "We've

got out o' the barren plateaus and into the rich farming country. That's

likely a farm jest like they have up in Injianny, and it's way off where

they hain't knowed nothin' o' the war. No soljer's ever anigh 'em, and

they've jest got lots and plenty o' everything. They've got a great big

barnyard full o' chickens and turkeys, pigs and geese and guineas.

There, you kin hear the guineas hollerin' now. There's cows layin' in

the shade chawin' the cud, while their calves are cavortin' around in

the sun, hogs rootin' in the woods-pasture, horses and sheep in the

medder, and everything like it is at home. And down a little ways from

the house there's a cool springhouse, with clear, cold water wellin' up

and ripplin' out over the clean, white sand, with crocks o' fresh milk

setting in it with cream half an inch thick, and big jars o' buttermilk

from the last churnin', and piggins o' fresh butter, and mebbe a big

crock full o' smearkase. Si, do you like smearkase?"

"'Deed I do," answered Si, his mouth watering at the thought. "My

goodness, you jest orter eat some o' mother's smearkase. She jest lays

over all the women in the country for smearkase. Many's the time I've

come in hot and sweatin from the field, and got a thick slice o' bread

clear acrost the loaf from one o' the girls, and went down to our

spring-house and spread it with fresh butter, and then put a thick layer

o' smearkase on top o' that, and then got about a quart o' cool milk,

that was half cream, from ono o' the crocks, and then—"

"Shot up, Si," shouted Shorty, desperately. "Do you want me to bang you

over the head with my97 musket? Do you s'pose I kin stand everything?

But I believe there's jest sich a spring-house down there, and we'll

find it plumb-full o' all them sort o' things. Le's mosey on."

"Do you think there's any rebels around here?" said Si, the caution

which experience had taught him making a temporary reassertion of

itself.

"Naw," said Shorty, contemtpuously, "there ain't no rebel this side o'

the Duck River, unless some straggler, who'd run if he saw us. If we

ketch sight o' one we'll take him into camp, jest to gratify you. But I

ain't lookin' for none. Buttermilk and cornpone's what I want."

The scene was certainly peaceful enough to justify Shorty's confidence.

A calmer, quieter landscape could not have been found in the whole

country. A negro was plowing in a distant field, with occasional

sonorous yells to his team. He did not seem to notice the soldiers, nor

did a gray-haired white man who was sitting on the fence superintending

him. A couple of negresses were washing the family linen by a fire under

a large kettle on the creek bank, at some distance from the house, and

spreading the cleansed garments out on the grass to dry and bleach.

Cattle and horses were feeding on the fresh Spring grass and sheep

browsing on the bushes on the hillside. Hens cackled and roosters

crowed; the guineas, ever on the lookout, announced their approach with

shrill, crackling notes. Two or three dogs waked up and barked lazily at

them as they walked up the path to where an elderly, spectacled woman

sat on the porch knitting. She raised98 her eyes and threw her

spectacles on top of her head, and looked curiously at them.

Whatever faint misgivings Si might have had vanished at the utter

peacefulness of the scene. It was so like the old home that he had left

that he could not imagine that war existed anywhere near. It seemed as

if the camp at Murfreesboro' and the bloody field of Stone River must be

a thousand miles away. The beds of roses and pinks which bordered the

walk were the same as decorated the front yard at home. There were the

same clumps of snowballs and lilacs at the corners of the house.

"Howdy, gentlemen?" said the woman, as they came up.

It seemed almost a wrong and insult to be carrying deadly arms in the

presence of such a woman, and Si and Shorty let their guns slip down, as

if they were rather ashamed of them.

"Good day, ma'am," said Shorty, taking off his hat politely and wiping

his face. "We're lookin' around to git some cornpone and buttermilk, and

didn't know but what you might let us have some. We're willin' to pay

for it."

"If you want suthin' to eat," said the woman promptly, "I kin gin it to

ye. I never turn no hungry man away from my door. Wait a minnit and I'll

bring ye some."

She disappeared inside the house, and Si remarked to Shorty:

"Your head's level this time, as it generally is. We'll git something

that's worth while comin' after."

The woman reappeared with a couple of good-size corn-dodgers in her

hand.99

"This appears to be all the bread that's left over from dinner," she

said. "And the meat's all gone. But the wenches 'll be through their

washin' purty soon, and then I'll have them cook ye some more, if ye'll

wait."

"Thankee, ma'am," said Shorty; "we can't wait. This'll be a plenty, if

we kin only git some buttermilk to go with it. We don't want no meat. We

git plenty o' that in camp."

"You can have all the buttermilk you want to drink," she answered, "if

you'll go down to the spring-house thar and git it. It's fresh, and

you'll find a gourd right beside o' the jar. I'd go with you, but it

allers gives me rheumatiz to go nigh the spring-house."

"Don't bother, ma'am, to go with us," said Shorty politely. "We are very

much obliged to you, indeed, and we kin make out by ourselves. How much

do we owe you?" And he pulled a greenback dollar from his pocket.

"Nothin', nothin' at all," said the woman hastily. "I don't sell

vittels. Never thought o' sich a thing. Ye're welcome to all ye kin eat

any time."

"Well, take the money, and let us ketch a couple of them chickens

there," said Shorty, laying down the bill on the banister rail.

After a little demur the woman finally agreed to this, and picked up the

money. The boys selected two fat chickens, ran them down, wrung their

necks, and, after repeating their thanks, took their bread and started

for the spring-house. They found it the coolest and most inviting place

in the world on a hot, tiresome day—just such a spot as Shorty had100

described. It was built of rough stones, and covered with a moss-grown

roof. A copious spring poured out a flood of clear, cool water, which

flowed over white pebbles and clean-looking sand until it formed a

cress-bordered rivulet just beyond the house. In the water sat crocks of

fresh milk, a large jar of buttermilk, and buckets of butter. The looks,

the cool, pure freshness of the place, were delightful101 contrasts from

the tiresome smells and appearances of the camp kitchens. The boys

reveled in the change. They forgot all about war's alarms, stood their

rifles up against the side of the spring-house, washed their dust-grimed

faces and hands in the pure water, dried them with their handkerchiefs,

and prepared to enjoy their meal. How good the buttermilk tasted along

with the cornpone. The fresh milk was also sampled, and some of the

butter spread upon their bread.

Si even went to the point of declaring that it was almost as good as the

things he used to eat at home, which was the highest praise he could

possibly give to any food. Si never found anywhere victuals or cooking

to equal that of his mother.

He was pointing out to Shorty, as they munched, the likenesses and

unlikenesses of this spring-house to that on the Wabash, when they were

startled by the stern command:

"Surrender, there, you infernal Yankees!"

Undesirable Acquaintances. 100

They looked up with startled eyes to stare into a dozen muskets leveled

straight at their heads from the willow thickets. Corn-dodgers and milk-

gourds dropped into the water as they impulsively jumped to their feet.

"If yo'uns move we'uns 'll blow the lights outen yo'uns," shouted the

leader of the rebels. "Hold up yer hands."

It was a moment of the most intense anguish that either of them had ever

known. Their thoughts were lightning-like in rapidity. The rebel muzzles

were not a rod away, their aim was true, and it102 would be madness to

risk their fire, for it meant certain death.

The slightest move toward resistance was suicide.

Si gave a deep groan, and up went his hands at the same moment with

Shorty's.

The rebels rushed out of the clump of willows behind which they had

crept up on the boys, and surrounded them. Two snatched up their guns,

and the others began pulling off their haversacks and other personal

property as their own shares of the booty. In the midst of this, Si

looked around, and saw the woman standing near calmly knitting.

"You ain't so afeared o' rheumatism all at once," he said bitterly.

"My rheumatiz has spells, young man, same ez other people's," she

answered, pulling one of the needles out, and counting the stitches with

it. "Sometimes it is better, and sometimes it is wuss. Jest now it is a

great deal better, thankee. I only wisht I could toll the whole Yankee

army to destruction ez easy ez you wuz. My, but ye walked right in, like

the fly to the spider. I never had nothin' do my rheumatiz so much

good."

And she cackled with delight. "When you git through," she continued,

addressing the leader of the rebels, "come up to the house, and I'll

have some dinner cooked for ye. I know ye're powerful tired an' hungry.

I s'pose nothin' need be cooked for them," and she pointed her knitting-

needle contemptuously at Si and Shorty. "Ole Satan will be purvidin' fur

them. I'll take these along to cook fur ye."103

She gathered up the dead chickens and stalked back to the house.

"Ef we're gwine t' shoot they'uns le's take they'uns over thar on the

knoll, whar they'uns won't spile nothin'," said one evil-looking man,

who had just ransacked Si's pockets and appropriated everything in them.

"Hit'd be too bad t' kill they'uns here right in sight o' the house."

"Le'me see them letters, Bushrod;" said the leader, snatching a package

of letters and Annabel's picture out of the other's hand. "Mebbe thar's

some news in them that the Captain'd like to have."

Si gnashed his teeth as he saw the cherished missives rudely torn open

and scanned, and especially when the ambrotype case was opened and

Annabel's features made the subject of coarse comment. The imminent

prospect of being murdered had a much lighter pang.

While the letters and ambrotype were being looked over the process of

robbery was going on. One had snatched Si's cap, another had pulled off

his blouse, and there was a struggle as to who should have possession of

his new Government shoes, which were regarded as a great prize. Si had

resisted this spoliation, but was caught from behind and held, despite

his kicks and struggles, while the shoes were pulled off. Shorty was

treated in the same way.

The Spoils of War 105

In a few minutes both, exhausted by their vigorous resistance, were

seated on the ground, with nothing left on them but their pantaloons,

while their captors were quarreling over the division of their personal

effects, and as to what disposition was to be made of them. In the

course of the discussion104 the boys learned that they had been captured

by a squad of young men from the immediate neighborhood, who had been

allowed to go home on furlough, had been gathered together when the

regiment appeared, and had been watching every movement from safe

coverts. They had seen Si and Shorty leave, and had carefully dogged

their steps until such moment as they could pounce on them.

"Smart as we thought we wuz," said Si bitterly, "we played right into

their hands. They tracked us down jest as if we'd bin a couple o'

rabbits, and ketched us jest when they wanted us."

He gave a groan which Shorty echoed.

Bushrod and two others were for killing the two boys then and there and

ending the matter.

"They orter be killed, Ike, right here," said Bushrod to the leader.

"They deserve it, and we'uns hain't got no time to fool. We'uns can't

take they'uns back with we'uns, ef we wanted to, and I for one don't

want to. I'd ez soon have a rattlesnake around me."

But Ike, the leader, was farther-seeing. He represented to the others

the vengeance the Yankees would take on the people of the neighborhood

if they murdered the soldiers.

This developed another party, who favored taking the prisoners to some

distance and killing them there, so as to avoid the contingency that Ike

had set forth. Then there were propositions to deliver them over to the

guerrilla leaders, to be disposed of as they pleased.

Finally, it occurred to Ike that they were talking entirely too freely

before the prisoners, unless they105 intended to kill them outright, for

they were giving information in regard to the position and operations of

rebel bands that might prove dangerous. He drew his squad off a little

distance to continue the discussion. At first they kept their eyes on

the prisoners and their guns ready to fire, but as they talked they lost

their watchful attitude in the eagerness of making their points.

Si looked at Shorty, and caught an answering gleam. Like a flash both

were on their feet and started on a mad rush for the fence. Bushrod

saw106 them start, and fired. His bullet cut off a lock of Si's auburn

hair. Others fired as fast as they could bring their guns up, and the

bullets sang viciously around, but none touched the fugitives. Their

bare feet were torn by the briars as they ran, but they thought not of

these. They plunged into the blackberry briars along the fence, climbed

it, and gained the road some distance ahead of their pursuers, who were

not impelled by the fear of immediate death to spur them on. Up the road

went Si and Shorty with all the speed that will-power could infuse into

their legs. Some of the rebels stopped to reload; the others ran after.

A score of noisy dogs suddenly waked up and joined in the pursuit. The

old white man mounted his horse and came galloping toward the house.

On the boys ran, gaining, if anything, upon the foremost of the rebels.

The dogs came nearer, but before they could do any harm the boys halted

for an instant and poured such a volley of stones into them that they

ran back lamed and yelping. The fleetest-footed of the rebels, who was

the sanguinary Bushrod, also came within a stone's throw, and received a

well-aimed bowlder from Si's muscular hand full in his face. This

cheered the boys so that they ran ahead with increased speed, and

finally gained the top of the hill from which they had first seen the

farmhouse.

They looked back and saw their enemies still after them. Ike had taken

the old man's horse and was coming on a gallop. They knew he had a

revolver, and shivered at the thought. But both stooped and selected the

best stones to throw, to attack him with107 as soon as he came within

range. They halted a minute to get their breath and nerve for the good

effort. Ike had reached a steep, difficult part of the road, where his

horse had to come down to a walk and pick his way.

An Uncomfortable Situation 107

"Now, Si," said Shorty, "throw for your life, if you never did before.

I'm goin' to git him. You take his horse's head. Aim for that white

blaze in his forehead."

Si concentrated his energy into one supreme effort.108

He could always beat the rest of the boys in throwing stones, and now

his practice was to save him. He flung the smooth, round pebble with

terrific force, and it went true to its mark. The horse reared with his

rider just at the instant that a bowlder from Shorty's hand landed on

Ike's breast. The rebel fell to the ground, and the boys ran on.

At the top of the next hill they saw the regiment marching leisurely

along at the foot of the hill. It was so unexpected a deliverance that

it startled them. It seemed so long since they had left the regiment

that it might have been clear back to Nashville. They yelled with all

their remaining strength, and tore down the hill. Co. Q saw them at

once, and at the command of the Captain came forward at the double-

quick. The rebels had in the meanwhile gained the top of the hill. A few

shots were fired at them as they turned from the chase.

The Colonel rode back and questioned the boys. Then he turned to the

Captain of Co. Q and said:

"Captain, take your company over to that house. If you find anything

that you think we need in camp, bring it back with you. Put these boys

in the ambulance."

The exhausted Si and Shorty were helped into the ambulance, the Surgeon

gave them a reviving drink of whisky and quinine, and as they stretched

themselves out on the cushioned seats Si remarked:

"Shorty, we ain't ez purty ez we used to be, but we know a durned sight

more."

"I doubt it," said Shorty surlily. "I think me and you'll be fools as

long as we live. We won't be fools the same way agin, you kin bet your

life, but we'll find some other way."

CHAPTER VIII. A PERIOD OF SELF-DISGUST SI AND SHORTY HAVE AN ATTACK OF

IT, FOLLOWED BY RECOVERY.

IT TOOK many days for the boys' lacerated feet to recover sufficiently

to permit their going about and returning to duty. They spent the period

of enforced idleness in chewing the cud of bitter reflection. The thorns

had cut far more painfully into their pride than into their feet. The

time was mostly passed in moody silence, very foreign to the customary

liveliness of the Hoosier's Rest. They only spoke to one another on the

most necessary subjects, and then briefly. In their sour shame at the

whole thing they even became wroth with each other. Shorty sneered at

the way Si cleaned up the house, and Si condemned Shorty's cooking.

Thenceforth Shorty slept on the floor, while Si occupied the bed, and

they cooked their meals separately. The newness of the clothes they drew

from the Quartermaster angered them, and they tried to make them look as

dirty and shabby as the old.

Once they were on the point of actually coming to blows.

Si had thoughtlessly flung some dishwater into the company street. It

was a misdemeanor that in ordinary times would have been impossible to

him. Now almost anything was.

Shorty instantly growled:110

"You slouch, you ought to go to the guard-house for that."

Si retorted hotly:

"Slouch yourself! Look where you throwed them coffee-grounds this

morning," and he pointed to the tell-tale evidence beside the house.

Shorty and si Are at Outs. 110

"Well, that ain't near so bad," said Shorty crustily. "That at least

intended to be tidy."

"Humph," said Si, with supreme disdainfulness. "It's the difference

betwixt sneakin' an' straightout. I throwed mine right out in the

street. You tried to hide yours, and made it all the nastier. But111

whatever you do's all right. Whatever I do's all wrong. You're a pill."

"Look here, Mister Klegg," said Shorty, stepping forward with doubled

fist, "I'll have you understand that I've took all the slack and

impudence from you that I'm a-goin' to."

"Shorty, if you double your fist up at me," roared the irate Si, "I'll

knock your head off in a holy minute."

The boys of Co. Q were thunderstruck. It seemed as if their world was

toppling when two such partners should disagree. They gathered around in

voiceless sorrow and wonderment and watched, developments.

Shorty seemed in the act of springing forward, when the sharp roll of

the drum at Headquarters beating the "assembly" arrested all attention.

Everyone looked eagerly toward the Colonel's tent, and saw him come out

buckling on his sword, while his Orderly sped away for his horse.

Apparently, all the officers had been in consultation with him, for they

were hurrying away to their several companies.

"Fall in, Co. Q," shouted the Orderly-Sergeant. "Fall in promptly."

Everybody made a rush for his gun and equipments.

"Hurry up. Orderly," said Capt. McGillicuddy, coming up with his sword

and belt in hand. "Let the boys take what rations they can lay their

hands on, but not stop to cook any. We've got to go on the jump."

All was rush and hurry. Si and Shorty bolted for their house, forgetful

of their mangled feet. Si112 got in first, took his gun and cartridge-

box down, and buckled on his belt. He looked around for his rations

while Shorty was putting on his things. His bread and meat and Shorty's

were separate, and there was no trouble about them. But the coffee and

sugar had not been divided, and were in common receptacles. He opened

the coffee-can and looked in. There did not seem to be more than one

ration there. He hesitated a brief instant what to do. It would serve

Shorty just right to take all the coffee. He liked his coffee even

better than Shorty did, and was very strenuous about having it. If he

did not take it Shorty might think that he was either anxious to make up

or afraid, and he wanted to demonstrate that he was neither. Then there

was a twinge that it would be mean to take the coffee, and leave his

partner, senseless and provoking as he seemed, without any. He set the

can down, and, turning as if to look for something to empty it in,

pretended to hear something outside the house to make him forget it, and

hurried out.

Presently Shorty came out, and ostentatiously fell into line at a

distance from Si. It was the first time they had not stood shoulder to

shoulder.

The Orderly-Sergeant looked down the line, and called out:

"Here, Corp'l Klegg, you're not fit to go. Neither are you, Shorty. Step

out, both of you."

"Yes, I'm all right," said Shorty. "Feet's got well. I kin outwalk a Wea

Injun."

"Must've bin using some Lightning Elixir Liniment," said the Orderly-

Sergeant incredulously.. "I saw you both limping around like string-

halted113 horses not 15 minutes ago. Step out, I tell you."

"Captain, le' me go along," pleaded Si. "You never knowed me to fall

out, did you?"

"Captain, I never felt activer in my life," asserted Shorty; "and you

know I always kept up. I never played sore-foot any day."

"I don't believe either of you're fit to go," said Capt. McGillicuddy,

"but I won't deny you. You may start, anyway. By the time we get to the

pickets you can fall out if you find you can't keep up."

"The rebel calvary's jumped a herd of beef cattle out at pasture, run

off the guard, and are trying to get away with them," the Orderly-

Sergeant hurriedly explained as he lined up Co. Q. "We're to make a

short cut across the country and try to cut them off. Sir, the company's

formed."

"Attention, Co. Q!" shouted Capt. McGillicuddy. "Right face!—Forward,

file left!—March!"

The company went off at a terrific pace to get its place with the

regiment, which had already started without it.

Though every step was a pang. Si and Shorty kept up unflinchingly. Each

was anxious to outdo the other, and to bear off bravery before the

company. The Captain and Orderly-Sergeant took an occasional look at

them until they passed the picket-line, when other more pressing matters

engaged the officers' attention.

The stampeded guards, mounted on mules or condemned horses, or running

on foot, came tearing back, each with a prodigious tale of the numbers

and ferocity of the rebels.114

The regiment was pushed forward with all the speed there was in it,

going down-hill and over the level stretch at a double-quick. Si felt

his feet bleeding, and it seemed at times that he could not go another

step, but then he would look back down the line and catch a glimpse of

Shorty keeping abreast of his set of fours, and he would spur himself to

renewed effort. Shorty would long to throw himself in a fence-corner and

rest for a week, until, as they went over some rise, he would catch

sight of Si's sandy hair, well in the lead, when he would drink in fresh

determination to keep up, if he died in the attempt.

Presently they arrived at the top of the hill from which they could see

the rebel cavalry rounding up and driving off the cattle, while a

portion of the enemy's horsemen were engaged in a fight with a small

squad of infantry ensconced behind a high rail fence.

Si and Shorty absolutely forgot their lameness as Co. Q separated from

the column and rushed to the assistance of the squad, while the rest of

the regiment turned off to the right to cut off the herd. But they were

lame all the same, and tripped and fell over a low fence which the rest

of the company easily leaped. They gathered themselves up, sat on the

ground for an instant, and glared at one another.

"Blamed old tangle-foot," said Shorty derisively.

"You've got hoofs like a foundered hoss," retorted Si.

After this interchange of compliments they staggered painfully to their

feet and picked up their115 guns, which were thrown some distance from

their hands as they fell.

By this time Co. Q was a quarter of a mile away, and already beginning

to fire on the rebels, who showed signs of relinquishing the attack.

"Gol darn the luck!" said Si with Wabash emphasis, beginning to limp

forward.

"Wish the whole outfit was a mile deep in burnin' brimstone," wrathfully

observed Shorty.

A couple of lucky shots had emptied two of the rebel saddles. The

frightened horses turned away from the fighting line, and galloped down

the road to the right of the boys. The leading one suddenly halted in a

fence-corner about 30 yards away from Si, threw up his head and began

surveying the scene, as if undecided what to do next. The other, seeing

his mate stop, began circling around.

Hope leaped up in Si's breast. He began creeping toward the first horse,

under the covert of the sumach. Shorty saw his design and the advantage

it would give Si, and, standing still, began swearing worse than ever.

Si crept up as cautiously as he had used to in the old days when he was

rabbit-hunting. The horse thrust his head over the fence, and began

nibbling at a clump of tall rye growing there. Si thrust his hand out

and caught his bridle. The horse made one frightened plunge, but the

hand on his bridle held with the grip of iron, and he settled down to

mute obedience.

Si set his gun down in the fence-corner and climbed into the saddle.

Shorty made the Spring air yellow with profanity116 until he saw Si ride

away from his gun toward the other horse. When the latter saw his mate,

with a rider, coming toward him he gave a whinney and dashed forward. In

an instant Si had hold of his bridle and was turning back. His face was

bright with triumph. Shorty stopped in the middle of a soul-curdling

oath and yelled delightedly:

"Bully for old Wabash! You're my pardner after all Si."

He hastened forward to the fence, grabbed up Si's gun and handed it to

him and then climbed into the other saddle.

The rebels were now falling back rapidly before Co. Q's fire. A small

part detached itself and started down a side road.

Si and Shorty gave a yell, and galloped toward them, in full sight of

Co. Q. who raised a cheer. The rebels spurred their horses, but Si and

Shorty gained on them.

"Come on. Shorty." Si yelled. "I don't believe they've got a shot left.

They hain't fired once since they started."

He was right. Their cartridge-boxes had been emptied.

At the bottom of the hill a creek crossing the road made a deep, wide

quagmire. The rebels were in too much hurry to pick out whatever road

there might have been through it. Their leaders plunged in, their horses

sank nearly to the knees, and the whole party bunched up.

"Surrender, you rebel galoots." yelled Si reining up at a little

distance, and bringing his gun to bear.117

"Surrender, you off-scourings of secession," added Shorty.

Si and Shorty As Mounted Infantry 117

The rebels looked back, held up their hands, and said imploringly:

"Don't shoot, Mister. We'uns give up. We'uns air taylored."

"Come back up here, one by one," commanded Si,118 "and go to our rear.

Hold on to your guns. Don't throw 'em away. We ain't afraid of 'em."

One by one the rebels extricated their horses from the mire with more or

less difficulty and filed back. Si kept his gun on those in the

quagmire, while Shorty attended to the others as they came back. Co. Q

was coming to his assistance as fast as the boys could march.

What was the delight of the boys to recognize in their captives the

squad which had captured them. The sanguinary Bushrod was the first to

come back, and Si had to restrain a violent impulse to knock him off his

horse with his gun-barrel. But he decided to settle with him when

through with the present business.

By the time the rebels were all up, Co. Q had arrived on the scene. As

the prisoners were being disarmed and put under guard, Si called out to

Capt. McGillicuddy:

"Captain, one o' these men is my partickler meat. I want to 'tend to

him."

"All right. Corporal," responded the Captain, "attend to him, but don't

be too rough on him. Remember that he is an unarmed prisoner."

Si and Shorty got down off their horses, and approached Bushrod, who

turned white as death, trembled violently, and began to beg.

"Gentlemen, don't kill me," he whined. "I'm a poor man, an' have a

fambly to support. I didn't mean nothin' by what I said. I sw'ar't' Lord

A'mighty I didn't."

"Jest wanted to hear yourself talk—jest practicin' your voice," said

Shorty sarcastically, as he took the119 man by the shoulder and pulled

him off into the bush by the roadside. "Jest wanted to skeer us, and see

how fast we could run. Pleasant little pastime, eh?" "And them things

you said about a young lady up in Injianny," said Si, clutching him by

the throat.

Bushrod Prays for his Life 119

"I want to wring your neck jest like a chicken's. What'd you do with her

picture and letters?"

Si thrust his hand unceremoniously into Bushrod's pocket and found the

ambrotype of Annabel. A brief glance showed him that it was all right,

and he gave a sigh of satisfaction, which showed some amelioration of

temper toward the captive.120

"What'd you do with them letters?" Si demanded fiercely.

"Ike has 'em," said Bushrod.

"You've got my shoes on, you brindle whelp," said Shorty, giving him a

cuff in bitter remembrance of his own smarting feet.

"If we're goin' to shoot him, let's do it right off," said Si, looking

at the cap on his gun. "The company's gittin' ready to start back."

"All right," said Shorty, with cheerful alacrity. "Johnny, your ticket

for a brimstone supper's made out. How'd you rather be shot—standin' or

kneelin'?"

"O, gentlemen, don't kill be. Ye hadn't orter. Why do ye pick me out to

kill? I wuzzent no wuss'n the others. I wuzzent rayly half ez bad. I

didn't rayly mean t' harm ye. I only talked. I had t' talk that-a-way,

for I alluz was a Union man, and had t' make a show for the others. I

don't want t' be shot at all."

"You ain't answerin' my question," said Shorty coolly and inexorably. "I

asked you how you preferred to be shot. These other things you mention

hain't nothin' to do with my question."

He leveled his gun at the unhappy man and took a deliberate sight.

"O, for the Lord A'mighty's sake, don't shoot me down like a dog,"

screamed Bushrod. "Le'me have a chance to pray, an' make my peace with

my Maker."

"All right," conceded Shorty, "go and kneel down there by that

cottonwood, and do the fastest prayin* you ever did in all your born

days, for you have need of it. We'll shoot when I count three. You'd121

better make a clean breast of all your sins and transgressions before

you go. You'll git a cooler place in the camp down below."

Unseen, the rest of Co. Q were peeping through the bushes and enjoying

the scene.

Bushrod knelt down with his face toward the Cottonwood, and began an

agonized prayer, mingled with confessions of crimes and malefactions,

some flagrant, some which brought a grin of amusement to the faces of

Co. Q.

"One!" called out Shorty in stentorian tones.

"O, for the love o' God, Mister, don't shoot me," yelled Bushrod,

whirling around, with uplifted arms. "I'm too wicked to die, an' I've

got a fambly dependin' on me."

"Turn around there, and finish your prayin'," sternly commanded Shorty,

with his and Si's faces down to the stocks of their muskets, in the act

of taking deliberate aim.

Bushrod flopped around, threw increased vehemence into his prayer, and

resumed his recital of his misdeeds.

"Two!" counted Shorty.

Again Bushrod whirled around with uplifted hands and begged for mercy.

"Nary mercy," said Shorty. "You wouldn't give it to us, and you hain't

given it to many others, according to your own account. Your light's

flickerin', and we'll blow it out at the next count. Turn around,

there."

Bushrod made the woods ring this time with his fervent, tearful appeals

to the Throne of Grace. He was so wrought up by his impending death that

he122 did not hear Co. Q quietly move away, at a sign from the Captain,

with Si and Shorty mounting their horses and riding off noiselessly over

the sod.

For long minutes Bushrod continued his impassioned appeals at the top of

his voice, expecting every instant to have the Yankee bullets crash

through his brain. At length he had to stop from lack of breath.

Everything was very quiet—deathly so, it seemed to him. He stole a

furtive glance around. No Yankees could be seen out of the tail of his

eye on either side. Then he looked squarely around. None was visible

anywhere. He jumped up, began cursing savagely, ran into the road, and

started for home. He had gone but a few steps when he came squarely in

front of the musket of the Orderly-Sergeant of Co. Q, who had placed

himself in concealment to see the end of the play and bring him along.

"Halt, there," commanded the Orderly-Sergeant; "face the other way and

trot. We must catch up with the company."

Si and Shorty felt that they had redeemed themselves, and returned to

camp in such good humor with each other, and everybody else, that they

forgot that their feet were almost as bad as ever.

They went into the house and began cooking their supper together again.

Shorty picked up the coffeecan and said:

"Si Klegg, you're a gentleman all through, if you was born on the

Wabash. A genuine gentleman is knowed by his never bein' no hog under no

circumstances. I watched you when you looked into this coffee-can, and

mad as I was at you, I said you was a thorobred when you left it all to

me."

123

CHAPTER IX. SHORTY GETS A LETTER BECOMES ENTANGLED IN A HIGHLY IMPORTANT

CORRESPONDENCE.

A LIGHT spring wagon, inscribed "United States Sanitary Commission,"

drove through the camp of the 200th Ind., under the charge of a

dignified man with a clerical cast of countenance, who walked alongside,

looking at the soldiers and into the tents, and stopping from time to

time to hand a can of condensed milk to this one, a jar of jam to

another, and bunches of tracts to whomsoever would take them.

Shorty was sitting in front of the house bathing his aching feet. The

man stopped before him, and looked compassionately at his swollen

pedals.

"Your feet are in a very bad way, my man," he said sadly.

"Yes, durn 'em," said Shorty impatiently. "I don't seem to git 'em well

nohow. Must've got 'em pizened when I was runnin' through the briars."

"Probably some ivy or poison-oak, or nightshade among the briars.

Poison-oak is very bad, and nightshade is deadly. I knew a man once that

had to have his hand amputated on account of getting poisoned by

something that scratched him—nightshade, ivy, or poison-oak. I'm afraid

your feet are beginning to mortify."

"Well, you are a Job's comforter," thought Shorty.124

"You'd be nice to send for when a man's sick. You'd scare him to death,

even if there was no danger o' his dyin'."

"My friend," said the man, turning to his wagon, "I've here a nice pair

of home-made socks, which I will give you, and which will come in nicely

if you save your legs. If you don't, give them to some needy man. Here

are also some valuable tracts, full of religious consolation and advice,

which it will do your soul good to peruse and study."

Shorty took the gift thankfully, and turned over the tracts with

curiosity.

"On the Sin of Idolatry," he read the title of the first.

"Now, why'd he give that? What graven image have I bin worshipin'? What

gods of wood and stone have I bin bowin' down before in my blindness?

There've bin times when I thought a good deal more of a Commissary tent

then I did of a church, but I got cured of that as soon as I got a

square meal. I don't see where I have bin guilty of idolatry.

"On the Folly of Self-Pride," he read from the next one. "Humph, there

may be something in that that I oughter read. I am very liable to git

stuck on myself, and think how purty I am, and how graceful, and how

sweetly I talk, and what fine cloze I wear. Especially the cloze. I'll

put that tract in my pocket an' read it after awhile."

"On the Evils of Gluttony," he next read. "Well, that's a timely tract,

for a fact. I'm in the habit o' goin' around stuffin' myself, as this

says, with delicate viands, and drinkin' fine wines—'makin' my belly a

god.' The man what wrote this must've bin125 intimately acquainted with

the sumptuous meals which Uncle Sam sets before his nephews. He must've

knowed all about the delicate, apetizin' flavor of a slab o' fat pork

four inches thick, taken off the side of the hog that's uppermost when

he's laying on his back. And how I gormandize on hardtack baked in the

first place for the Revolutioners, and kept over ever since. That feller

knows jest what he's writin' about. I'd like to exchange photographs

with him."

"Thou Shalt Not Swear." Shorty read a few words, got red in the face,

whistled softly, crumpled the tract up, and threw it away.

"On the Sin of Dancing," Shorty yelled with laughter. "Me dance with

these hoofs! And he thinks likely mortification'll set in, and I'll lose

'em altogether. Well, he oughter be harnessed up with Thompson's colt.

Which'd come out ahead in the race for the fool medal? But these seem to

be nice socks. Fine yarn, well-knit, and by stretching a little I think

I kin get 'em on. I declare, they're beauties. I'll jest make Si sick

with envy when I show 'em to him. I do believe they lay over anything

his mother ever sent him. Hello, what's this?"

He extracted from one of them a note in a small, white envelope, on one

end of which was a blue Zouave, with red face, hands, cap and gaiters,

brandishing a red sword in defense of a Star Spangled Banner which he

held in his left hand.

"Must belong to the Army o' the Potomac," mused Shorty, studying the

picture. "They wear all sorts o' outlandish uniforms there. That red-

headed woodpecker'd be shot before he'd git a mile o' the rebels out

here. All that hollyhock business'd jest be meat126 for their

sharpshooters. And what's he doin' with that 'ere sword? I wouldn't give

that Springfield rifle o' mine for all the swords that were ever

hammered out. When I reach for a feller 600 or even 800 yards away I kin

fetch him every time. He's my meat unless he jumps behind a tree. But as

for swords, I never could see no sense in 'em except for officers to put

on lugs with. I wouldn't pack one a mile for a wagonload of 'em."

He looked at the address on the envelope. Straight lines had been

scratched across with a pin. On these was written, in a cramped, mincing

hand:

"To the brave soljer who Gits these Socks."

"Humph," mused Shorty, "that's probably for me. I've got the socks, and

I'm a soldier. As to whether I'm brave or not's a matter of opinion.

Sometimes I think I am; agin, when there's a dozen rebel guns pinted at

my head, not 10 feet away, I think I'm not. But we'll play that I'm

brave enough to have this intended for me, and I'll open it."

On the sheet of paper inside was another valorous red-and-blue Zouave

defending the flag with drawn sword. On it was written:

"Bad Ax, Wisconsin,

"Janooary the 14th, 1863.

"Braiv Soljer: I doant know who you air, or whair you may bee; I only

know that you air serving your country, and that is enuf to entitle to

the gratitude and afl'ection of every man and woman who has the breath

of patriotism in their bodies.

"I am anxious to do something all the time, very little though it may

be, to help in some way the men127 who air fiting the awful battles for

me, and for every man and woman in the country.

"I send these socks now as my latest contribution. They aint much, but

I've put my best work on them, and I hoap they will be useful and

comfortable to some good, braiv man.

"How good you may be I doant know, but you air sertingly a much better

man than you would be if you was not fiting for the Union. I hoap you

air a regler, consistent Christian. Ide prefer you to be a Methodist

Episcopal, but any church is much better than none.

"He be glad to heer that you have received these things all rite.

"Sincerely your friend and well-wisher,

"Jerusha Ellen Briggs."

Although Shorty was little inclined to any form of reading, and disliked

handwriting about as much as he did work on the fortifications, he read

the letter over several times, until he had every word in it and every

feature of the labored, cramped penmanship thoroughly imprinted on his

mind. Then he held it off at arm's length for some time, and studied it

with growing admiration. It seemed to him the most wonderful epistle

that ever emanated from any human hand. A faint scent of roses came from

it to help the fascination.

"I'll jest bet my head agin a big red apple," he soliloquized, "the

woman that writ that's the purtiest girl in the State o' Wisconsin. I'll

bet there's nothin' in Injianny to hold a candle to her, purty as Si

thinks his Annabel is. And smart—my! Jest look at that letter. That

tells it. Every word spelled correckly,128 and the grammar away up in G.

Annabel's a mighty nice girl, and purty, too, but I've noticed she makes

mistakes in spelling, and her grammar's the Wabash kind—home-made."

He drew down his eyebrows, pursed his lips, and assumed a severely

critical look for a reperusal of the letter and judgment upon it

according to the highest literary standards.

"No, sir," he said, with an air of satisfaction, "not a blamed mistake

in it, from beginnin' to end. Every word spelled jest right, the grammar

straight as the Ten Commandments, every t crossed and i dotted accordin'

to regulashuns and the Constitushun of the United States. She must be a

school-teacher, and yit a school-teacher couldn't knit sich socks as

them. She's a lady, every inch of her. Religious, too. Belongs to the

Methodist Church. Si's father's a Baptist, and so's my folks, but I

always did think a heap o' the Methodists. I think they have a little

nicer girls than the Baptists. I think I'd like to marry a Methodist

wife."

Then he blushed vividly, all to himself, to think how fast his thoughts

had traveled. He returned to the letter, to cover his confusion.

"Bad Ax, Wis. What a queer name for a place. Never heard of it before.

Wonder where in time it is? I'd like awfully to know. There's the 1st

and 21st Wis. in Rousseau's Division, and the 10th Wis. Battery in

Palmer's Division. I might go over there and ask some o' them. Mebbe

some of 'em are right from there. I'll bet it's a mighty nice place."

He turned to the signature with increased interest.

"Jerusha Ellen Briggs. Why, the name itself is129 reg'lar poetry.

Jerusha is awful purty. Your Mollies and Sallies and Emmies can't hold a

candle to it. And Annabel—pshaw! Ellen—why that's my mother's name.

Briggs? I knowed some Briggses once away-up, awfully nice people. Seems

to me they wuz Presbyterians, though, and I always thought that

Presbyterians wuz stuck-up, but they wuzzent stuck-up a mite. I wonder

if Miss Jerusha Ellen Briggs—she must be a Miss—haint some beau? But she

can't have. If he wuzzent in the army she wouldn't have him; and if he

was in the army she'd be sending the socks to him, instead of to whom it

may concern."

This brilliant bit of logic disposed of a sudden fear which had been

clutching at his heart. It tickled him so much that he jumped up,

slapped his breast, and grinned delightedly and triumphantly at the

whole landscape.

"What's pleasin' you so mightily. Shorty?" asked Si, who had just come

up. "Got a new system for beatin' chuck-a-luck, or bin promoted?"

"No, nothin'! Nothin's happened," said Shorty curtly, as he hastily

shoved the letter into his blouse pocket. "Will you watch them beans

bilin' while I go down to the spring and git some water?"

He picked up the camp-kettle and started. He wanted to be utterly alone,

even from Si, with his new-born thought. He did not go directly to the

spring, but took another way to a clump of pawpaw bushes, which would

hide him from the observation of everyone. There he sat down, pulled out

the letter again, and read it over carefully, word by word.

"Wants me to write whether I got the socks," he130 mused. "You jest bet

I will. I've a great mind to ask for a furlough to go up to Wisconsin,

and find out Bad Ax. I wonder how fur it is. I'll go over to the

Suiter's and git some paper and envelopes, and write to her this very

afternoon."

He carried his camp-kettle back to the house, set it down, and making

some excuse, set off for the Sutler's shop.

"Le'me see your best paper and envelopes," he said to the pirate who had

license to fleece the volunteers.

"Awfully common trash," said Shorty, looking over the assortment

disdainfully, for he wanted something superlatively fine for his letter.

"Why don't you git something fit for a gentleman to write to a lady on?

Something with gold edges on the paper and envelopes, and perfumed? I

never write to a lady except on gilt-edged paper, smellin' o' bergamot,

and musk, and citronella, and them things. I don't think it's good

taste."

"Well, think what you please," said the Sutler. "That's all the kind I

have, and that's all the kind you'll git. Take it or leave it."

Shorty finally selected a quire of heavy letter paper and a bunch of

envelopes, both emblazoned with patriotic and warlike designs in

brilliant red and blue.

"Better take enough," he said to himself. "I've been handlin' a pick and

shovel and gun so much that I'm afeared my hand isn't as light as it

used to be, and I'll have to spile several sheets before I git it just

right."

On his way back he decided to go by the camp of131 one of the Wisconsin

regiments and learn what he could of Bad Ax and its people.

"Is there a town in your State called Bad Ax?" he asked of the first man

he met with "Wis." on his cap.

"Cert'," was the answer. "And another one called Milwaukee, one called

Madison, and another called Green Bay. Are you studying primary

geography, or just getting up a postoffice directory?"

"Don't be funny, Skeezics," said Shorty severely. "Know anything about

it? Mighty nice place, ain't it?"

"Know anything about it? I should say so. My folks live in Bad Ax

County. It's the toughest, ornerist little hole in the State. Run by

lead-miners. More whisky-shanties than dwellings. It's tough, I tell

you."

"I believe you're an infernal liar," said Shorty, turning away in wrath.

Not being fit for duty, he could devote all his time to the composition

of the letter. He was so wrought up over it that he could not eat much

dinner, which alarmed Si.

"What's the matter with your appetite. Shorty?" he asked. "Haint bin

eatin' nothin' that disagreed with you, have you?

"Naw," answered Shorty impatiently; "nothin' wuss'n army rations. They

always disagree with me when I'm layin' around doin' nothin'. Why, in

the name of goodness, don't the army move? I've got sick o' the sight o'

every cedar and rocky knob in Middle Tennessee. We ought to go down and

take a look at things around Tullahoma, where Mr. Bragg132 is."

It was Si's turn to clean up after dinner, and, making an excuse of

going over into another camp to see a man who had arrived there, Shorty,

with his paper and envelopes concealed under his blouse, and Si's pen

and wooden ink-stand furtively conveyed to his pocket, picked up the

checkerboard when Si's back was turned, and made his way to the pawpaw

thicket, where he could be unseen and unmolested in the greatest

literary undertaking of his life.

He took a comfortable seat on a rock, spread the paper on the

checkerboard, and then began vigorously chewing the end of the penholder

to stimulate his thoughts.

It had been easy to form the determination to write; the desire to do so

was irresistible, but never before had he been confronted with a task

which seemed so overwhelming. Compared with it, struggling with a mule-

train all day through the mud and rain, working with pick and shovel on

the fortifications, charging an enemy's solid line-of-battle, appeared

light and easy performances. He would have gone at either, on the

instant, at the word of command, or without waiting for it, with entire

confidence in his ability to master the situation. But to write a half-

dozen lines to a strange girl, whom he had already enthroned as a lovely

divinity, had more terrors than all of Bragg's army could induce.

But when Shorty set that somewhat thick head of his upon the doing of a

thing, the thing was tolerably certain to be done in some shape or

another.

"I believe, if I knowed whore Bad Ax was, I'd git a furlough, and walk

clean there, rather than write a line," he said, as he wiped from his

brow the sweat133 forced out by the labor of his mind. "I always did

hate writin'. I'd rather maul rails out of a twisted elm log any day

than fill up a copy book. But it's got to be done, and the sooner I do

it the sooner the agony 'll be over. Here goes."

He began laboriously forming each letter with his lips, and still more

laboriously with his stiff fingers, adding one to another, until he had

traced out:

"Headquarters Co. Q, 200th Injianny Volunteer Infantry, Murfreesboro,

Aprile the 16th eighteen hundred & sixty three."

The sweat stood out in beads upon his forehead after this effort, but it

was as nothing compared to the strain of deciding how he should address

his correspondent. He wanted to use some term of fervent admiration, but

fear deterred him. He debated the question with himself until his head

fairly ached, when he settled upon the inoffensive phrase:

"Respected Lady."

The effort was so exhausting that he had to go down to the spring, take

a deep drink of cold water, and bathe his forehead. But his

determination was unabated, and before the sun went down he had produced

the following:

"i talk mi pen in hand 2 inform U that ive reseeved the SOX U so kindly

cent, & i thank U 1,000 times 4 them. They are boss sox & no mistake.

They are the bossest sox that ever wuz nit. The man is a lire who sez

they aint. He dassent tel Me so. U are a boss nitter. Even Misses

Clinkun can't hold a candle 2 U.

"The sox fit me 2 a t, but that is becaws they are nit so wel, &

stretch."134

"I wish I knowed some more real strong words to praise her knitting,"

said Shorty, reading over the laboriously-written lines. "But after I

have said they're boss what more is there to say? I spose I ought to say

something about her health next. That's polite." And he wrote:

"ime in fair helth, except my feet are" locoed, & i weigh 156 pounds, &

hope U are injoying the saim blessing."

"I expect I ought to praise her socks a little more," said he, and

wrote:

"The SOX are jest boss. They outrank anything in the Army of the

Cumberland."

After this effort he was compelled to take a long rest. Then he communed

with himself:

"When a man's writin' to a lady, and especially an educated lady, he

should always throw in a little poetry. It touches her."

There was another period of intense thought, and then he wrote:

"Dan Elliott is my name, & single is my station, Injianny is mi dwelling

place, & Christ is mi salvation."

"Now," he said triumphantly, "that's neat and effective. It tells her a

whole lot about me, and makes her think I know Shakspere by heart.

Wonder if I can't think o' some more? Hum—hum. Yes, here goes:

"The rose is red, the vilet's blue; ime 4 the Union, so are U."

Shorty was so tickled over this happy conceit that he fairly hugged

himself, and had to read it over135 several times to admire its beauty.

But it left him too exhausted for any further mental labor than to close

up with:

"No moar at present, from yours til death.

"Dan Elliott,

"Co. Q, 200th injianny Volunteer Infantry."

He folded up the missive, put it into an envelope, carefully directed to

Miss Jerusha Ellen Briggs, Bad Ax, Wis., and after depositing it in the

box at the Chaplain's tent, plodded homeward, feeling more tired than

after a day's digging on the fortifications. Yet his fatigue was

illuminated by the shimmering light of a fascinating hope.

CHAPTER X. TRADING WITH THE REBS THE BOYS HAVE SOME FRIENDLY COMMERCE

WITH THE REBEL PICKETS.

THE 200th Ind. Volunteer Infantry had been pushed out to watch the

crossings of Duck River and the movements of the rebels on the south

bank of that narrow stream. The rebels, who had fallen into the

incurable habit of objecting to everything that the "Yankees" did,

seemed to have especial and vindictive repugnance to being watched.

Probably no man, except he be an actor or a politician, likes to be

watched, but few ever showed themselves as spitefully resentful of

observation as the rebels.

Co. Q was advanced to picket the north bank of the river, but the moment

it reached the top of the hill overlooking the stream it had to deploy

as skirmishers, and Enfield bullets began to sing viciously about its

ears.

"Looks as if them fellers think we want to steal their old river and

send it North," said Shorty, as he reloaded his gun after firing at a

puff of smoke that had come out of the sumach bushes along the fence at

the foot of the hill. "They needn't be so grouchy. We don't want their

river—only to use it awhile. They kin have it back agin after we're

through with it."

"Blamed if that feller didn't make a good line137 shot," said Si,

glancing up just above his head to where a twig had been clipped off the

persimmon tree behind which he was standing. "He put up his sights a

little too fur, or he'd 'a' got me."

Si took careful aim at where he supposed the lurking marksman to be and

fired.

There was a waving of the tops of the bushes, as if the men concealed

there had rushed out.

"Guess we both landed mighty close," said Shorty triumphantly. "They

seem to have lost interest in this piece o' sidehill, anyway."

He and Si made a rush down the hill, and gained the covert of the fence

just in time to see the rails splintered by a bunch of shots striking

them.

"Lay down, Yanks!" called out Shorty cheerily, dropping into the weeds.

"Grab a root!"

To the right of them they could see the rest of Co. Q going through

similar performances.

Si and Shorty pushed the weeds aside, crawled cautiously to the fence,

and looked through. There was a road on the other side of the fence, and

beyond it a grove of large beech trees extending to the bank of the

river. Half concealed by the trunk of one of these stood a tall, rather

good-looking young man, with his gun raised and intently peering into

the bushes. He had seen the tops stir, and knew that his enemies had

gained their cover. He seemed expecting that they would climb the fence

and jump down into the road. At a little distance to his right could be

seen other men on the sharp lookout.

Shorty put his hand on Si to caution and repress138 him.

With his eyes fixed on the rebel, Shorty drew his gun toward him. The

hammer caught on a trailing vine, and, forgetting himself, he gave it an

impatient jerk. It went off, the bullet whistling past Shorty's head and

the powder burning his face.

The rebel instantly fired in return, and cut the leaves about four feet

above Shorty.

"Purty good shot that, Johnny," called out Shorty as he reloaded his

gun; "but too low. It went between my legs. You hain't no idee how tall

I am."

"If I couldn't shoot no better'n you kin on a sneak," answered the

rebel, his rammer ringing in his gun-barrel, "I wouldn't handle

firearms. Your bullet went a mile over my head. Must've bin shootin' at

an angel. But you Yanks can't shoot nary bit—you're too skeered."

"I made you hump out o' the bushes a few minutes ago," replied Shorty,

putting on a cap. "Who was skeered then? You struck for tall timber like

a cotton-tailed rabbit."

"I'll rabbit ye, ye nigger-lovin' whelp," shouted the rebel. "Take

that," and he fired as close as he could to the sound of Shorty's voice.

Shorty had tried to anticipate his motion and fired first, but the limbs

bothered his aim, and his bullet went a foot to the right of the rebel's

head. It was close enough, however, to make the rebel cover himself

carefully with the tree.

"That was a much better shot, Yank," he called out. "But ye orter do a

powerful sight better'n that on a sneak. Ye'd never kill no deer, nor

rebels nuthor, with that kind o' shootin'. You Yanks are139 great on the

sneak, but that's all the good it does, yet ye can't shoot fer a handful

o' huckleberries."

"Sneaks! Can't shoot!" roared Shorty. "I kin outshoot you or any other

man in Jeff Davis's kingdom. I dare you to come out from behind your

tree, and take a shot with me in the open, accordin' to Hardee's

tactics. Your gun's empty; so's mine. My chum here'll see fair play; and

you kin bring your chum with you. Come out, you skulkin' brindle pup,

and shoot man fashion, if you dare."140

"Ye can't dare me, ye nigger-stealin' blue-belly," shouted the rebel in

return, coming out from behind his tree. Shorty climbed over the fence

and stood at the edge of the road, with his gun at order arms. Si came

out on Shorty's left, and a rebel appeared to the right of the first.

For a minute all stood in expectancy. Then Shorty spoke:

"I want nuthin' but what's fair. Your gun's empty; so's mine. You

probably know Hardee's tactics as well as I do."

"I'm up in Hardee," said the rebel with a firm voice.

"Well, then," continued Shorty, "let my chum here call off the orders

for loadin' and firin', and we'll both go through 'em, and shoot at the

word."

"Go ahead—I'm agreed," said the rebel briefly.

Shorty nodded to Si.

"Carry arms," commanded Si.

Both brought their guns up to their right sides.

"Present arms."

Both courteously saluted.

"Load in nine times—Load," ordered Si.

Both guns came down at the same instant, each man grasped his muzzle

with his left hand, and reached for his cartridge-box, awaiting the next

order.

"Handle cartridges."

"Tear cartridges."

"Charge cartridges," repeated Si slowly and distinctly. The rebel's

second nodded approval of his knowledge of the drill, and sang out:

"Good soldiers, all of yo'uns."

"Draw rammer," continued Si,141

"Turn rammer."

"Ram cartridge."

Shorty punctiliously executed the three blows on the cartridge exacted

by the regulations, and paused a breath for the next word. The rebel had

sent his cartridge home with one strong thrust, but he saw his

opponent's act and waited.

"Return rammer," commanded Si. He was getting a little nervous, but

Shorty deliberately withdrew his rammer, turned it, placed one end in

the thimbles, deliberately covered the head with his little finger,

exactly as the tactics prescribed, and sent it home with a single

movement. The rebel had a little trouble in returning rammer, and Shorty

and Si waited.

"Cast about,"

"Prime!"

Both men capped at the same instant.

"Ready!"

Shorty cocked his piece and glanced at the rebel, whose gun was at his

side.

"Aim!"

Both guns came up like a flash.

The Duel. 139

Si's heart began thumping at a terrible rate. He was far more alarmed

about Shorty than he had ever been about himself. Up to this moment he

had hoped that Shorty's coolness and deliberation would "rattle" the

rebel and make him fire wildly. But the latter, as Si expressed it

afterward, "seemed to be made of mighty good stuff," and it looked as if

both would be shot down.

"Fire!" shouted Si, with a perceptible tremor in his voice.142

Both guns flashed at the same instant. Si saw Shorty's hat fly off, and

him stagger and fall, while the rebel dropped his gun, and clapped his

hand to his side. Si ran toward Shorty, who instantly sprang up again,

rubbing his head, from which came a faint trickle of blood.

"He aimed at my head, and jest scraped my scalp," he said. "Where'd I

hit him? I aimed at his heart, and had a good bead."

"You seem to have struck him in the side," answered Si, looking at the

rebel. "But not badly, for he's still standin' up. Mebbe you broke a rib

though."

"Couldn't, if he's still up. I must file my trigger Gun pulls too hard.

I had a dead aim on his heart, but I seem to've pulled too much to the

right."

"Say, I'll take a turn with you," said Si, picking up his gun and

motioning with his left hand at the other rebel.

"All right," answered the other promptly. "My gun ain't loaded, though."

"I'll wait for you," said Si, looking at the cap on his gun. A loud

cheer was heard from far to the right, and Co. Q was seen coming forward

on a rush, with the rebels in front running back to the river bank.

Several were seen to be overtaken and forced to surrender.

The two rebels in front of the boys gave a startled look at their

comrades, then at the boys, and turned to run. Si raised his gun to

order them to halt.

"No," said Shorty. "Let 'em go. It was a fair bargain, and I'll stick to

it. Skip out Johnnies, for every cent you're worth."143

The rebels did not wait for the conclusion of the sentence, but followed

their comrades with alacrity.

The boys ran forward through the woods to the edge of the bank, and saw

their opponents climbing up the opposite bank and getting behind the

sheltering trees. Si waited till his particular one got good shelter

behind a large sycamore, and then sent a bullet that cut closely above

his head.

This was the signal for a general and spiteful fusillade from both sides

of the river and all along the line. The rebels banged away as if in

red-hot wrath at being run across the stream, and Co. Q retorted with

such earnestness that another company was sent forward to its

assistance, but returned when the Irish Lieutenant, who had gone forward

to investigate, reported:

"Faith, its loike the divil shearing a hog—all cry and no wool at all."

So it was. Both sides found complete shelter behind the giant trunks of

the trees, and each fired at insignificant portions of the anatomy

allowed to momentarily protrude beyond the impenetrable boles.

After this had gone on for about half an hour those across the river

from Si and Shorty called out:

"Say, Yanks, ye can't shoot down a beech tree with a Springfield musket,

nohow ye kin do it. If we'uns hain't killin' more o' yo'uns than yo'uns

is a-killin' o' we'uns, we'uns air both wastin' a powerful lot o' powder

an' lead and good shootin'. What d' yo'uns say to King's excuse for

awhile?"

"We're agreed," said Si promptly, stepping from144 behind the tree, and

leaving his gun standing against it.

"Hit's a go," responded the rebels, coming out disarmed. "We'uns won't

shoot no more till ordered, an' then'll give yo'uns warnin' fust."

The Overture for Trade. 144

"All right; we'll give you warning before we shoot," coincided Si.

"Say, have yo'uns got any Yankee coffee that145 you'll trade for a good

plug o' terbacker?" inquired the man whom Si had regarded as his

particular antagonist.

"Yes," answered Si. "We've got a little. We'll give you a cupful for a

long plug with none cut off."

"What kind of a cupful?" asked the bartering "Johnny."

"A big, honest cupful. One o' this kind," said Si, showing his.

"All right. Hit's to be strike measure," said the rebel. "Here's the

plug," and he held up a long plug of "natural leaf."

"O. K.," responded Si. "Meet me half way."

The truce had quickly extended, and the firing suspended all along the

line of Co. Q. The men came out from behind their trees, and sat down on

the banks in open view of one another.

Si filled his cup "heaping-full" with coffee, climbed down the bank and

waded out into the middle of the water. The rebel met him there, while

his companion and Shorty stood on the banks above and watched the trade.

"Y're givin' me honest measure, Yank," said the rebel, looking at the

cup. "Now, if ye hain't filled the bottom o' yer cup with coffee that's

bin biled before, I'll say y're all right. Some o' yo'uns air so dod-

gasted smart that y' poke off on we'uns coffee that's bin already biled,

and swindle we'uns."

"Turn it out and see," said Si.

The rebel emptied the cup into a little bag, carefully scrutinizing the

stream as it ran in. It was all fine, fragrant, roasted and ground

coffee.146

"Lord, thar's enough t' last me a month with keer," said the rebel,

gazing unctuously at the rich brown grains. "I won't use more'n a

spoonful a day, an' bile hit over twice. Yank, here's yer terbacker.

I've made a good trade. Here's a Chatanooga paper I'll throw in to boot.

Got a Northern paper about ye anywhar?"

Si produced a somewhat frayed Cincinnati Gazette.

"I can't read myself," said the rebel, as he tucked the paper away.

"Never l'arned to. Pap wuz agin hit. Said hit made men lazy. He got

erlong without readin', and raised the biggest fambly on Possum Crick.

But thar's a feller in my mess kin read everything but the big words,

and I like t' git a paper for him to read to the rest o' we'uns."

"Was your pardner badly hurt by mine's shot?" asked Si.

"No. The bullet jest scraped the bone. He'll be likely to have a stitch

in his side for awhile, but he's a very peart man, and won't mind that.

I'm s'prised he didn't lay your pardner out. He's the best shot in our

company."

"Well, he was buckin' agin a mighty good shot, and I'm surprised your

pardner's alive. I wouldn't 've given three cents for him when Shorty

drawed down on him; but Shorty's bin off duty for awhile, and his gun's

not in the best order. Howsumever, I'm awful glad that it come out as it

did. His life's worth a dozen rebels."

"The blazes you say. I'd have you know, Yank, that one Confederit is

wuth a whole rijimint o' Lincoln hirelings. I'll—"147

"O, come off—come off—that's more o' your old five-to-one gas," said Si

irritatingly. "I thought we'd walloped that dumbed nonsense out o' your

heads long ago. We've showed right along that, man for man, we're a

sight better'n you. We've always licked you when we've had anything like

a fair show. At Stone River you had easy two men to our one, and yit we

got away with you."

"'Tain't so. It's a lie. If hit wuzzent for the148 Dutch and Irish you

hire, you couldn't fight we'uns at all."

"Look here, reb," said Si, getting hot around the ears, "I'm neither a

Dutchman nor an Irishman; we hain't a half dozen in our company. I'm a

better man than you've got in your regiment. Either me or Shorty kin

lick any man you put up; Co. Q kin lick your company single-handed and

easy; the 200th Injianny kin lick any regiment in the rebel army. To

prove it, I kin lick you right here."

Si Wants a Fight 147

Si thrust the plug of tobacco into his blouse pocket and began rolling

up his sleeves.

The rebel did not seem at all averse to the trial and squared off at

him. Then Shorty saw the belligerent attitude and yelled:

"Come, Si. Don't fight there. That's no place. If you're goin' to fight,

come up on level ground, where it kin be fair and square. Come up here,

or we'll go over there."

"O, come off," shouted the rebel on the other side. "Don't be a fool,

Bill. Fist-foutin' don't settle nothin'. Come back here and git your gun

if ye want to fout. But don't le's fout no more to-day. Thar's plenty of

it for ter-morrer. Le's keep quiet and peaceful now. I want powerfully

to take a swim. Air you fellers agreed?"

"Yes; yes," shouted Shorty. "You fellers keep to your side o' the river,

and we will to ours."

The agreement was carried into instantaneous effect, and soon both sides

of the stream were filled with laughing, romping, splashing men.

There was something very exhilarating in the cool, clear, mountain water

of the stream. The boys149 got to wrestling, and Si came off victorious

in two or three bouts with his comrades.

"Cock-a-doodle-doo," he shouted, imitating the crow of a rooster. "I kin

duck any man in the 200th Injianny."

The challenge reached the ears of the rebel with whom Si had traded. He

was not satisfied with the result of his conference.

"You kin crow over your fellers, Yank," he shouted; "but you dassent

come to the middle an' try me two falls outen three."

Si immediately made toward him. They surveyed each other warily for a

minute to get the advantages of the first clinch, when a yell came from

the rebel side:

"Scatter, Confeds! Hunt yer holes, Yanks! The Cunnel's a-comin'."

Both sides ran up their respective banks, snatched up their guns, took

their places behind their trees, and opened a noisy but harmless fire.

150

CHAPTER XI. SHORTY'S CORRESPONDENT 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 make151 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 socks152 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

the153 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 hands154 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's155 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 made156 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 using157 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.

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 the159 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 as160

carefully as if it had been a rare flower, and with palpitating heart

slowly spelled out the words, one after another:

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 joying161 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 your162 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.

CHAPTER XII. THE BAN ON WET GOODS 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 has166 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 he167 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. He168 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. They169 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 jag170 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 lot172 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,

bony174 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 rest175 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 of176 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 law177 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

CHAPTER XIII. THE JEW SPY WRITES SHORTY HAS AN ADVENTURE WITH A LONE,

LORN WIDDER LADY."

"I WONDER what has become of our Jew spy, Shorty?" said Si, as he and

Shorty sat on the bank of Duck River and watched the rebel pickets

lounging under the beeches on the other side. "We hain't heard nothin'

of him for more'n a month now."

"He's probably hung," answered Shorty. "He was entirely too smart to

live long. A man can't go on always pokin' his finger into a

rattlesnake's jaw without gittin' it nipped sooner or later."

"I'm looking fur a man called Si Klegg," they heard behind them. Looking

around they saw the tall, gaunt woman whom they had turned back from

entering the camp a few days before, under the belief that she was

trying to smuggle in whisky.

"What in the world can she want o' me?" thought Si; but he answered:

"That's my name. What'll you have?"

A flash of recognition filled at once her faded blue eyes. Without

taking her pipe from between her yellow, snaggly teeth she delivered a

volley of tobacco-juice at an unoffending morning-glory, and snapped

out:

"O, y'r him, air ye? Y'r the dratted measly180 sapsucker that bounced me

'bout takin' likker inter camp. What bizniss wuz hit o' your'n whether I

tuk likker in or not? Jest wanted t' be smart, didn't ye? Jest wanted t'

interfere with a lone, lorn widder lady makin' a honest livin' for

herself and 10 children. My ole man ketched the black ager layin' out in

the brush to dodge the conscripters. It went plumb to his heart an'

killed him. He wa'n't no great loss, nohow, fur he'd eat more in a week

than he'd kill, ketch, or raise in a year. When his light went out I'd

only one less mouth to feed, and got rid o' his jawin' an' cussin' all

the time. But that hain't nothin' t' do with you. You 's jest puttin' on

a lettle authority kase ye could. But all men air alike that-a-way.

Elect a man Constable, an' he wants t' put on more airs than the Guv-

nor; marry him, an' he makes ye his slave."

"I should think it'd be a bold man that'd try to make you his slave.

Madam," Si ventured.

"Y' she'd think," she retorted, with her arms akimbo. "Who axed y' t'

think, young feller? What d' y' do hit with. Why d' y' strain y'rself

doin' somethin' y' ain't used t'?"

It did Shorty so much good to see Si squelched, that he chuckled aloud

and called out:

"Give it to him, old Snuff-Dipper. He's from the Wabash, an' hain't no

friends. He's bin itchin' a long time for jest such a skinnin' as you're

givin' him."

"Who air y' callin' Snuff-Dipper?" she retorted, turning angrily on

Shorty. "What've ye got t' say agin snuff-dippin', anyway, y' terbacker-

chawin', likker-guzzlin', wall-oyed, splay-footed, knock-kneed181 oaf?

What air y' greasy hirelings a-comin' down heah fo', t' sass and slander

Southern ladies, who air yo' superiors?"

"Give it to him, old Corncob Pipe," yelled Si "He needs lambastin'

worse'n any man in the regiment. But what did you want to see me for?"

"I wanted to see yo' bekase I got a letter to yo' from a friend o' mine,

who said yo' wuz gentlemen, an' rayly not Yankees at all. He said that

yo' wuz forced into the army agin yo' will."

"Gracious, what a liar that man must be," murmured Shorty to himself.

"An' yo' rayly had no heart to fight for the nigger, an' that yo'd treat

me like a sister."

"A sister," Shorty exploded internally. "Think of a feller's havin' a

sister like that. Why, I wouldn't throw her in a soap-grease barrel."

"Who was this friend. Madam?" said Si, "and where is his letter?"

"I don't know whether to give it to yo' or not," said she. "Y're not the

men at all that he ascribed to me. He said yo' wuz very good-lookin',

perlite gentlemen, who couldn't do too much for a lady."

"Sorry we're not as handsome as you expected," said Si; "but mebbe

that's because we're in fatigue uniforms. You ought to see my partner

there when he's fixed up for parade. He's purtier'n a red wagon then.

Let me see the letter. I can tell then whether we're the men or not."

"Kin yo' read?" she asked suspiciously.

"O, yes," answered Si laughingly at the thought almost universal in the

South that reading and writing were—like the Gift of Tongues—a

special182 dispensation to a few favored individuals only. "I can read

and do lots o' things that common people can't. I'm seventh son of a

seventh son, born with a caul on my head at the time o' the full moon.

Let me see the letter."

She was not more than half convinced, but unhooked her dress and took a

note from her bosom, which she stuck out toward Si, holding tightly on

to one end in the meanwhile. Si read, in Levi Rosenbaum's flourishing,

ornate handwriting:

"Corporal Josiah Klegg, Co. Q, 200th Indiana Volunteers, in Camp on Duck

River."

"That means me," said Si, taking hold of the end of the envelope. "There

ain't but one 200th Injianny Volunteers; there's no other Co. Q, and I'm

the only Josiah Klegg."

The woman still held on to the other end of the letter.

"It comes," continued Si, "from a man a little under medium size, with

black hair and eyes, dresses well, talks fast, and speaks a Dutch

brogue."

"That's him," said the woman, relinquishing the letter, and taking a

seat under the shade of a young cucumber tree, where she proceeded to

fill her pipe, while awaiting the reading of the missive.

Si stepped off a little ways, and Shorty looked over his shoulder as he

opened the letter and read:

"Dear Boys: This will be handed you, if it reaches you at all, by Mrs.

Bolster, who has more about her than you think."183

"I don't know about that," muttered Shorty; "the last time I had the

pleasure o' meetin' the lady she had 'steen dozen bottles o' head-bust

about her."

"She's a Confederate, as far as she goes."

Si continued reading,

"which is not very far. She don't go but a little ways. A jay-bird that

did not have any more brains would not build much of a nest. But she is

very useful to me, and I want you to get in with her. As soon as you

read this I want Si to give her that pair of horn combs I gave him. Do

it at once. Sincerely your friend,

"Levi Rosenbaum."