He went to the hiding place and pulled out the fowls one after another.

"They are all here," he said; "but how in the world am I goin' to keep

'em through another night?"

"You ain't a-goin' to keep 'em through another night, are you?" asked

Shorty anxiously, as he gloated over the sight. "Le's eat 'em to-day."

"And starve to-morrer?" said the thrifty Deacon rebukingly. "I don't

know where any more is comin' from. It was hard enough work gittin'

these. I had calculated on cookin' one a day for you and Si. That'd make

'em provide for four more days. After that only the Lord knows what

we'll do."

"Inasmuch as we'll have to trust to the Lord at last, anyway," said

Shorty, with a return of his old spirit, "why not go the whole gamut? A

day or two more or less won't make no difference to Him. I feel as if I

could eat 'em all myself without Si's help."

"I tell you what I'll do," said the Deacon, after a little

consideration. "I feel as if both Si and you kin stand a little more'n

you had yesterday. I'll cook two to-day. We'll send a big cupful over to

Capt. McGillicuddy. That'll leave us two for to-morrer. After that we'll

have to trust to Providence."

"If ever there was a time when He could use His ravens to advantage,"

said the irreverent Shorty, "it's about now. They carried bread and meat

to that old prophet. There's a lot o' mighty good men down here in this

valley now in terrible want of grub, and nothin' but birds kin git over

the roads to the rear very well."

"Don't speak lightly o' the Lord and His ways, Shorty," said the Deacon

severely.

"'Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust Him for His grace.

Behind a frowning Providence He hides a smilin' face,'

as the hymn says. Here, take these chickens in one hand and this pistol

in the other, and guard 'em while I go down to the branch and wash and

git some water. Then I'll cook your breakfast."

Again the savory smell of the boiling chickens attracted sick boys, who

begged for a little of the precious food. Having double the quantity,

the Deacon was a little more liberal, but he had to restrain Shorty,

who, despite his own great and gnawing hunger, would have given away the

bigger part of the broth to those who so desperately needed it.

"No, Shorty," said the prudent Deacon. "Our first duty is to ourselves.

We kin help them by gittin' you and Si on your feet. We can't feed the

whole Army o' the Cumberland, though I'd like to."

A generous cupful was set aside for Capt. McGillicuddy, which his

servant received with gratitude and glowing reports of the good the

former supply had done him.

With the daylight came the usual shells from the rebel guns on Lookout

Mountain. Even the Deacon was getting used to this noisy salutation to

the morn, and he watched the shells strike harmlessly in the distance

with little tremor of his nerves. As the firing ceased, amid the

derisive yells of the army, he said quietly:

Git Down from There! Commanded the Deacon 21

"That last shell's saved me a good deal o' work diggin'. It, tore out a

hole that'll just do to bury the carcasses of these dogs."

Accordingly, he dragged the carcasses over after breakfast, and threw

the dirt back in the hole upon them.

The two remaining chickens were stowed in a haversack, and during the

day hung outside from the ridge-pole of the crib, where they were

constantly under the eye of either the Deacon or Shorty, who took turns

watching them. That night the Deacon slept with them under his head,

though they were beginning to turn a little, and their increasing

gameness brought a still larger herd of dogs about. But the Deacon had

securely fastened the door, and he let them rage around as they pleased.

When they were cooked and eaten the next morning the Deacon became

oppressed with anxious thought. Where were the next to come from? The

boys had improved so remarkably that he was doubly anxious to continue

the nourishing diet, which he felt was necessary to secure their speedy

recovery. Without it they would probably relapse.

He could think of nothing but to go back again to the valley where he

got the chickens, and this seemed a most desperate chance, for the

moment that either of the old couple set eyes on him he or she would

give the alarm. He went to sleep thinking about the matter, and when he

rose up in the morning, and had nothing to offer his boys but the coarse

and uninviting hardtack, pork and coffee, he made up his mind to take

the chances, whatever they might be. He set out again immediately after

breakfast, and by cutting across the mountain came to the entrance to

the valley a little after noon. Keeping close under cover of the woods,

he approached within sight of the house, and carefully scanned it. What

to do he had scarcely planned. He was only determined to have some fresh

meat to take back to camp. He was going to get it as honestly and fairly

as he could, but fresh meat he must have.

He could see no other house anywhere in the distance, and probably if he

went farther he would run into rebel bushwhackers and guerrillas, who

were watching from the high ridges. So long as he kept under cover of

the woods he would feel all right, for he was as skilled in woodcraft as

any of them, and could take care of himself. But if he should come out

into the open fields and road to cross the valley they would have him at

an advantage. He was confirmed in this fear by seeing several little

clouds of smoke rise up above the tops of the trees on the ridge.

"There's a gang of rebels in camp over there," said he to himself, with

a woodman's quick reading of every sign. "That smoke's from their fires.

'Tain't enough of it to be clearin' ground; people ain't clearin' up at

this time o' year; that ground over there ain't the kind they'd clear up

for anything. 'Twouldn't raise white beans if it was cleared; and you

don't hear nobody choppin'."

He looked again at the house. Everything was very quiet and peaceful

around it. There was no stock in the barnyard or fields, and the only

signs of life were the smoke rising from one of the great stone

chimneys, the chickens picking and scratching in the garden, a couple of

negresses, who occasionlly passed back and forth between the main house

and another cabin apparently used as a kitchen.

The Deacon had almost made up his mind to march boldly down to the

house, snatch up a few of the chickens, and make his way back to the

woods again, before the old couple could summon assistance. Suddenly his

quick eyes caught a glimpse of something at a point where the road from

the ridge came down out of the woods. Then that something developed into

a man on horseback, who rode forward to a little rise, stopped, and

surveyed the landscape cautiously, and then rode forward toward the

house.

He dismounted and entered the house. In a few minutes there appeared

unusual bustle and activity, during which the man rode back again,

munching as he went at a piece of cornpone and one of meat, which he had

gotten at the house, and held in either hand, while his reins lay on his

horse's neck.

The old woman came out into the yard with some meat in her hand, and the

shrill note of her orders to the negresses reached the Deacon's ears,

though he could not make out the words. But he saw one of them go to the

spring and bring water, which she poured in a wash-kettle set up in the

yard, while the old woman prepared the beef and put it in, the other

negress started a fire, and the old man chopped and split wood to put

around the kettle and fill the stone oven near by.

"They're cookin' vittels for them rebels on the ridge." The Deacon

correctly diagnosed the situation. "By-and-by they'll come for 'em, or

take 'em to 'em. Mebbe I kin find some way to collar some of 'em. It's a

slim chance, but no other seems to show up just now. If no more'n one

man comes for that grub I'm goin' to jump him."

The Deacon looked at the caps on his revolver and began laying plans for

a strategic advance under the cover of the sumachs to a point where he

could command the road to the house.

His cheek paled for an instant as the thought obtruded that the man

might resist and he have to really shoot him.

"I don't want to shoot nobody," he communed with himself, "and it won't

'be necessary if the other fellow is only sensible and sees, that I've

got the drop on him, which I will have before I say a word. Anyway, I

want that grub for a work of necessity and mercy, which justifies many

things, and as a loyal man I ought to keep it from goin' to rebels. If

I've got to put a bullet into another feller, why, the Lord'll hold me

guiltless and blame the other feller. I ain't no Free Will Baptist. I

believe things 've bin foreordained. Wisht I knowed that it was

foreordained that I was to git that grub back to Si and Shorty."

Presently he saw the old man come out and take a path into the woods. He

cautiously circled around to where he could follow and watch him. He saw

him make his way to a secluded little cove, where there was a corn-crib

partially filled and a rude shelter, under which were a buckboard and

fairly-good young horse. The old man began putting the clumsy harness of

ropes, chains and patched leather on the horse and hitching him to the

buckboard.

"Good, the old man's goin' to take the grub out to 'em himself," thought

the Deacon with relief. "He'll be easy to manage. No need o' shootin'

him."

He hurried back to his covert, and then shpped unseen down to where he

had selected for his ambush. The old man drove the buckboard around to

the front of the house, and the negresses, obeying the shrill orders of

the old woman, brought out pones of smoking cornbread, and buckets, tin

pans and crocks containing the meat, potatoes, turnips and other food,

and loaded them on to the buckboard. The fragrance of the food reached

the Deacon's nostrils, and made his mouth water and fond anticipations

rise as to the good it would do the boys.

"I'll have that grub, and the boys shall have it," he determined, "or

there'll be an Injianny Deacon pretty badly used up."

The old man mounted into the seat, gathered up the rope lines, and

chirruped to the horse to start.

When he came opposite, the Deacon jumped out, seized the reins, and

pointing his revolver at him, commanded sternly:

"Git down from there, and git down quick."

The old man dropped the lines, and for an instant gazed at him with

scared eyes.

"Why, yo' robber, what d'yo' mean?" he gasped.

"Git down from there, and git down quick!" repeated the Deacon.

"Why, this is highway robbery, threats, puttin' in bodily fear,

attempted murder, hoss-stealin'."

"Hain't no time to argy law with you," said the Deacon impatiently.

"This ain't no court-room. You ain't in session now. Git down, and git

down quick!"

"Help! help! murder! robbery! thieves!" shouted the old man, at the top

of his voice.

The negresses, who had been watching their master depart, set to

screaming, and the old woman rushed back into the house and blew the

horn. The Deacon thrust his revolver back into the holster, caught the

old man with his sinewy hand, tore him from the seat, and flung him into

the fence-corner. He sprang into the seat, turned the horse's head

toward Chattanooga, and hit him a sharp cut with a switch that lay in

the wagon.

"I've got about three miles the start," he said as he rattled off. "This

horse's young and fresh, while their's probably run down. The road from

here to the main road's tollably good, and I think I kin git there

before they kin overtake me."

At the top of the hill he looked back, and saw the rebels coming out.

Apparently they had not understood what had happened. They had seen no

Yankees and could not have seen the Deacon's tussle with the old man.

They supposed that the holler simply meant for them to come in and get

their dinner, instead of having it taken out to them. All this passed

through the Deacon's mind, and he chuckled over the additional start it

would give him.

"They won't find out nothin' till they git clean to the house," he said.

"By that time I'll be mighty nigh the main road. My, but wouldn't I like

to have as many dollars as they'll be mad when they find the Yankee

trick that's bin played on 'em, with their dinner hauled off into the

Union camp."

He rattled ahead sharply for some time, looking back at each top of a

hill for his pursuers. They did not come in sight, but the main road to

Chattanooga did, and then a new trouble suggested itself.

"I won't never dare haul this load uncovered through camp," he said to

himself. "The first gang o' roustabout teamsters that I meet'll take

every spoonful of the vittles, and I'd be lucky if I have the horse and

wagon left. I must hide it some way. How? That's a puzzler."

At length a happy idea occurred to him. He stopped by a cedar thicket,

and with his jack-knife cut a big load of cedar boughs, which he piled

on until every bit of food was thoroughly concealed. This took much

time, and as he was finishing he heard a yell on the hill behind, and

saw a squad of rebels riding down toward him. He sprang to the seat,

whipped up his horse, and as he reached the main road was rejoiced to

see a squad of Union cavalry approaching.

"Here, old man," said the Lieutenant in command; "who are you, and what

are you doing here?"

"I'm a nurse in the hospital," answered the Deacon unhesitatingly. "I

was sent out here to get some cedar boughs to make beds in the hospital.

Say, there's some rebels out there, comin' down the hill. They saw me

and tuk after me. You'll find 'em right over the hill."

"That's a pretty slick horse you're driving," said the Lieutenant.

"Looks entirely too slick to belong to Chattanooga. It's a much better

horse than mine. I've a notion—"

"Say, them rebels are just over the hill, I tell you," said the Deacon

in a fever of apprehension of losing his steed. "They'll be on top of

you in a minute if you don't look out."

"Right over the hill, did you say?" said the Lieutenant, forgetting for

the moment the horse. "Attention, there, boys. Look out for the rebels.

Advance carbines—Forward—trot! I'll come back directly and take another

look at that horse."

The squad trotted up the hill in the direction the Deacon had pointed,

and as he drove off as fast as he could he heard the spatter of

exchanging shots.

Late in the evening, as he drove off the pontoon into Chattanooga and

turned to the right toward his corn-crib he muttered over to himself:

"They say that when a man starts down the path of sin and crime the road

seems greased for his swift progress. The other day I begun with petty

larceny and chicken stealin'. To-day it's bin highway robbery,

premeditated murder, horse stealin', grand larceny, and tellin' a

deliberate lie. What'll I be doin' this time next week? I must git that

old man's horse and buckboard back to him somehow, and pay him for his

vittles. But how'm I goin' to do it? The army's terribly demoralizin'. I

must git Si back home soon, or I won't be fit to associate with anybody

outside the penitentiary. How kin I ever go to the communion table

agin?"

CHAPTER II. THE DEACON ATTEMPTED RESTITUTION TRIED TO RETURN THE HORSE

TO HIS OWNER.

SI AND SHORTY were on the anxious lookout for the Deacon when he

arrived, and not a little worried lest something might have befallen

him.

Si's weakness made him peevish and fretful, and Shorty was not a great

deal better.

"It's an awful risk to have an old man and a civilian come down here

into camp," Si complained. "And he oughtn't to go about alone. He's

always been used to mingling with the quiet, honest, respectable people.

Up home the people are as honest as the day is long. They're religious

and peaceable, and Pap's never knowed no other kind. He wouldn't harm

nobody for the world, and none o' them'd harm him. He's only a child

among these toughs down here. I wisht one of us was able to be with him

all the time."

"That father o' yours is certainly quite an innocent old party," Shorty

answered, consolingly, "and the things he don't know about army life'd

make more'n a pamphlet. But he has a way of wakin' up to the situation

that is sometimes very surprisin'. I wisht I was able to go about with

him, but I think he's fully able to take care o' himself around in camp.

There's always somebody about who won't see an old man and a citizen

imposed on. But what I'm afraid of is that he's wandered out in the

country, huntin' for somethin' for us to eat, and the guerrillas've got

him."

And he and Si shuddered at the thought of that good old man in the hands

of the merciless scoundrels who infested the mountains and woods beyond

the camps.

"Yes," mourned Si, "Pap's likely to mosey out into the country, jest

like he would on Bean Blossom Crick, and stop at the first house he come

to, and set down with 'em on the porch, and talk about the weather, and

the crops, and the measles in the neighborhood, and the revivals, and

the price o' pork and corn, and whether they'd better hold their wheat

till Spring, and who was comin' up for office, and all the time the

bushwhackers'd be sneakin' up on him, an' him know no more 'bout it than

where the blackbirds was roostin'. He's jest that innocent and

unsuspiciouslike."

"If they've ketched him," said Shorty fiercely, "we'll find out about

it, and when we git able, we'll go out there and kill and burn

everything for five miles around. I'll do it, if I have to spend the

rest o' my life at hard labor on the Dry Tortugas."

They heard the rattle of light wheels on the frozen ground outside, and

the hoof-beats of a quickly-moving horse.

"Buggy or spring-wagon," muttered Si with a farmer boy's instinctive

interpretation of such sounds. "What's it doin' in camp? Strange horse.

In better condition than any around here."

The vehicle stopped in front of the corn-crib at the Deacon's command,

"Whoa!"

"Gracious—there's Pap now," ejaculated Si, with whom memory went in a

bound to the many times he had listened for his father's coming and

heard that order.

"Hello, boys," called out the Deacon. "How are you? Shorty, come out

here."

Shorty sprang up with something of his old-time alacrity, and Si made an

effort to rise, but was too weak.

"Throw a piece o' that fat pine on the fire. Shorty," said the Deacon,

"and let's see what I've got."

By the light of the blazing pine, the Deacon pulled off the cedar boughs

and developed his store. The boughs had kept in the heat, so that the

food was not yet quite cold, though it had a resinous flavor, from its

covering. The Deacon broke one of the cornpones in two and gave half of

it to Shorty, with as much as he thought he should have of the meat and

vegetables. Then he fed Si, who relished the new diet almost as much as

he had relished the chicken broth. The Deacon made a hearty supper

himself, and then stored away the rest in his "cellar" under the crib,

rolling up some more large stones as an additional precaution.

"Well, you beat me," said Shorty admiringly, as he studied over the

Deacon's booty. "I used to think I was as slick a forager as there was

in the army, but I simply ain't in the same class with a man that kin go

out in this Sahara Desert o' starvation and bring in a four-year-old

horse and a wagon-load o' cooked vittles. I'd never even see the

distance pole runnin' with him. Gen. Rosecrans ought to know you. He'd

appoint you Commissary-General o' the army at once. When I get a little

stronger I want you to take me out and learn me the ABC's o' foragin'.

To think that me and Si wuz grievin' about your being ketched by the

guerrillas. What fools we wuz. It wuz lucky for the guerrillas that you

didn't run acrost 'em, for you'd a ketched 'em, instid o' 'em you."

"That's what I come purty nigh doin'," chuckled the Deacon. "But what in

the world 'm I goin' to do with that hoss and buckboard? I must hunt

around and find that poor beast some corn for tonight. He's bin driven

purty sharp, and he needs his supper jest as bad as I did mine, and I

won't feel right unless he has it. Then I must try to git him back to

his owner termorrer."

"If he's here to-morrer," said Shorty, looking at the animal carefully,

"it'll be a miracle. That's too good a hoss to be kept in this camp by

anybody lower'n a Brigadier-General. The boys'll steal him, the Captains

take him, the Colonels seize him, and the Brigadier-Generals appropriate

him for the Government's service. They'll call it by different names,

but the horse goes all the same. I don't see how you're goin' to keep

him till mornin'. You can't put him in your cellar. If they don't steal

him, it's because it's too dark to see him. I'm sorry to say there's an

awful lot o' thieves in the Army o' the Cumberland."

And Shorty looked very grieved over the deplorable lack of regard in the

army for the rights of property. He seemed to mourn this way for several

minutes, and then broke out with:

"Say, Mr. Klegg, I've an idee. That Quartermaster o' the Maumee Muskrats

is a sport from way back. He'd give his vary eyes for a good hoss—one

that kin beat everybody else's. The way the horses are run down now this

one kin carry a heavy handicap, and beat any one in camp. I'll bet I kin

take this hoss over to him and git $150 in greenbacks for him, for he

kin win a bushel o' money with him the very first day."

"Shorty," said the Deacon, in a tone that made that worthy start,

"necessity and the stress o' circumstances may force me to do many

things which are agin my conscience, and for which I shall repent in

sackcloth and ashes, if needs be, but I hain't yit bin reduced to

sellin' stolen property. The Lord save me from that. That hoss and

wagon's got to go back to the owner, if I risk my life in takin' 'em."

Shorty wisely kept his reply to himself, but he thought how absurd it

was to have men about the army who were too old and set in their ideas

to learn army ways. He muttered to himself:

"If he succeeds in gittin' that hoss outen camp agin, I'll expect to see

the back o' my neck, or something else quite as wonderful."

The Deacon finally succeeded in getting a couple of ears of corn and a

handful of fodder for the horse's supper, and it was decided that Shorty

should watch him the first part of the night, and the Deacon from thence

till morning.

As the Deacon pondered over the matter in the early morning hours, he

saw that his only chance of getting the horse back was to start with him

before daylight revealed him to the men in camp.

Well, I'll Be Dumbed, Muttered the Deacon. 35

"I'll drive him well outside our lines, and as near to the house as I

think it prudent to go, and then turn him loose," he said to himself.

"If he's got the sense o' the horses up North he'll go straight home,

and then my conscience will be clear. If he don't, I'll have done all I

could. The Lord don't ask unreasonable things of us, even in atonement."

So he cooked as good a breakfast for the boys as he could prepare from

his materials, woke up Shorty and put him in charge, and an hour before

daybreak turned the horse's head toward the pontoon bridge, and started

him on a lively trot.

He had only fairly started when a stern voice called out to him from a

large tent:

"Here, you, stop that trotting. What do you mean? Don't you know that

it's strictly against orders to trot horses in their present condition?"

"Excuse me. Captain," said the Deacon. "I"

"Blank your Captain," roared the voice; "I'm no Captain."

"Major," said the Deacon deprecatingly.

"To thunder with your Majors, you ignorant fool. You"

"I beg your pardon, Colonel. I was"

"What's the matter with you, you ignoramus?" roared the voice, more

indignantly than ever. "Don't you know Brigade Headquarters when you see

them? Don't you know your own officers when you hear their voices?"

"Rayly, General," said the Deacon, much disturbed, "I didn't mean to

insult you. I'm only a citizen, and a stranger in the camp, and—"

"A citizen and a stranger," echoed the voice. "What are you doing in

here, anyway? Orderly, bring that man in here till I see him."

The Orderly started to obey, when a regiment which had been ordered to

report at Headquarters came up at quick step, halted, and ordered arms

with much clatter. The frightened horse bounded off down the road, with

the Deacon sawing on the lines and trying to stop him.

He only slowed down when he came up near a corral of other horses, to

which he turned for companionship and sympathy.

"Frosty mornin' makes that hoss purty frisky," said the Deacon, as he

readjusted his hat, and got himself in shape after his jolting. "Lucky,

though. I didn't like that old General's voice. I'm afraid he had it in

for me, and would 've made me trouble for lowerin' his dignity by

callin' him Captain. Big officers are awfully tetchy."

"Here, who are you? And what are you doin' out there?" came the stem

inquiry from the dark depths of one of the sheds.

"Excuse me. General," answered the Deacon hastily, "I"

"General? Who are you callin' General, you fool? Don't try to be funny

with me. You know I'm no General."

"I meant Colonel," the Deacon started to explain.

"The blazes you did. You expect Colonels to run hoss-corrals, and manage

mule boarding-houses, do you? stop your blimmed nonsense and answer my

questions."

"Major, I was tryin' to say"

"I'll Major you when I git my boots on and git out there. Don't think to

shut my eye up callin' me big titles."

"But, Captain."

"I'm no Captain, neither. I'm plain Jim Crimmins, Quartermaster-

Sergeant, in charge o' this corral, that you're stealin' around. I'm

comin' out there to break every bone in your body. You infernal sneaks

've pestered the life out o' me stealin' my corn and my mules, even.

I've bin watchin' you piroutin' around in the dark for a long time. I'm

goin' to stop this business if I've got to kill every thievin' varmint

in the Army o' the Cumberland. Don't you dare move till I come out, or

I'll put a bullet through you. Do you hear?"

"I don't believe I've got any more time to waste on that bellerin' bull-

calf," said the Deacon to himself. He gathered up the lines, turned the

horse's head toward the road, and gave him a lick with a switch, and he

dashed off, followed by a couple of shots from Mr. Crimmins, to give

color and confirmation to the story that worthy related later in the day

of a particularly audacious attempt on the part of sneak thieves to get

away with his mules and corn, and which was frustrated by his vigilance

and daring.

As the horse slowed down to a walk again a Sergeant of the Guard at the

head of a squad stepped out and took him by the reins.

"Here, who are you, and where are you going so early in the morning?" he

inquired.

"My name's Josiah Klegg, sir," said the Deacon, prudently ignoring

titles. "I'm from Injianny, and am down here 'tendin' to my son, who

belongs to Co. Q, 200th Injianny Volunteers, and who was shot at

Chickamaugy. I borryed this hoss and wagon from a man out in the country

to bring in some vittles for him and his pardner, and some boughs for

'em to sleep on, and I'm takin' 'em back to him."

"Well, that story may be true, and it mayn't. Probably it ain't. Men

don't get up before daybreak to take back borrowed horses. You're up to

some devilment; probably taking information or contraband out to the

rebels. I haven't time now to investigate. I'll put you under guard

until I have. As for the horse, we've got use for him. McCook's Cavalry

needs about a thousand such as he. We're out lookin' for horses now.

Unhitch him, boys."

The Deacon started to make an earnest protest, but at that moment the

rebels on Lookout Mountain made their usual daylight salute to the camp.

The size of the squad had attracted their attention, and a shell

shrieked over and struck quite near. This was too much for the nervous

horse. He made a convulsive leap, which scattered the guards around him

and almost threw the Deacon out of the seat. When the latter recovered

himself, and got the horse under control again the guards were far away,

and he was at the approach to the pontoon bridge.

"I'll be plagued," mused the Deacon, as the horse moved over the bridge

at a slow walk, and gave him time to think, "the army's a terrible

place. I had no sort o' trouble when I was doin' something that mebbe I

oughtn't to have done, but the minute I start out to do a right thing I

meet no end o' difficulties. But these are the obstacles that Satan

always puts in the way of the righteous. I'm goin' to git this boss

'back to its owner, or know the reason why. Git up, there."

He soon came to a piece of the road which was in full view of the rebels

on Lookout Mountain. They had been preparing the day before to stop all

travel by that route, and the Deacon's was the first vehicle that had

appeared since they had got their guns planted. They waited until he was

fairly out into the open, and sent a shell which struck a panel of the

fence off to the left, burst with a crash, and sent rails, chunks,

stones and pieces of brush flying through the air. The horse became

frantic, and tore up the hill at such a rate the buckboard and harness

speedily went to pieces, and the Deacon was flung in the ditch, while

the horse galloped wildly over the hill.

The Union artillerymen on Moccasin Point had evidently anticipated just

such an attempt on the part of the rebels. Instantly a score of guns

which had been placed to cover that spot thundered out, and their shells

could be seen striking and tearing up the ground all around where the

shot came from. Other rebel guns came to the assistance of the first

one; the Union batteries within reach started in to help their side, and

in a minute the whole country was shaking with the uproar.

"Well, I'll be dumbed," muttered the Deacon, crawling out of the ditch,

shaking himself together again, cleaning off the mud, and trying to

comprehend what was happening. "Did anybody ever see sich a commotion

kicked up over one four-year-old hoss, and not a particularly good hoss

at that? 't'd take a mighty smart man to git as much as $100 for him up

in Posey County. Nobody but a Methodist Elder could do it. I've sold a

better hoss than that for $80, and got all he was worth."

He stood for a few minutes and looked at the grand display until the

Union batteries, satisfied that they had finally quashed the impudent

rebel, ceased firing, and then he looked around.

"Well, that buckboard's done for. I can't take it back. It's only good

for kindlin' wood now. But I may ketch the hoss and take him back."

He went up on top of the hill, and saw the horse standing under a tree,

apparently pondering over what had happened, and wondering whether he

should run farther or remain where he was.

The horse gave him a glad whinney of recognition, as if congratulating

him on escaping from the crash of matter.

"Yes, you beast," snorted the Deacon; "I'm safe, but no thanks to you.

You done your best to kick my brains out. Twice your condemned heels

jest grazed my eyebrows. All the thanks I git for tryin' to save you

from being starved to death there in Chattanoogy, and git you back home.

But you go back home all the same."

He led the horse to a rock, mounted him, and started up the road. He

reached the point where the road to the house turned off, and was

debating whether he should go farther or turn the horse loose there,

when he saw a company of cavalry coming up the main road from the other

direction—that toward Bridgeport. Though they wore blue overcoats, he

had learned enough about army life to not trust this implicitly, so he

prudently rode into the woods to watch them until he could make sure.

The company came up to where the roads parted, and he overheard a man

who rode by the Captain at the head, and who wore a semi-soldier costume

and seemed to be a scout or guide, tell the Captain:

"Their camp's right over there on that ridge (pointing to the crest on

which the Deacon had seen the smoke). They're probably on the lookout

for us, and we'll have to be very careful if we get near enough to jump

them. I thought I saw one of their lookouts about here when we came up.

Yes, there he is in there."

The Deacon had started to ride boldly toward them when he was sure they

were Union troops, and a couple of the men, who in their dealings with

bushwhackers had learned that it is best to shoot first and ask

questions afterward, had promptly fired, and cut twigs uncomfortably

near the Deacon's head. His horse plunged, but he kept him in hand and

called out:

"Hold on! Hello! Don't do that. I'm a friend. I'm from Injianny."

"You're a devil of a way from home, and in a bad neighborhood," said one

of the men who had fired, as he slipped another cartridge into his

Sharpe's.

The Captain interrogated him as to who he was and what he was doing out

there, while the scout fidgeted in his saddle over the time that was

being wasted.

"Captain," said the scout finally, "we must hustle if we're going to

strike those fellers before dark. We can't go down here, but' ll have to

make a long circuit around, so they won't see us."

"That's so," said the Captain, adjusting himself to start.

"Captain," said one of the men, "my horse can't go any farther. He's

been in bad shape, and he fell and broke his knee coming up the hill."

"Well, here, take that citizen's horse. Old man, get off, and let this

man have that horse."

The Deacon started to protest, but the man was in a hurry, and almost

pulled him off, and slapped his own saddle on in a flash.

"But what am I do to?" asked the Deacon bewildered.

"Do? Do as you please," laughed the Captain. "You are as well off here

as anywhere. When a man's away from home one place's the same's another

to him. Here, I'll tell you what you can do. See that cow back there?

The boys have been trailing her along, in hopes to get her into

Chattanooga and make beef of her. We've got to leave her now, for we are

going on the jump. We'll make you a present of her and this broken-down

horse. That'll start you in business. A horse and a cow's a big start

for any man. Good-by. Attention, company! Forward, head of column

right—March!"

"Well, I've done all I could," said the Deacon, going back and picking

up the rope which was tied to the cow's horns. "The Lord knows I've

tried hard enough to git that hoss back. The cow looks as if she's a

good milker. A little milk'll do the boys good. Then, they kin have

fresh beef. Come along, Bos."

Late at night he tied the cow to the corn-crib and went to his weary

bed.

CHAPTER III. A COW IN CAMP THE DEACON HAS SOME EXPERIENCES WITH THE

QUADRUPED.

IT DID not seem that so many dangers beset the possession of a cow as of

a horse, yet the Deacon prudently rose while it was yet dark to look

after the animal.

He was none too soon, for there were getting to be thousands of very

hungry men in Chattanooga who remembered the axiom about the early bird

catching the worm, and thought the best time for "snatching" something

was in the dark just before reveille. If they could find nothing better,

and too often they did not, they would rob the mules of their scanty

rations of corn, and soon a mule's feed-box had to be as carefully

guarded as the commissary tent of the Headquarters mess.

These morning prowlers were as cunning as rats in finding their prey,

and the only security that a man had of keeping his rations till morning

was to eat them up before he went to bed. Their sharp eyes had not

failed to notice the signs of unusual plenty about the Deacon's corn-

crib, and they gave it earnest attention.

The Deacon had slipped out very quietly, and taken a little turn around

the end of the crib, to see that his other provisions had not been

disturbed, before he approached the cow. As he did so he saw a figure

squatted beside her, and heard a low voice say:

"So, Bos! H'ist, Lady! H'ist up, you measly heifer!"

"Well, I declare to goodness," gasped the Deacon. "How could they've

found her out so soon?"

He walked quietly up to the milker, and remarked:

"Purty early in the mornin' to do your milkin'. Didn't used to git up so

early when you was at home, did you?"

"Sh—sh—sh!" whispered the other. "Don't speak so loud. You'll wake up

that old galoot inside. Keep quiet till I fill my cup, and then I'll let

you have a chance. There'll be plenty for you."

"Purty good milker, is she?" inquired the Deacon with interest.

"Naw!" whispered the other. "She's got her bag full, but she won't give

down worth a cent."

"Better let me try my hand," said the Deacon. "You've bin away from the

farm for so long you've probably lost the knack. I'm a famous milker."

"You'll play fair?" said the milker doubtfully.

"Yes; just hold her till I go inside and git my bucket, and I'll milk

your cup clean full," answered the Deacon, starting inside the corn-

crib.

"Well, you're a cool one," gasped the milker, realizing the situation.

"But I'll hold you to your bargain, and I'll play fair with you."

The Deacon came back with his bucket, and after filling the man's cup as

full as it would hold, handed it to him, and then began drawing the rest

into his own bucket.

Careful milker that he was, he did not stop until he had stripped the

last drop, and the cow, knowing at once that a master hand was at her

udder, willingly yielded all her store.

"There," said the Deacon, "if anybody gits any more out o' her till

evenin' he's welcome to it."

Two or three other men had come up in the meanwhile with their cups, and

they started, without so much as asking, to dip their cups in.

"Hold on!" commanded the first-comer sternly. "Stop that! This old man's

a friend o' mine, and I won't see him imposed on. Go somewhere else and

git your milk."

A wordy war ensued, but the first-comer was stalwart and determined. The

row waked up Shorty, who appeared with an ax.

"All right," said one of the men, looking at the ax; "keep your durned

old milk, if you're so stingy toward hungry soldiers. It'll give you

milk-sick, anyway. There's lots o' milk-sick 'round here. All the cows

have it. That cow has it bad. I kin tell by her looks. We had lots o'

milk-sick in our neighborhood, and I got real well-acquainted with it. I

kin tell a milk-sick cow as fur as I kin see her, and if that cow hasn't

it, no one ever had it."

He made a furtive attempt to kick the bucket over, which was frustrated

by the Deacon's watchfulness.

"Better do something with that cow right off," advised the first-comer,

as he walked off. "You can't keep her in camp all day. Somebody'll git

her away from you if they have to take her by main force."

"Are you willin' to risk the milk-sick?" asked the Deacon, handing

Shorty a cupful of the milk, together with a piece of cornpone.

"Yum—yum, I should say so," mumbled that longlegged gentleman. "I'll

make the milk sicker'in it kin me, you bet. Jest bring along all the

milk-sick you've got on hand, and I'll keep it from hurtin' anybody

else. That's the kind of a philanthropist I am."

"I see you've got a cow here," said a large man wearing a dingy blue

coat with a Captain's faded shoulder-straps. "I'm a Commissary, and it's

my duty to take her."

He walked over and in a businesslike way began unfastening the rope. The

Deacon shuddered, for he had too much respect for shoulder-straps to

think of resisting. Shorty looked up from his breakfast, scanned the

newcomer, and said:

"Look here. Bill Wiggins, you go back and take off that Captain's coat

as quick as you kin, or I'll have you arrested for playin' officer. None

o' you Maumee Muskrats kin play that little game on the 200th Injianny.

We know you too well. And let me advise you, Mr. Wiggins, the next time

you go out masqueradin' to make up clean through. That private's cap and

pantaloons burned around the back, and them Government cow-hides give

you dead away, if your mug didn't. If they wuz givin' commissions away

you wouldn't be a brevet Corporal. Skip out, now, for here comes the

Provost-Guard, and you'd better not let him catch you wearin' an

officer's coat unless you want to put in some extra time on the

breastworks."

Mr. Wiggins made off at once, but he had scarcely gotten out of sight

when a mounted officer, attracted by the strange sight of a cow in camp,

rode up and inquired whence she came and to whom she belonged.

The Deacon was inside the crib taking care of Si, and the burden of the

conversation fell upon Shorty.

"Me any my pardner sent out into the country and bought that cow," he

said, "with three $10 gold pieces we've bin savin' up ever since we've

bin in the service. We wouldn't give 'em for anything else in the world.

But we wuz jest starved for a drink o' fresh milk. Never felt so hungry

for anything else in our lives. Felt that if we could jest git a fillin'

o' fresh milk it'd make us well agin."

"Paid $30 in gold for her," said the officer, examining the cow

critically. "Pretty high price for that kind of a cow."

"Well, I don't know about that," answered Shorty argumentatively, and

scenting a possible purchaser. "Good fresh cows are mighty scarce

anywhere at this time o' year, and particularly in this region. Next

Spring they'll be much cheaper. But not this, one. That's no ordinary

cow. If you'll look carefully at her you'll see that she's a

thoroughbred. I'm a boss judge o' stock myself, and I know. Look at her

horns, her bag, and her lines. She's full three-quarters Jersey."

"What's the other quarter," asked the officer, much amused.

"Jest—jest—jest—cow," answered Shorty, momentarily stumped for once in

his volubility. And then he went on more garrulously than ever, to make

amends. "She's as gentle as a lamb, will live on two ears o' corn and a

kind word a day, and give two gallons o' milk, nearly all cream. Me and

my pardner wouldn't take $10.0 in gold for that cow. We're goin' to send

her up home as soon as the lines are open, to start our stock-farm

with."

"Where did you say you got her?" said the officer, getting off his horse

and going up closer to examine the animal.

"O, we bought her from a man named Wilson over in the Sequatchie Valley.

You must've heard of him. We've knowed him a long time—before he moved

down here from Injianny. Runs a fine stockfarm. Cried like a baby when

he parted with his cow. Wouldn't have done it, but he had to have the

money to buy provisions for his family."

"Let me see," said the officer, looking at him. "Seems to me I ought to

know you. Where do you belong?"

"Co. Q, 200th Injianny Volunteers."

"I thought so. I do know you. You are Shorty. I don't want to say

anything against your honesty or your veracity, but if Gen, Rosecrans

was to order me to get him the smartest forager and smoothest liar in

the Army of the Cumberland, I think I should order you to report at

Headquarters."

"You do me proud," said Shorty with a grin, but an inward feeling that

trouble was impending.

"Now, tell me the truth. Where did you get that cow?"

"I have bin tellin' you the truth," protested Shorty with an injured

air. "Why should I tell you a lie about a little thing like a cow?"

"You are not within a mile of the truth. I know it. Look here: I believe

that is Gen. Rosecrans's own cow. She's gone, and I got an order to look

around for her. I've never seen her, but from the description given me I

believe that's she. Who brought her here?"

Purty Good Milker, is She? Inquired the Deacon 51

"Great Jehosephat, he's after the Deacon," thought Shorty with a

shudder. "I mustn't let him git him." Then he spoke out boldly:

"I brung her here."

"Shorty," said the officer with a smile, "I admire your talents for

prevarication more than I can express. As a good, off-hand, free-going,

single-gaited liar you have few equals and no superiors. Your lies

usually have so much probability in them that they seem better than the

truth—for your purposes. But this has no probability whatever in it. I

doubt if you are able to walk to Headquarters. If you were well and

strong, I should believe you quite capable not only of stealing the cow

from Army Headquarters, but President Lincoln's cow from his back-door

of the White House. But you are good now because you haven't strength

enough to be up to any devilment. Now, tell me, who brought that cow

here?"

"I brung her here myself, I tell you. I felt unusually peart last night.

Felt that I had to snatch something jest to keep my hand in, like.

Couldn't find nothin' else on four legs worth takin', and couldn't take

nothin' that couldn't walk. So I took her. You kin send me to the guard-

house if you want to. I expect I deserve it."

And Shorty tried to look contrite and penitent.

"Yes; you're in nice shape to send to the guardhouse. I'd sent you there

quick enough if you were well, for telling me such a preposterous lie.

You've usually paid more respect to my intelligence by telling me

stories that I could believe if I wanted to, as I usually wanted do; but

this is too much."

As the conversation began the Deacon had passed out with a bucket to go

to the creek for water for the cow. He now came back, set the bucket

down in front of the cow, and began, from force of long habit in caring

for his stock, to pick off some burs, and otherwise groom her.

"Say, my friend," said the officer, "who brought that cow in?"

Shorty had been frantically trying to catch the Deacon's eye, and was

making all manner of winks and warning gestures without avail, for the

Deacon answered frankly:

"I brung her in."

"You're just the man I'm looking for," returned the officer. Then

turning to a Sergeant who had just come up at the end of a squad, he

said:

"Here, Sergeant, take charge of this citizen and this cow, and bring

them both up to Army Headquarters. Don't let that citizen get away from

you. He's a slick one."

As they moved off. Shorty bolted into the crib and shouted:

"Great Jehosephat, Si, that dad of your'n 's a goner! He's got nerve

that looms up like Lookout Mountain! He's a genius! He's got git-up and

git to spare! What do you think he done last night? Walked up to Gen.

Rosecrans's Headquarters, and stole the General's cow right from under

the noses o' the Headquarters Guards, and brung her down here and milked

her. Did you ever hear o' sich snap? I only wisht that me and you was

half the man that he is, old as he is. The only trouble is that he isn't

as good a hider as he is on the take. They've dropped on to him, and

they're now takin' him up to Headquarters. But he'll find some way to

git off. There's no end to that man. And to think that we've bin playin'

him right along for a hayseed."

And Shorty groaned in derision of his own acumen.

"Pop stole Gen. Rosecrans's cow from Headquarters? They've arrested him

and are taking him up there?" ejaculated Si in amazement. "I don't

believe a word of it."

"Well, the cow was here. He brung her here last night, and owned up to

it. He milked her, and you drunk some of the milk. The Provost-Guard's

now walkin' the cow and him up to Headquarters. These are early mornin'

facts. You kin believe what you dumbed please."

"Pap arrested and taken to Army Headquarters," groaned Si, in deepest

anxiety. "What in the world will they do with him?"

"O, don't worry," said Shorty cheerfully.

"Your dad ain't as green as you are, if he has lived all his life on the

Wabash. He's as fly as you make 'em. He's fixin' up some story as he

goes along that'll git him out of the scrape slick as a whistle. Trust

him."

"Shorty," said Si severely, "my father don't fix up stories. Understand

that. He's got some explanation for this. Depend upon it."

"They call it explanation when it gits a feller out, and blamed lie when

it don't," muttered Shorty to himself, as he went out again, to follow

the squad as far as he could with his eyes. "Anyway, I'll bet on the

Deacon."

The squad arrived before Headquarters, and the officer dismounted and

went in. Early as it was he found the indefatigable Rosecrans at work

with his staff and clerks.

"General, I've found your cow, and got the man who took her," said the

officer.

"Good," said the General joyfully. "Now we'll have some fresh milk

again. I can give up anything cheerfully, rather than fresh milk. Say

you've got the thief, too?" continued the General, relapsing into one of

his testy moods. "Put the rascal at the hardest labor you can find. I'll

give him a lesson that stealing from Headquarters don't pay. The rascals

in my army seem to think that I and everything I have belongs to them as

much as it does to me. But I'll draw the line at my cow and my horses.

They can steal everything else but them. Hold on a minute. I'll go out

and see if it's really my cow."

"Yes, that is she; glad to see you back, Missy," said the General,

patting the cow on the back. "Take her back and give her a good feed, if

you can find it, for probably she's pretty hungry."

Then turning to the Deacon:

"You old rascal, you'll steal the General's cow, will you? Fond of

thorobred stock, are you? And a citizen, too. Well, I'll see whether a

month of hard work on the fortifications won't cure you of your fancy

for blooded cattle."

"Look here, Gen. Rosecrans," said the Deacon firmly, "I didn't steal

your cow, and I won't allow you nor no other man to say so. I'm an

honest man, or at least I've always passed for one at home. I was out

over the river yesterday, tryin' to git a hoss back to his owner, and a

Captain of a cavalry company come along and took my hoss away, and give

me this cow in exchange. He said his men'd got the cow down the road

apiece, and that's all I know of her."

"A very likely story," sneered several of the staff.

"Let me see," said the General, who prided himself on remembering names

and faces. "Haven't I met you before? Aren't you from Indiana?"

"Yes, sir; from Posey County."

"And you've got a son in one of the regiments?"

"Yes, sir. Corporal Si Klegg, Co. Q, 200th Injianny Volunteers. Him and

his partner Shorty wuz badly wounded, and I come down here to take care

of 'em. I've bin moseyin' around out in the country tryin' to find

something for 'em to eat, and the other day I—borryed a hoss, which I

was tryin' to take back, when this cavalry Captain come along, and tuk

the hoss away from me and give me this cow instid. I hadn't no idee

where he got her, and he didn't give me time to ask, for he started on

the jump after some guerrillas."

"I shouldn't wonder if his story is true, General," said a member of the

staff. "You see, your cow has been gone really two days. Day before

yesterday we sent Blue Jim out into the country with her. She needed it

awfully. We laid the law down to Blue Jim about being very careful with

her and keep her near the road. It seems that he found a good piece of

meadow, and turned her loose in it, but then, nigger like, he forgot all

that we had told him about staying light alongside of her, and wandered

off to gather persimmons, and afterward fell asleep in a fence-corner.

When he woke up the cow was gone, and he was scared nearly to death. He

hunted around for her all day, and came in last night nearly starved to

death, and whimpering and blubbering. We told him that you would order

him shot as soon as you found out. He has been to see the Chaplain

twice, to prepare for death."

"So?" said the General, smiling. "Well, Mr.— Mr.— I did know your name

once—"

"Klegg, Josiah Klegg," answered the Deacon promptly.

"Yes; how stupid of me to forget it. Well, Mr. Klegg, I'm very much

obliged to you for finding my cow and bringing her home. You've got a

very fine son—splendid soldier. How is he getting along?"

"Tollably well, General, thank you. Look here, General, please let me

take those boys home. If you will, I'll send 'em back to you in a few

weeks good as new. All they need is mother's cookin' and mother's

nursin' to bring 'em right out. And I want to go home, too. The army is

demoralizin' me. I guess I'm gittin' old, and 'm not as strong to resist

sin and the suggestions of sin as I once was. I'm gittin' scared of

myself down here."

"It's pretty hard work getting back now," said the General. "Do you

think you can do it, if I give you leave?"

"O, yes. Jest give the order, and I'll get the boys and myself back

home, sure's you're livin'."

"Very well," said the General; "you shall have the chance." He turned to

one of his staff and said:

"Look into this matter. If the Surgeon thinks they can be moved, have

furloughs and transportation made out for them and the father. Good-by,

Mr. Klegg. Take good care of those boys, and send them back to me as

soon as they are well."

CHAPTER IV. THE DEACON'S PLAN DEALING WITH AN OBSTRUCTION TO THE

HOMEWARD JOURNEY.

THE Surgeon, who had conceived quite a good opinion of the Deacon's

ability, readily certified that the boys could be safely taken home,

since they would have the benefit of his care and attention, and the

necessary papers came down from Headquarters that day. The Deacon had

the good luck to find his old friend, the Herd-Boss, who took a deep

interest in the matter. He offered to have as good a team as he had at

the crib the next morning, with the wagon-bed filled with cedar-boughs,

to make as easy a couch as possible for the rough ride over the

mountains.

With his heart full of hope and joy, the Deacon bustled around to make

every possible preparation for the journey.

"It's a long way back home, I know," he said to himself, "and the road's

rough and difficult as that to the New Jerusalem; but Faith and Hope,

and the blessin' o' God'll accomplish wonders. If I kin only hold the

souls in them boys' bodies till I kin git 'em back to Bean Blossom

Crick, I'll trust Mother Klegg's nursin' to do the rest. If there ever

was a woman who could stand off the Destroyin' Angel by good nursin'

that woman's Mother Klegg, bless her soul."

The next morning he was up betimes, and cooked the boys as good a

breakfast as he could out of the remainder of his store and what he

could get from the hospital, and then gave what was left to whoever

came. The comfortable crib, which had cost the Deacon so much labor, had

been pre-empted by the Surgeon for some of his weakest patients.

The news had reached the 200th Ind. that the boys were going home, and

they came over in a body to say "Good-by."

The sight of them pained the Deacon's good heart. Instead of the

hundreds of well-fed, well-clothed, comfortable-looking young men he had

seen at Murfreesboro a few months before, he now saw a shrunken band of

gaunt, unkempt men, their clothing ragged and patched, many of them

almost shoeless, many of them with pieces of blankets bound around their

feet instead of shoes, many of them with bandages about their still

unhealed wounds, but still keeping their places bravely with their

comrades, and stubbornly refusing to count themselves among the sick and

disabled, though it required all their will-power to do their share of

the duty. But all of them were brimming over with unconquerable

cheerfulness and pluck. They made light of their wounds and

disabilities, jested at one another's ragged clothes, laughed at their

hunger, teased one another about stealing corn from mules, jeered at the

rebel shells from Lookout Mountain, yelled derisively at the rebel

pickets across the creek, and promised them to soon come out and run

Bragg's army off the face of the earth.

All were eager to do something toward the comfort of their departing

comrades. They scanned the arrangement of the boughs in the wagon with

critical eyes, and picked them over and rearranged them, so as to avoid

every chance of uncomfortable knots and lumps. They contributed blankets

from their own scanty supply, to make sure that there would be plenty,

and so many were eager to help carry Si out and put him in the wagon,

that the Orderly-Sergeant of Co. Q had to take charge of the matter and

make a detail. The teamster was given strong admonitions as to careful

driving, and fearful warning as to what would happen to him in case of

an accident.

"Hain't anything to send back home with you, boys, this time, but our

love," said one of them. "That's the only thing that's safe now-a-days

from bein' stole, because no one kin eat or wear it. Tell the folks to

pay no attention to what the paper says. No danger o' bein' run out o'

Chattanoogy. Tell 'em that we're all fat, ragged and sassy, and only

waitin' the word from Gen. Rosecrans to fall on old Bragg like a

thousand o' brick and mash the lights outen him."

"Yes," joined another, "tell 'em we've got plenty to eat, sich as it is,

and good enough, what there is of it. Don't worry about us. We're only

blowin' up our muscle to git a good lick at old Bragg."

"Your muscle," said Shorty, satirically. "You've got about as much

muscle now as a musketo. But you're good stuff all the same, and you're

goin' to everlastingly lick the rebels when the time comes. I only wisht

I was here to help you do it. I don't think I'll go any further than

Nashville. I'll be well enough to come back by that time. I'll see Si

and his father off safely, and then gether up a crowd of other

convalescents, and come back and clean the rebels off your cracker

line."

"Good-by, boys," piped out Si. "I'll be back soon. Don't bring on the

big battle till I do. I want to help. Just skirmish around and push the

rebels back into the woods while I'm gone, and hive 'em up for a good

lickin' by the time I git back."

As the wagon moved off the 200th Ind. gave three cheers, and the

regimental soloist struck up the "Battle Cry of Freedom," in which they

all joined with so much energy as to attract the attention of the rebel

artillerist on Lookout Mountain, who favored them with a shell intended

for their express benefit. It was no better directed than any of its

many predecessors had been, and was greeted with yells of derision, in

which all the camp joined.

Having done all possible for the boys' comfort, the Deacon had lighted

his pipe and taken his seat on a board laid over the front, where he

could oversee the road and the teamster, and take a parting look at the

animated scenery. The wagon pulled into the line of those moving out

toward Bridgeport, and jogged along slowly for some hours until it was

nearing the top of one of the hills that jutted out close to the

Tennessee River, at the base of Lookout Mountain. The Deacon saw, with a

little nervousness, that they were approaching the open space in which

he had had his experience with the horse and buckboard, and he anxiously

scanned the Craven House slope for signs of a rebel cannon. He saw that

his apprehensions were shared by the drivers of the three or four teams

just ahead. They were whipping up, and yelling at their teams to get

past the danger point as quick as possible.

The Deacon Reconnoitered the Situation 62

They had need of anxiety. A scattering volley of shots came from the

bushes and the rocks on the opposite side of the Tennessee River and one

of the leaders in the team just ahead of him dropped dead in his tracks.

The teams in front were whipped up still harder, and succeeded in

getting away. The shots were answered from a line of our own men on this

side of the river, who fired at the smoke they saw rising.

The Deacon's own teamster sprang from his saddle, and prudently got in

the shelter of the wagon until the affair would be over. The teamster

next ahead ran forward, and began cutting the fallen mule loose, but

while he was doing so another shot laid the other mule low. The teamster

fell fiat on the ground, and lay there for a minute. Then he cautiously

arose, and began cutting that mule loose, when a shot struck the near-

swing mule in the head, and he dropped. The Deacon kept that solid old

head of his throughout the commotion, and surveyed the scene with cool

observance.

"There's one feller somewhere over there doin' all that devilment," he

said to Shorty, who was pushing his head eagerly out of the front of the

wagon to find out what was going on. "He's a sharpshooter from way back.

You kin see he's droppin' them mules jest about as fast as he kin load

his gun. Them other fellers over there are jest putterin' away, makin' a

noise. You kin see their shots strikin' down the hill there, and

everywhere, where they ain't doin' nothin'. But that feller's out for

business. I've bin tryin' to locate him. He's somewhere closter than any

o' the others. Their bullets don't quite reach, while his goes home

every time. See there."

The off-swing mule dropped this time. "Land's sakes," ejaculated the

Deacon, "he's costin' Uncle Sam $150 every time his gun cracks. It's

jest sinful to be destroyin' property that way. Shorty, kin you reach me

that gun o' Si's out o' the wagon? I believe I'll slip down toward the

bank and see if I can't find that feller. I've bin watchin' the willers

along the aidge o' the water, and I believe he's in there."

"Don't go, Pap," pleaded Si. "Some of the boys on the skirmish-line 'll

find him soon, and settle him. Don't expose yourself. Stay behind the

wagon."

"Yes, stay back under cover, Deacon," joined in Shorty. "Let the boys

down there 'tend to him. They're gittin' $16 a month for it, and don't

want nobody else to interfere in their job." Just then the near wheel

mule dropped. "Gi' me that gun at onct," said the Deacon sternly. Shorty

handed him the Springfield and its cartridge-box without another word.

The Deacon looked over the rifle, "hefted" it, and tried it at his

shoulder to get its poise, critically examined its sights by aiming at

various objects, and then wiped out its barrel, as he would that of his

trusty hunting-rifle at home. All of his old deer-hunting instincts

revived. He took out several cartridges, turned them over in his hand,

and carefully selected one, tore open the paper, poured the powder in,

removed the paper from the ball, and carefully rammed it home, struck

the butt of the gun on the ground to make sure of its priming, and put

on the cap.

"Hold her about a foot under. Pap, at 400 yards," said Si, who had

rolled over to the side of the wagon, and was watching him from under

the cover, which was raised up a little. "Put your sights up to the 400

mark, and then draw the top o' the bead down fine into that notch, and

she'll put it right where you hold her."

By this time the sharpshooter had finished up the mules on the team

ahead, and begun on that of the Deacon. The firing was furious all along

both sides of the river, and the teamsters in the rear were showing

signs of stampeding. The Wagonmaster was storming up and down to hold

them in place, and the officers in command of the line along the river

bank were raging at their men for not suppressing the fire from over the

stream.

"Old man, you'd better not go down there," said a Captain as the Deacon

came walking down, looking very grim and determined. "It's getting

hotter down there every minute. The rebels seem determined to stick to

their work, and I've had three men wounded already."

"Look out for your own men, my son," answered the Deacon, in whom the

fire of battle was burning. "I'll look out for myself. If I'm hit the

Gover'ment won't lose nothin'. I'm only a citizen."

He had kept his eye on the clump of willows, and was sure that his man

was in there, though the smoke hung around so confusingly that he could

not always make out where a fresh shot came from. He got down to where

an occasional bullet struck in his neighborhood, but that did not

disturb him. He began to feel that thrill of man-hunting which when it

seizes a man is an overpowering passion.

"I'm goin' to stop him killin' mules," he said to himself. "I rayly hope

I won't kill him, but that's a secondary matter. Providence'll settle

that. It's my duty to stop him. That's clear. If his time's come

Providence'll put the bullet where it'll kill him. If it ain't, it

won't. That's all. Providence indicates my duty to me. The

responsibility for the rest is with Providence, who doeth all things

well."

He reached the firing-line, strung along the ragged bluffs, and hiding

behind trees, stumps and stones.

"Lay down, there, old man; grab a root; keep under cover, or you'll git

hit," some of them called out to him, noticing him as they turned to

load. "The air is so full o' bullets you kin ketch your hat full if you

only hold it up."

"All right, boys, I'll lay low. I've come down here to help you,"

answered the Deacon.

"Bully for you; we need it."

The Deacon took his position behind a big black walnut, while he

reconnoitered the situation, and got his bearings on the clump of

willows. He felt surer than ever of his man, for he actually saw a puff

of smoke come from it, and saw that right behind the puff stood a willow

that had grown to the proportions of a small tree, and had its bark

rubbed off by the chafing of driftwood against it.

"He's right behind that peeled wilier," the Deacon said, "and takes a

rest agin it. Three inches to the left o' that, and three foot from the

ground'll take him square in the breast, as he is probably kneeling

down."

Before him he noticed a deep gully cut in the bank, by which he could

get down to the water's edge where there was a clump of paw-paws

projecting out toward the willows. If he went down there it would make

his shot surer, but there was much danger that he would be noticed and

fired at on his way.

"I'm goin' down there," he said, after a moment's deliberation.

"Providence has sent me on this job, and intends I shall do it right,

which I kin by goin' down there. Providence'll take care o' me while I'm

goin'. Same time, Providence expects me to show gumption, by not

exposin' myself any more'n possible."

Therefore he cut a young, thick-branched cedar and held it in front of

him as he crouched and made his way to the gully and down it.

He had nearly reached the cover of the paw-paws, and was beginning to

congratulate himself that his cedar screen and the turmoil on the bank

above had enabled him to escape attention, when a bullet struck a stone

to his left, and threw it against him with such force as to almost knock

all the breath out of his body. He fell to the ground, but retained

coolness enough to understand that this was to his advantage, and he

crawled slowly forward until he was safely behind the bushes.

"That come from that hound in the willers," said he to himself. "He's a

sharp one. He got on to me somehow, and now it's me and him fur it.

Anyhow, he didn't kill a mule worth $150 with that bullet. But it'll

take as much as six bits' worth o' porous plaster to take the swellin'

out o' my side where that rock welted me."

He hitched forward cautiously a little farther, to where he could peer

through the bushes, being exceedingly wary not to repeat his opponent's

mistake, and set their tops in motion. A rock protruding through the

ground in front of him made an opening through which he could see, and

also afforded a rest for his musket. He looked sharply, and at length

was rewarded by seeing the gun-barrel come out by the side of the barked

willow, rested on a bare limb, and apparently aimed at the hill beyond.

He took a long breath to steady his nerves, stretched out his legs to

make himself more at ease, pushed his musket forward until he got

exactly the right poise, aimed about nine inches below the level of his

opponent's gun-barrel, and a little to the left, drew his bead down to a

hair's nicety in the hind sight, and pulled the trigger just as the

rebel sharpshooter did the same. Both muskets seemed to flash at the

same moment. The rebel sprang up through the willows and fell forward on

his face.

The Deacon picked up his gun and walked back up the bank. The Union

skirmishers had seen the man fall and raised a yell, which they changed

to cheers as they saw the Deacon coming up the bank.

The Captain in command came up and said:

"Sir, I congratulate you. That was splendidly done. I was just getting

on to that fellow when you went down. I watched you through my glass,

and saw you fetch him. You are entitled to all our thanks."

"No thanks to me, sir. I only done the dooty Providence marked out for

me. I hope the man ain't killed. If he is, it's because Providence had

fixed the number of his days. I only wanted to stop his killin' mules,

and destroyin' Gover'ment property, and let us go on our journey in

peace."

"Well, I wish you'd stay here and help us with some more of those

fellows over there. I'm sure their time has come, but my men don't seem

to be quite as good in carrying out the decrees of Providence as you

are."

"Thankee, sir," said the Deacon. "But I must go back and 'tend to my

boys. We've got a long ways to go yet to-day."

He went back to the road and reported to the Wagonmaster:

"Now you kin clear away them dead mules and go ahead. You won't scarcely

be bothered any more for awhile at least."

CHAPTER V. TROUBLE ENCOUNTERED THE BOYS MEET AN OLD FRIEND AND ARE TAKEN

HOME IN A HURRY.

IT WAS not until late the next afternoon that the wagon-train finally

reached Bridgeport, and the weak, wornout mules had at last a respite

from straining through the mud, under the incessant nagging of the

teamsters' whips and their volleyed blasphemy.

The Deacon's merciful heart had been moved by the sufferings of the poor

beasts. He had done all that he could on the journey to lighten the

labor of those attached to his own wagon. He had restrained as much as

possible the St. Vitus Dance of the teamster's keen whip, uselessly

remonstrated with him against his profanity, carried a rail to help pry

the wheels out of the mudholes, and got behind and pushed going up the

steep hills. At the journey's end when the exhausted brutes stood

motionless, with their ears drooping and their eyes looking unutterable

disgust at everything connected with the army and war, the Deacon helped

the teamster take their harness off, and carry them as much corn and hay

as the Forage-Master could be pursuaded to dole out to them.

The Deacon's next solicitude was to get the boys aboard a train that

would start out soon. This was a sore perplexity. All was rush and

bustle about the railroad yard. Trains were coming, being switched

hither and yon, unloaded, and reloaded, and going, in a way that was

simply bewildering to the plain farmer. Men in uniform and men in plain

clothes were giving orders, and these were obeyed, and everybody seemed

too busy to answer questions or give information.

"Naw; git out. Don't bother me with no questions, I tell you,"

impatiently said a man in citizen's clothes, who with arms outspread was

signalling the switching engines. "'Tain't my business to give

information to people. Got all I kin do to furnish brains for them bull-

headed engineers. Go to that Quartermaster you see over there in

uniform. The Government pays him for knowin' things. It don't me."

"I don't know anything about the different cars, my friend," said the

Quartermaster haughtily. "That's the business of the railroad people. I

simply order them to make up the trains for me, and they do the rest.

There's a Yard-Master over there. Go ask him."

"Blazes and brimstone," exploded the Yard-Master; "how in the devil's

name do you suppose I can tell anything about the trains going out? I'm

just pestered to death by such fool questions, while the life's being

worried out of me by these snoozers with sardine-labels on their

shoulders, who strut around and give orders, and don't know enough about

railroading to tell a baggage-check from a danger-signal. If they'd only

let me alone I'd have all these trains running in and out like shuttles

in a loom. But as soon's I get one arranged down comes a shoulderstrap

and orders something different. Go off and ask somebody that wears brass

buttons and a basswood head. Don't bother me. Get out of the way of that

engine there."

In despair, the Deacon turned to a man who wore a Major's shoulder-

straps.

"No," he answered; "I'm sorry to say that I cannot give you any

information. I'm only in command of the guards here. I haven't anything

to do with the trains. The Quartermasters run them, and they run them as

they run everything they have anything to do with—like the old man and

woman run their fulling mill on the Kankakee—that is, like—

"Dumb this mixin' o' military and civilian," said the irritated Deacon,

"It's worse'n mixin' religion and politics, and preachin' and tavern-

keepin'. Down there in camp everything was straight and systematic.

Every feller what don't have nothin' in his shoulder-straps bosses all

the fellers what hain't no shoulder-straps at all. The feller what has

one bar in his shoulder-straps bosses all the fellers what hain't nothin

in theirs, and the feller what has two bars bosses the fellers with but

one; the feller with leaves gives orders to the fellers with bars; the

feller with an eagle lays clear over him, and the man with a star jest

makes everybody jump when he talks. Out at the depot on Bean Blossom

Crick Sol Pringle has the say about everything. He knows when the trains

come and when they go, and what goes into 'em. This seems to be a

betwixt and between place, neither pork nor bacon, I don't like it at

all, I always want things straight—either one thing or t'other—reg'ler

close communion, total-immersion Babtist, or free-for-all, shoutin'

Methodist."

"I think I can help you, 'Squire," said a big, goodnatured-looking

civilian railroad man, who had become interested in the Deacon's

troubles. "I've bin around with the Assistant Yard-Boss pickin' out a

lot o' empties to hustle back to Nashville for grub. That's one o' them

over there, on the furthest switch—X634. See? It's got a chalk mark on

it. I'll help you carry your boys into it, and fix 'em comfortable, and

you'll go back with it all right."

The Deacon turned gladly to him. The man summoned some of his friends,

who speedily transferred Si and Shorty, with their belongings, cedar

boughs and all, to the car, and made them as comfortable as possible,

and added some little offerings of their own to contribute to the ease

of the journey. They bestired themselves to find something to eat that

the boys would relish, and brought out from somewhere a can of peaches

and one of tomatoes, which proved very acceptable. The Deacon was

overwhelmed with gratitude.

"I want every one of you to come up to my house, whenever you git a

chance," he said, "and make a long visit. You shall have the very best

that there is on my farm, and if you don't live well it won't be Maria

Klegg's fault. She'll jest lay herself out to be good to men who's bin

good to her son, and when she lays herself out to git up a dinner the

Burnett House in Cincinnati takes a back seat."

Feeling entirely at ease, he climbed into the car, with a copy of the

Cincinnati Gazette, which he had bought of a newsboy, lighted his pipe,

put on his spectacles, and settled down to a labored, but thorough

perusal of the paper, beginning at the head-lines on the upper left-hand

corner, and taking in every word, advertisements and all, as

systematically as he would weed a garden-bed or milk a cow. The Deacon

never did anything slip-shod, especially when he had to pay 10 cents for

a copy of the Cincinnati Gazette. He was going to get his full money's

worth, and if it was not in the news and editorials, he would take it

out of the advertisements and patent medicine testimonials. He was just

going through a convincing testimonial to the manifold virtues of

Spalding's Prepared Glue, when there was a bump, the sound of coupling,

and his car began to move off.

"Glory, we're goin' home!" shouted the Deacon, waving his paper

exultingly to the railroad men who had been so helpful. But he exulted

prematurely. The engine rattled ahead sharply for a few hundred yards,

and then began backing to opposite the spot where it had started from.

"That's all right," said his railroads friends encouragingly. "She's

just run back on the other switch to take up a couple more cars. She'll

go ahead all right presently."

"I hope it is all right," said the Deacon, a little abashed; "but I

never had any use for a hoss that went back more'n he did forrard."

But this was only the first of many similar experiences, which occupied

the rest of the day.

"Good gracious, do they want to wear the track and wheels and injines

clean out?" grumbled the Deacon. "No wonder they're all out o' order. If

I jammed my wagon back and forrard this way it wouldn't last a month. No

wonder war-taxes are high, with everybody doin' all they kin to waste

and destroy property. I've a great mind to write to Gen. Rosecrans or

President Lincoln callin' attention to the way their hired men monkey

around, and waste time, and don't accomplish nothin'."

Some time after dark, and after the Deacon's patience had become well-

nigh exhausted, the railroad men came around with a lantern, and told

him that at last it was settled, and the train would move out very soon.

There had been conflicting orders during the day, but now the Chief

Quartermaster at Nashville had ordered the train forward. Sure enough,

the train pulled out presently, and went rattling up toward Shelbyville.

Again the Deacon's heart bounded high, and after watching the phantom-

like roadside for awhile, he grew very sleepy, and crawled in alongside

of Si. He waked up at daylight, and went at once to the car-door

hopefully expecting to recognize the outskirts of Nashville, or at least

Murfreesboro. To his dismay, he saw the same sutler's shanty, mule-

corral, pile of baled-hay, and the embalmer's sign on a tree which had

been opposite them while standing on the track at Bridgeport.

Shorty swore volubly, and for once the Deacon did not check him, but was

sinfully conscious in his heart of approving the profanity.

"Swearin's awful wicked and low," he said to himself. "A sensible man

can get along without it ordinarily, by the grace o' God and hard

tryin', though I've knowed a yoke o' dumbed steers in a stumpy field to

purty nigh overcome me. But the army's no common experience, and I

s'pose a man's justified in bustin' out in a time like this. Old Job was

lucky that he didn't have to ride on an army railroad."

In Despair, the Deacon Turned to a Major. 77

His railroad friend again came up with some hot coffee and broiled meat,

and explained that after the train had reached a station some miles out

it got orders to run back and clear the track for some trains of troops

from the Army of the Potomac which were being rushed through. The

Deacon's heart almost sank in despair, but he took the coffee and meat,

and helped the boys to it. As they were all eating they heard a voice

outside which struck on the chords of their memories:

"Where is that Yard-Boss? Where is that Yard-Boss? Find him and send him

to me, immediately."

"That sounds like Levi Rosenbaum," said Shorty.

Si nodded affirmatively.

The Deacon looked out,' and recognized Levi dressed in the hight of

fashion. On his jetty curls sat a glossy silk hat, his clothes looked as

if just taken from the tailor's shop, and they fitted him to perfection.

A large diamond flashed from his scarfpin, and another gleamed in a ring

on his right hand as he waved it in giving orders to the men around.

Every eye was fixed on him, and when he spoke there was hastening to

obey. The Yard-Boss was coming at a run.

"Why are those cotton-cars still standing there this morning, after the

orders I gave you yesterday?" asked Levi, in tones of severest

reprehension, as that official came up.

"Why, Mr. Rosenbaum," said that official apologetically—he was the same

man who had so severely snubbed the Deacon the day before—"you see I had

the train made up and all ready to start, when there came orders—"

"Whose orders?" demanded Levi. "Who dares give orders that over-ride

mine? You go at once and have an engine—the best one you have—hitched

on. Couple on my car, and be ready to start in 15 minutes. Fifteen

minutes I give you," continued he, looking at his watch. "Tell the Train

Dispatcher to clear everything into switches until we get to

Murfreesboro, and have the operator at Murfreesboro lay by everything

till we get to Nashville."

The Yard-Boss rushed off to execute the order.

"Great Jehosephat, what's come over Levi?" muttered Shorty. "Has he

become the High-muk-a-muk of the whole army? Have they put him in Gen.

Rosecrans's place?"

"Will I dare to speak to such a high-flyer?" said the Deacon,

doubtfully.

Levi's eyes, flashed from one point to another, rested on the Deacon for

a moment, and the latter wreathed his face with a grin of recognition.

Then Levi's stern countenance relaxed with a still broader grin.

"Hello, 'Squire," he shouted joyously. "Is that you? Where are the

boys?" And he rushed forward with outstretched hand.

"I've got 'em in here, badly hurt," answered the Deacon, jumping to the

ground and grasping the outstretched hand in his own horny palm. "I'm

very glad to see you, Mr. Rosenbaum."

"Glad ain't no name for it," said Levi. "Did you say you'd got the boys

in there? Here, you men, bring me two or three of those cracker-boxes."

By the aid of the cracker-boxes Levi climbed into the car, and shook the

boys' hands, and cried and talked mingled gladness and sympathy in his

broken English.

"What place have you got, and what are you doin' down here, Mr.

Rosenbaum," the Deacon asked in the first lull.

"O, I'm Special Agent of the Treasury in charge of the cotton business.

You see, these rascals have been stealing the Treasury blind, in cotton,

and they had to have an honest man down here, who was up to all their

tricks, and wouldn't stand no nonsense. They sent me, and gave me orders

which make me boss of the whole outfit. None of them outrank me about

these trains."

"So I see," said the Deacon. "Wisht I'd had a handful of your authority

yesterday."

"Here, we're wasting time," said Levi suddenly. "You're tryin' to get

these boys back home. I'll see that they get as far as the Ohio River as

fast as the train'll go. Here, six or eight of you men pick up these

boys and carry them over to my car there. Handle them as if they were

eggs, for they're my friends."

There was no lack of willing hands to execute this order. That was long

before the days of private cars, even for railway magnates, but

Rosenbaum had impressed a caboose for himself, which he had had fitted

up with as many of the comforts of a home as were available at that era

of car-building. He had a good bed with a spring mattress for himself

and another for his friends, table, chairs, washroom and a fairly-

equipped kitchen, stored with provisions, for he was as fond of good

living as of sumptuous raiment. All this and more he was only too glad

to place at the disposal of the Deacon and the boys. The Deacon himself

was not more solicitous about their comfort.

The train started as Levi had ordered, and sped along on a clear track

to Nashville. Cotton was needed at the North almost as much as rations

were needed at the front, and a train loaded with Treasury cotton had

superior rights to the track which must not be disregarded. At Nashville

a friend of Levi's, a Surgeon of generally recognized skill, and whom

Levi had telegraphed for, came aboard with a couple of skilled nurses,

who bathed the boys, dressed their wounds, and replaced their soiled,

torn clothes with new, clean ones, including fine, soft underwear from

Levi's own wardrobe.

"Say, Doc," said Shorty, after this was finished and he had devoured a

supper cooked under Levi's special care, "I feel so much better that I

don't believe there's any need o' my goin on any further. I'll jest lay

by here, and go into Convalescent Camp for a few days, and then go back

to the front with a squad, and help clean up our cracker line. I'd like

awfully well to have a hand in runnin' them rebels offen Lookout

Mountain. They've bin too infernally impudent and sassy for any earthly

use."

"Indeed you won't," said the Surgeon decisively. "You'll go straight

home, and stay there until you are well. You won't be fit for duty for

at least a month yet, if then. If you went out into camp now you would

have a relapse, and be dead inside of a week. The country between here

and Chattanooga is dotted with the graves of men who have been sent back

to the front too soon."

The journey to Louisville was delightful. At Louisville Levi tried hard

to get his caboose taken across the river and attached to a train on the

other side, so that the boys could go clear home in it. But a Special

Treasury Agent had but little of the importance north of the Ohio River

that he had south of it. Still, Levi managed to get the crew of an

accommodation train interested in the boys, whom he had driven across

the river on a light wagon, lying on his spring mattress. They were

placed in a comfortable caboose, and soon were speeding on the last

stretch of the journey.

The day was bright and sunny, and the boys were propped up, so that they

could look out of the windows and enjoy the scenery. That they were

nearing home made Si nervous and fidgety. It seemed to him that the

train only crawled, and stopped interminably at every station and

crossing. The Deacon became alarmed lest this should unfavorably affect

him, and resorted to various devices to divert his mind. He bought a

Cincinnati Gazette, and began reading it aloud. Si was deeply interested

in all the war news, particularly that relating to the situation at

Chattanooga, but he would not listen to the merits of Spalding's

Prepared Glue.

The day wore away towards evening.

"Ain't we most there, Pap?" Si asked querulously.

"About 25 mile away, I think," answered his father. "I disremember just

how fur that last stop is from the Crick, but I think it's betwixt 25

and 30 mile."

Just then the whistle blew for a stop.

"What'n the world are they stoppin' here for?" groaned Si. "Some woman's

got a dozen aigs or a pound o' butter that she wants to send to town. I

s'pose we'll stop here until she finishes churnin', or gits another aig

to make up a dozen. I never did see sich putterin' along."

The Deacon was deeply absorbed in an editorial on "President Lincoln's

duty in this Crisis," and paid no attention. Shorty craned his long neck

out of the window.

"Some gal's stopped the train to git on," he reported to Si. "She's

apparently been payin' a visit to a house up there a little ways, and

they've brung her down in a buggy with her trunk. She's dressed up fit

to kill, and she's purtier than a peach-blossom. Jehosephat, Si, I

believe she's the very same gal that you was castin' sheep's eyes at

when you was home. Yes, it is."

"Annabel?" gasped Si.

"What's that?" said the Deacon, rousing to interest, but carefully

putting his thumb down to mark the place where he left off.

"Shorty thinks Annabel is out there gittin' on the train."

"Eh," said the Deacon, shoving up his spectacles and taking a good look.

"It certainly is. She's been down here to see the Robinses, who live out

here somewhere. I'll jest go out and bring her in here."

CHAPTER VI. THE BOYS IN THE OLD HOME ON BEAN BLOSSOM CREEK.

THE Deacon had been afraid to telegraph directly to his wife that he was

bringing the boys home. He knew the deadly alarm that would seize mother

and daughters at the very sight of the yellow telegraph envelope

directed to them. They would interpret it to mean that Si was dead, and

probably in their grief fail to open the envelope and read the message.

So at Jeffersonville he sent a message to Sol Pringle, the agent and

operator at the station. The Deacon remembered the strain the former

message had been on the young operator's intelligence, besides he

himself was not used to writing messages, and so, regardless of expense,

he conveyed his thoughts to Sol in this wise:

Deer Sol: put yore thinkin' cap on, and understand just what Ime sayin'.

I want you to send word out to the house at once that Ime comin' home

this evenin' on the accommodation train, and bringing the boys. Be

keerful and doant make a fool of yourself and skeer the wimmin fokes.

Respectfully yores, Josiah Klegg.

Sol had plenty of time to study that dispatch out, and he not only sent

word as desired, but he communicated the news to all who came to the

station. The result was there was quite a crowd of friends there to

greet the home-comers.

The reception of the message had thrown the household into a flurry of

joyful expectancy. It was far better news than the Deacon's last letter

had led them to anticipate. After a few moments of tearful ejaculation

and mutual kissing over it, mother and daughters began to get everything

in readiness to give the returning ones the warmest, most cheerful

welcome. Abraham Lincoln was summoned in from his rail-splitting, which

he had been pursuing quite leisurely during the Deacon's absence, and

stirred to spasmodic energy under Maria's driving to cut an additional

supply of dry wood, and carry it into every room in the house, where

little Sammy Woggles, the orphan whom the Deacon and Mrs. Klegg were

bringing up, built cheer-shedding fires. Mrs. Klegg had her choicest

young chickens killed, and after she and Amanda had robbed every other

room of whatever they thought would add to the comfort of Si's, she set

herself to work preparing a supper which would outdo all her previous

efforts.

Hours before the train was due Maria had Abraham Lincoln bring out the

spring-wagon and hitch the horses to it. Then he had to lay in a bed of

clean straw, and upon this was placed a soft feather bed, blankets and

pillows. Maria decided that she would drive to the station herself.

"Never do in the world," said she, "to trust them skittish young horses,

what hain't done a lick o' work since Pap went away, to that stoopid

darky. They'd surely run away and break his neck, which 'd be no great

loss, and save lots o' provisions, but they'd smash that new wagon and

break their own necks, which are worth more'n $200 apiece."

"Maria, how can you talk so?" said the gentle Mrs. Klegg reprovingly.

"It's a sin to speak so lightly o' death o' a feller-creature."

"Well, if he's a feller-creature o' mine," returned the sprightly Maria,

"the Lord made a slack-twisted job of him some dark night out o'

remnants, and couldn't find no gumption to put in him. He gave him an

alligator's appetite instid. And ain't I tryin' to save his life?

Besides, I'm nearly dead to see Si. I want to be the first to see him."

This aroused Amanda, but Maria stood on her rights as the elder sister,

had her way, as she usually did, and drove away triumphantly fully two

hours before train-time.

Upon her arrival at the station she quickly recognized that she was the

central figure in the gathering crowd, and she would have been more than

a young woman if she had not made the most of her prominence.

Other girls were there with their fathers and mothers who had brothers

who had been in the three months' service, or were now in three years

regiments, or who had been discharged on account of disability, or who

had been in this battle or that, but none of them a brother who had

distinguished himself in the terrible battle about which everybody was

now talking, who had helped capture a rebel flag, who had been wounded

almost to death, who had been reported dead, and who was now coming

home, a still living evidence of all this. No boy who had gone from Bean

Blossom Creek neighborhood had made the figure in the public eye that Si

had, and Maria was not the girl to hide the light of his achievements

under a bushel. She was genially fraternal with those girls who had

brothers still in the service, affable to those whose brothers had been

in, but were now, for any reason, out, but only distantly civil to those

whose brothers had not enlisted. Of these last was Arabella Widgeon,

whose father had been one of the earliest immigrants to the Wabash, and

was somewhat inclined to boast of his Old Virginia family. He owned a

larger farm than the Deacon's, and Arabella, who was a large, showy

girl, a year or two older than Maria, had been her schoolmate, and,

Maria thought, disposed to "put on airs" over her. Arabella's brother

Randolph was older than Si, but had chosen to continue his studies at

Indianapolis rather than engage in "a war to free the niggers." But

Arabella had developed an interest in the war since she had met some

engaging young gentlemen who had come through the neighborhood on

recruiting duty, and was keeping up a fitful correspondence with two or

three of them.

"It must be very nice, Maria," said Arabella, with a show of cordiality,

but which Maria interpreted as an attempt to patronize, "to have your

brother back home with you again."

"It certainly will be. Miss Widgeon," answered Maria, with strictly

"company manners." "One who has never had a brother exposed to the

constant dangers of army life can hardly understand how glad we all feel

to have Si snatched from the very jaws of death and brung back to us."

"That's a little love-tap that'll settle several scores with Miss

Frills," Maria chuckled to herself. "Partickerly the airs she put on

over all us girls when she was running around to singing-school and

church with that Second Lieutenant, who ain't got across the Ohio River

yet, and I don't believe he intends to. Sol Pringle tells me all his

letters to her are postmarked Jeffersonville."

Arabella took no seeming notice of the shot, but came back sweetly:

"I am awfully glad that your brother was not hurt so badly as at first

reported. He couldn't be, and be able to come home now. These papers do

magnify everything so, and make no end of fuss over little things as

well as big ones, I was very much alarmed at first, for fear Si might be

really badly hurt."

This was too much for Maria. Her company manners slid off like a drop of

water from a cabbage leaf, and she answered hotly:

"I'd have you know. Miss Widgeon, the papers don't magnify the matter.

They don't make a fuss over nothing. They don't begin to tell all the

truth. None o' them can. My brother was nearer dead than any man who

ever lived. Nothing but the favor of God and Klegg grit pulled him

through. It'd killed a whole house full o' Randy Widgeons or that Second

Lieutenant. I remember Randy Widgeon turning pale and a'most fainting

when he run a fish-hook in his finger. If it ain't nothing, why don't

Randy Widgeon go down there a little while, with the rest o' the boys,

and do his share?"

"My brother disbelieves in the constitutionality of this war, and denies

that we have any right to take away other people's slaves," said

Arabella loftily. "I s'pose he's a right to his opinions."

"A poor excuse's better'n none," retorted Maria. "I noticed that he

didn't turn out last Summer to keep John Morgan from stealing our

people's horses, and robbing their stores and houses. S'pose he thought

it unconstitutional to let a nasty rebel gorilla shoot at him. It's very

convenient to have opinions to keep you from doin' things that you're

afraid to do."

The dialog was approaching the volcanic stage, when a poorly-dressed,

sad-faced woman, with a babe in her arms, edged through the crowd to

Maria, and said timidly, for she had never been accounted by the Kleggs

as in their set:

"Miss Maria, I don't s'pose you know me, but I do so want to git a

chance to speak to your pap as soon as he gets here, and before all

these people gits hold of him. Mebbe he's found out something about poor

Jim. I can't believe that Jim was killed, and I keep hopin' that he got

away somehow, and is in one o' them hospitals. Mebbe your pap knows. I

know you think Jim was bad and rough, but he was mighty good to me, and

he's all that I had. I'm nearly dead to hear about him, but I can't

write, nor kin Jim. I've bin tryin' to make up my mind to come over to

your house, and ax you to write for me."

"Of course, you can, you poor, dear woman," said Maria, her mood

changing at once from fierceness to loving pity. "You shall be the first

one to speak to Pap and Si after me. Why didn't you come over to see us

long ago. We'd only bin too glad to see you, and do all we could for

you. Yes, I know you.

"You're Polly Blagdon, and live down by the sawmill, where your husband

used to work. You look tired and weak carrying that big baby. Let me

hold him awhile and rest you. Sit down there on that box. I'll make Sol

Pringle clear it off for you."

'arabella Curled Her Lip at Seeing Maria Take the Baby.' 87

Arabella curled her nose, at seeing Maria take the unwashed baby in her

arms, to the imminent danger of her best gown, but Maria did not notice

this, and was all loving attention to the baby and its mother.

It seemed an age until the whistle of the locomotive was heard. The

engine had to stop to take water at the creek, several hundred yards

from the station, and Maria's impatience to see Si and be the first to

speak to him could not brook the delay.

"Come along, Mrs. Blagdon," she called, and with the baby still in her

arms, she sped down the cinder track to the pumping station, and then

along the line of freight cars until she recognized her father's face

looking from the caboose, which was still beyond the bridge. She shouted

joyously at him.

"Maria's out there, waitin' for us, and she's got a baby in her arms.

What do you suppose she thinks we want a baby for?"

"'Spect she's been practicin' on it, so's to take care o' us, Si," said

Shorty. "I believe we've been more trouble to your father than we wuz to

our mothers when we wuz teethin'."

"I've bin repaid for all, more'n repaid for all," said the Deacon;

"especially since I'm once more back home, and out o' the reach o' the

Sheriffs o' Tennessee. I'll stay away from Chattanoogy till after the

Grand Jury meets down there. If it does its dooty there'll be several

bills with Josiah Klegg's name entirely too conspicuous."

"I want to be able to git out to the next covenant meetin', Pap," said

Si with a grin, "and hear you confess to the brethren and sisters all

that you've bin up to down at Chattanoogy."

"Well, you won't git there," said the Deacon decisively. "We don't allow

nobody in there who hain't arrived at the years o' discreetion, which'll

keep you out for a long time yit."

The train pulled over across the bridge, and handing the baby to its

mother, Maria sprang in, to recoil in astonishment at the sight of

Annabel's blushing face.

"You mean thing," said Maria, "to steal a march on me this way, when I

wanted to be the first to see Si. Where in the world did you come from,

and how did you find out he was comin' home on this train? Si, you

didn't let her know before you did us, did you?"

She was rent by the first spasm of womanly jealousy that any other woman

should come between her brother and his mother and sisters.

"Don't be cross, Maria," pleaded Annabel. "I didn't know nothin' of it.

You know I've been down to see the Robinses, and intended to stay till

tomorrer, but something moved me to come home today, and I just happened

to take this train. I really didn't know. Yet," and the instinctive

rights of her womanhood and her future relations with Si asserted

themselves to her own wonderment, "I had what the preachers call an

inward promptin', which I felt it my dooty to obey, and I now think it

came from God. You know I ought to be with Si as soon as anybody," and

she hid her face in her hands in maidenly confusion.

"Of course you ought, you dear thing," said Maria, her own womanhood

overcoming her momentary pique. "It was hateful o' me to speak that way

to you."

And she kissed Annabel effusively, though a little deadness still

weighed at her heart over being supplanted, even by the girl she liked

best in all the world after her own sister.

If the young folks had not been so engaged in their own affairs they

would have seen the Deacon furtively undoing his leathern pocket-book

and slipping a greenback into the weeping Mrs. Blagdon's hand, as the

only consolation he was able to give her.

There were plenty of strong, willing hands to help carry Si from the

caboose to the wagon. It was strange how tender and gentle those strong,

rough farmers could be in handling a boy who had been stricken down in

defense of his country. Annabel's face was as red as a hollyhock over

the way that everybody assumed her right to be next to Si, and those who

could not get a chance at helping him helped her to a seat in the wagon

alongside of him, while the dethroned Maria took her place by her

father, as he gathered the reins in his sure hands and started home.

Maria had to expend some of the attentions she meant for Si upon Shorty,

who received them with awkward confusion.

"Now, don't make no great shakes out o' me, Miss Maria," he pleaded. "I

didn't do nothin' partickler, I tell you. I was only along o' Si when he

snatched that rebel flag, and I got a little crack on the head, which

wouldn't 've amounted to nothin', if I hadn't ketched the fever at

Chattanoogy. I'm a'most well, and only come back home to please the

Surgeon, who was tired seein' me around."

They found the house a blaze of light, shining kindly from the moment it

came in sight, and there was a welcome in Towser's bark which touched

Si's heart.

"Even the dogs bark differently up here. Shorty," he said. "It's full

and honest, and don't mean no harm. You know that old Towser ain't

barkin' to signal some bushwhackers that the Yankees 's comin'. It

sounds like real music."

It was Mrs. Klegg's turn to receive a shock when she rushed out to greet

her son, and found Annabel by his side. It went deeper to her heart than

it had to Maria's; but, then, she had more philosophy, and had foreseen

it longer.

After everything had been done, after she had fed them her carefully-

prepared dishes, after the boys had been put to bed in the warmed room,

and she knew they were sleeping the sound sleep of deep fatigue, she

went to her own room to sit down and think it all over. There Maria

found her, wiping away her tears, and took her in her arms, and kissed

her.

"It's right. It's all right. It's God's ways," said the mother.

"A son's a son till he gets a wife; But a daughter's a daughter all her

life."

CHAPTER VII. WEEKS OF CONVALESCENCE PLENTY OF NURSING FROM LOVING,

TENDER HANDS.

WHAT days those were that followed the arrival of the boys home. In

Shorty's hard, rough life he had never so much as dreamed of such

immaculate housekeeping as Mrs. Klegg's. He had hardly been in speaking

distance of such women as Si's mother and sisters. To see these bright,

blithe, sweet-speeched women moving about the well-ordered house in busy

performance of their duties was a boundless revelation to him. It opened

up a world of which he had as little conception as of a fairy realm. For

the first time he began to understand things that Si had told him of his

home, yet it meant a hundredfold more to him than to Si, for Si had been

brought up in that home. Shorty began to regard the Deacon and Si as

superior beings, and to stand in such awe of Mrs. Klegg and the girls

that he became as tongue-tied as a bashful school-boy in their presence.

It amazed him to hear Si, when the girls would teaze him, speak to them

as sharply as brothers sometimes will, and just as if they were ordinary

mortals.

"Si, you orter to be more careful in talkin' to your sisters," he

remonstrated when they were alone.

"You've bin among rough men so long that you don't know how to talk to

real ladies."

"O, come off," said Si, petulantly. "What's a-eatin you. You don't know

them girls as well as I do. Particularly Maria. She'll run right over

you if you let her. She's one o' the best girls that ever breathed, but

you've got to keep a tight rein on her. The feller that marries her's

got to keep the whip-hand or she'll make him wish that he'd never bin

born."

Shorty's heart bounded at the thought of any man having the unspeakable

happiness of marrying that peerless creature, and then having the

meanness not to let her do precisely as she wanted to.

Both the boys had been long enough in the field to make that plain farm

home seem a luxurious palace of rest. The beds were wonders of softness

and warmth, from which no unwelcome reveille or cross-grained Orderly-

Sergeant aroused them with profane threats of extra duty.

Instead, after peeping cautiously through the door to see that they were

awake, the girls would come in with merry greeting, bowls of warm water,

and soft, white towels fragrant of the lawn. Maria would devote herself

to helping Shorty get ready for breakfast, and Amanda to Si. Shorty

trembled like a captured rabbit when Maria first began her

ministrations. All his blood rushed to his face, and he tried to mumble

something about being able to take care of himself, which that

straightforward young woman paid not the slightest attention to. After

his first fright was over there was a thrilling delight about the

operation which electrified him.

When the boys were properly washed and combed, Mrs. Klegg, her kind,

motherly face beaming with consciousness of good and acceptable service,

would enter with a large tray, laden with fragrant coffee, delicious

cream, golden butter, her own peerless bread and bits of daintily-

broiled chicken.

"Si," said Shorty, one morning after he had finished the best breakfast

he had ever known, the girls had gone away with the things, and he was

leaning back thinking it all over in measureless content, "if the

preachers'd preach that a feller'd go to such a place as this when he

died if he was real good, how good we'd all be, and we'd be rather

anxious to die. How in the world are we ever goin' to git up spunk

enough to leave this and go back to the field?"

"You'll git tired o' this soon enough," said Si. "It's awful nice for a

change, but I don't want it to last long. I want to be able to git up

and git out. I hate awfully to have women-folks putterin' around me."

The boys could not help rapidly recovering under such favorable

conditions, and soon they were able to sit up most of the day. In the

evening, ensconced in the big Shaker rocking chairs, sitting on pillows,

and carefully swathed in blankets, they would sit on either side of the

bright fire, with the family and neighbors forming the semi-circle

between, and talk over the war interminably. The neighbors all had sons

and brothers in the army, either in the 200th Ind. or elsewhere, and

were hungry for every detail of army news. They plied Si and Shorty with

questions until the boys' heads ached. Then the Deacon would help out

with his observations of camp-life.

"I'm not goin' to believe," said one good old brother, who was an

exhorter in the Methodist Church, "that the army is sich a pitfall, sich

a snare to the feet o' the unwary as many try to make out. There's no

need of any man or boy who goes to serve his country and his God,

fallin' from grace and servin' the devil. Don't you think so, too.

Deacon? There's no reason why he shouldn't be jest as good a man there

as he is at home. Don't you think so, too. Deacon Klegg?"

"Um—um-um," hemmed the Deacon, getting red in the face, and avoiding

answering the question by a vigorous stirring of the fire, while Si

slily winked at Shorty. "I impressed that on son Jed's mind when he

enlisted," continued the brother. "Jed was always a good, straight up-

and-down boy; never gave me or his mother a minute's uneasiness. I told

him to have no more to do with cards than with smallpox; to avoid liquor

as he would the bite of a rattlesnake; to take nothin' from other people

that he didn't pay full value for; that swearin' was a pollution to the

lips and the heart. I know that Jed hearkened to all that I said, and

that it sank into his heart, and that he'll come back, if it's God's

will that he shall come back, as good a boy as when he went away."

Si and Shorty did not trust themselves to look at one another before the

trusting father's eyes, for Jedediah Bennett, who was one of the best

soldiers in Co. Q, had developed a skill at poker that put all the other

boys on their mettle; and as for foraging—well, neither Si nor Shorty

ever looked for anything in a part where Jed Bennett had been.

"Deacon," persisted Mr. Bennett, "you saw a great deal o' the army. You

didn't see the wickedness down there that these Copperheads 's chargin',

did you? You only found men wicked that'd be wicked any place, and

really good men jest as good there as at home?"

"It's jest as you say, Mr. Bennett," answered the Deacon, coughing to

gain time for a diplomatic answer, and turning so that the boys could

not see his face. "A wicked man's wicked anywhere, and he finds more

chance for his wickedness in the army. A good man ought to be good

wherever he's placed, but there are positions which are more tryin' than

others. By the way, Maria, bring us some apples and hickory nuts. Bring

in a basketful o' them Rome Beauties for Mr. Bennett to take home with

him. You recollect them trees that I budded with Rome Beauty scions that

I got up the river, don't you, Bennett? Well, they bore this year, and

I've bin calculatin' to send over some for you and Mrs. Bennett. I tell

you, they're beauties indeed. Big as your fist, red as a hollyhock,

fragrant as a rose, and firm and juicy. I have sent for scions enough to

bud half my orchard. I won't raise nothin' hereafter but Rome Beauties

and Russets."

The apples and nuts were brought in, together with some of Mrs. Klegg's

famous crullers and a pitcher of sweet cider, and for awhile all were

engaged in discussing the delicious apples. To paraphrase Dr. Johnson,

God undoubtedly could make a better fruit than a Rome Beauty apple from

a young tree, growing in the right kind of soil, but undoubtedly He

never did. The very smell of the apple is a mild intoxication, and its

firm, juicy flesh has a delicacy of taste that the choicest vintages of

the Rhine cannot surpass.

But Mr. Bennett was persistent on the subject of morality in the army.

He soon refused the offer of another apple, laid his knife back on the

plate, put the plate on the table, wiped his mouth and hands, and said:

"Deacon, these brothers and sisters who have come here with me to-night

are, like myself, deeply interested in the moral condition of the army,

where we all have sons or kinsmen. Now, can't you sit right there and

tell us of your observations and experiences, as a Christian man and

father, from day to day, of every day that you were down there? Tell us

everything, just as it happened each day, that we may be able to judge

for ourselves."

Si trembled a httle, for fear that they had his father cornered. But the

Deacon was equal to the emergency.

"It's a'most too late, now, Mr. Bennett," he said, looking at the clock,

"for it's a long story. You know I was down there quite a spell. We

can't keep these boys out o' bed late now, and by the time we have

family worship it'll be high time for them to be tucked in. Won't you

read us a chapter o' the Bible and lead us in prayer, Brother Bennett?"

While Shorty was rapidly gaining health and strength, his mind was ill

at ease. He had more time than ever to think of Jerusha Briggs, of Bad

Ax, Wis., and his surroundings accentuated those thoughts. He began by

wondering what sort of a girl she really was, compared to Si's sisters,

and whether she was used to such a home as this? Was she as handsome, as

fine, as high-spirited as Maria? Then his loyal soul reproached him. If

she would have him he would marry her, no matter who she she was. Why

should he begin now making comparisons with other girls? Then, she might

be far finer than Maria. How would he himself compare with her, when he

dared not even raise his eyes to Maria?

He had not written her since the Tullahoma campaign. That seemed an age

away, so many things had happened in the meanwhile.

He blamed himself for his neglect, and resolved to write at once, to

tell her where he was, what had happened to him, and that he was going

to try to visit her before returning to the field. But difficult as

writing had always been, it was incomparably more so now. He found that

where he thought of Jerusha once, he was thinking of Maria a hundred

times. Not that he would admit to himself there was any likeness in his

thoughts about the two girls. He did not recognize that there was

anything sentimental in those about Maria. She was simply some

infinitely bright, superior sort of a being, whose voice was sweeter

than a bird's, and whose presence seemed to brighten the room. He found

himself uncomfortable when she was out of sight. The company of Si or

his father was not as all-sufficient and interesting as it used to be.

When Maria went out of the room they became strangely dull and almost

tiresome, unless they talked of her.

Worse yet. As he grew stronger and better able to take care of himself

Maria dropped the familiarity of the nurse, and began putting him on the

footing of a young gentleman and a guest of the house. She came no more

into the room with the basin of warm water, and got him ready for his

breakfast. She toned down carefully with every improvement in his

strength. First, she merely brought him the basin and towel, and then as

he grew able to go about she would rap on his door and tell him to come

out and get ready for breakfast. Shorty began to feel that he was losing

much by getting well, and that his convalescence had been entirely too

rapid.

Then he would go off and try to compose his thoughts for a letter to

Jerusha Briggs, but before he knew it he would find himself in the

kitchen watching, with dumb admiration, Maria knead bread, with her

sleeves rolled to her shoulders, and her white, plump arms and bright

face streaked with flour. There would be little conversation, for Maria

would sing with a lark's voice, as she worked, some of the sweet old

hymns, chording with Amanda, busy in another part of the house. Shorty

did not want to talk. It was enough for him to feast his eyes and ears.

They were sitting down to supper one evening when little Sammy Woggles

came in from the station.

"There's your Cincinnati Gazette," he said, handing the paper to the

Deacon, "and there's a letter for Si."

"Open it and read it, Maria," said Si, to whom reading of letters meant

labor, and he was yet too weak for work.

"It's postmarked Chattanooga, Tenn.," said she, scanning the envelope

carefully, "and addressed to Sergeant Josiah Klegg, 200th Indiana

Volunteer Infantry, Bean Blossom Creek, Ind."

"Sergeant!" ejaculated Si, Shorty and the Deacon, in the same breath.

"Are you sure it's Sergeant?"

"Yes, it's Sergeant," said Maria, spelling the title out. "Who in the

world do you s'pose it's from, Si?"

"It don't seem to occur to you that you could find out by openin' it,"

said the Deacon, sarcastically.

"Open it and see who it's from," said Si.

"The man writes a mighty nice hand," said Maria, scanning the

superscription. "Just like that man that taught writing-school here last

Winter. It can't be from him, can it? Didn't s'pose there was anybody in

your company that could write as well as that. Look, Si, and see if you

can tell whose handwritin' it is."

"O, open it, Maria," groaned Si, "and you'll likely find his name writ

somewhere inside."

"Don't be so impatient. Si," said Maria, feeling around for a hair-pin

with which to rip open the envelope. "You're gittin' crosser'n two

sticks since you're gittin' well."

"He certainly does write a nice hand," said Maria, scanning the

inclosure deliberately. "Just see how he makes his d's and s's. All his

up-strokes are light, and all his down ones are heavy, just as the

writing-master used to teach. And his curves are just lovely. And what a

funny name he has signed. J. T. No; I. T. No; that's a J, because it

comes down below the line. M-c-G-i-l-l—I can't make out the rest."

"McGillicuddy; ain't that it?" said Si eagerly. "It's from Capt.

McGillicuddy. Read it, Maria."

"McGillicuddy. Well, of all the names!" said that deliberate young

woman. "Do you really mean to say that any man has really such a name as

that?"

"'Mandy, take that letter away from her and read it," commanded Si.

"Well, I'm goin' to read your old letter for you, if you'll just gi' me

time," remonstrated Maria. "What are you in such a hurry for, old cross-

patch? Le' me see:

"Headquarters, Co. Q, 200th Indiana Volunteer Infantry. "Chattanooga,

Tenn., Nov. 20, 1863. "Sergeant Josiah Klegg.

"Dear Klegg: I have not heard from you since you left, but I am going to

hope that you are getting well right along. All the boys think of you

and Shorty, and send their love and their hopes that you will soon be

back with us. We all miss you very much.

"I have some good news for you and Shorty. On my recommendation the

Colonel has issued a special order promoting you Sergeant and Shorty

Corporal, for gallant and meritorious services at the battle of

Chickamauga, in which you captured a rebel flag. The order was read on

parade this evening. So it is Sergeant Klegg and Corporal Elliott

hereafter, and they will be obeyed and respected accordingly. You will

take poor Pettibone's place, and Elliott will take Harney's.

"I do not know where Elliott is, but expect that he is with you. If so,

give him the news, and also the inclosed letter, which came to me. If

not, and you know where he is, write him.

"Write me as soon as you can. We are all getting along very well,

especially since Grant came up and opened our cracker line. My little

hurt is healing nicely, so that I can go about with a cane. We are all

getting ready to jump old Bragg on Mission Ridge, and I am going to do

my best to go along at the head of Co. Q, though I have been Acting

Major and Lieutenant-Colonel since I got up.

"Regards to your father, and believe me, sincerely your friend,

"J. T. MCGILLICUDDY,

"Captain, Co. Q, 200th Ind. Inf. Vols."

Maria passed the letter over to Si to read again, and without more ado

opened the inclosure. As she did so, a glance of recognition of the

handwriting flashed upon Shorty, and he started to take the letter from

her, but felt ashamed to do so.

"Why, this is from a woman," said Maria, "and she writes an awful bad,

scratchy hand." Being a woman's letter she was bound to read it without

loss of time, and she did so:

"Bad Ax, Wis., Nov. 10.

"Capt. McGillicuddy.

"Dear Sir: I believe you command the company, as they call it, in which

there was a gentleman named Mr. Elliott. The papers reports that he was

kild at thfe battle of Chickamaugy. I had some correspondence with him,

and I sent him my picture.

Would you kindly write me the particklers of his death, and also what

was done with sich letters and other things that he had? I would very

much like to have you return me my letters and picture if you have them.

Send them by express to Miss Jerusha Briggs, at this plais, and I will

pay the charges. I will explain to you why I want them sent to a difrunt

naim than that which I sign. Upon learnin' of Mr. Elliott's deth I

excepted the addresses of Mr. Adams, whose wife passed away last summer.

You may think I was in a hurry, but widowers always mene bizniss when

they go a-courtin', as you will know if ever you was a widower, and he

had two little girls who needed a mother's care. My husband is inclined

to be jelous, as widowers usually are, and I don't want him to ever know

nothin' about my letters to Mr. Elliott, and him havin' my picture. I am

goin' to ask you to help me, as a gentleman and a Christian, and to keep

this confidential.

"Very respectfully,

"Mrs. Benj. F. Adams."

They all listened eagerly to the reading of the letter, and when it was

finished looked for Shorty. But he had gone outside, where there was

more air.

Shorty Went Outside Where There Was More Air. 101

CHAPTER VIII. SI IS PROMOTED ANNABEL APPRISED OF IT—SHORTY MEETS

JERUSHA.

ANNABEL came in just as the reading of the letter was finished and her

arrival caused a commotion in the family, as it always did, which

momentarily distracted attention from the missive and Shorty's absence.

She and the mother and daughters had to exchange kisses and news about

the health of both families. Then she had to give a filial kiss to the

Deacon, who had already begun to assume paternal airs toward her, and

finally she got around to Si. Neither of them had yet got to the point

of "kissing before folks," and had to be content with furtive squeezing

of hands. Si's heart was aching to have Annabel read Capt.

McGillicuddy's letter, yet such was his shame-faced modesty that not for

the world would he have alluded to it before the family. If he had been

alone with her, he might have slipped the letter unopened into her hand,

with a shy request for her to read it, but so sternly was the Deacon and

his family set against anything like "vainglory" and "self-praise" that

he could not bring himself to mention that such a letter had been

received. At last, when full particulars had been given about the spread

of measles and whooping-cough, who was to preach and who to be baptized

at the coming quarterly meeting, Maria's active mind turned to things

nearer Si's heart, and she said:

"O, Si's got sich a nice letter from his officer-boss, his Corporal, or

Colonel, or General, or whatever they call him—Mister—"

"My Captain—Capt. McGillicuddy, Maria," said Si, reddening at Maria's

indifference to and ignorance of military titles.

"Yes, Mr. McMillifuddy. Did you ever hear of such a ridiculous name?"

"McGillicuddy—Capt. McGillicuddy, Maria. Why can't you get his name

right?"

"Well, if I had sich a name as that I wouldn't expect people to git it

right. There's no sense in havin' a Dutch name that makes your tongue

crack like a whip. Well, this Mr. McFillemgoody is Si's boss, and he

writes a nice letter, and says Si done so well at Chickamaugy that some

other boss—a Colonel or Corporal—"

"The Colonel, Maria. The Colonel commands the whole regiment. Won't you

never know the difference? A Colonel's much higher than a Corporal. You

girls never will learn nothin'."

"Well, I never kin tell t'other from which," replied Maria, petulantly.

"And I don't have to. I don't care a hill o' beans whether a Corporal

bosses or a Colonel, or t'other way. Anyhow, Si's no longer a Corporal.

He's a Sargint."

"O, Si," said Annabel, her big blue eyes filling with grief; "I'm so

sorry."

"Why, Annabel," said Si, considerably abashed; "what's the matter? Don't

you understand. I'm promoted. Sergeant's higher than a Corporal."

"Is it really?" said Annabel, whose tears were beginning to come. "It

don't sound like it. Sargint don't sound near so big as Corporal. I

always thought that Corporal was the very purtiest title in the whole

army. None o' the rest o' them big names sounded half so nice. Whenever

I saw Corporal in the papers I always thought of you."

"Well, you must learn to like Sergeant just as well," said Si, fondly

squeezing her hand. "Maria, let her read the letter."

"Well, Mr. Gillmacfuddy does seem like a real nice, sociable sort of a

man, in spite of his name," she commented, as she finished. "And I like

him, because he seems to be such a good friend o' yours. I s'pose him

and you board together, and eat at the same table when you are in the

army, don't you?"

"O, no, we don't," said Si patiently, for her ignorance seemed

beautifully feminine, where Maria's was provoking. "You see, dear, he's

my Captain—commands about a hundred sich as me, and wears a sword and

shoulder-straps and other fine clothes, and orders me and the rest

around, and has his own tent, all by himself, and his servant to cook

for him, and we have to salute him, and do jest what he says, and not

talk back—at least, so he kin hear it, and jest lots o' things."

"Then I don't like him a bit," pouted Annabel. "He's a horrid, stuck-up

thing, and puts on airs. And he hain't got no business to put on airs

over you. Nobody's got any right to put on airs over you, for you're as

good as anybody alive."

Si saw that this task of making Annabel under stand the reason for

military rank was going to take some time, and could be better done when

they were by themselves, and he took her out by the kitchen-fire to make

the explanation.

For the very first time in his whole life Shorty had run away from a

crisis. With his genuine love of fighting, he rather welcomed any

awkward situation in which men were concerned. It was a challenge to

him, and he would carry himself through with a mixture of brass, bravado

and downright hard fighting. But he would have much more willingly faced

the concentrated fire of all the batteries in Bragg's army than Maria's

eyes as she raised them from that letter; and as for the comments of her

sharp tongue—well, far rather give him Longstreet's demons charging out

of the woods onto Snodgrass Hill. He walked out into the barn, and

leaned against the fanning-mill to think it all over. His ears burned

with the imagination of what Maria was saying. He was very uncomfortable

over what the rest of the family were thinking and saying, particularly

the view that dear old Mrs. Klegg might take. With the Deacon and Si it

was wholly different. He knew that, manlike, they averaged him up, one

day with another, and gave him the proper balance to his credit. But

Maria—there everything turned to gall, and he hated the very name of Bad

Ax, the whole State of Wisconsin and everybody in it. He would never

dare go back into the house and face the family. What could he do? There

was only one thing—get back to his own home, the army, as soon as

possible.