Don't Care a Continental 073
In the morning, when the company was ordered out for drill, Si Klegg was standing before the sputtering fire trying to dry his steaming clothes, every now and then turning around to give the other side a chance. The mercury in his individual thermometer had fallen to a very low point—in fact, it was a cold day for Si's patriotism. He had reached that stage, not by any means infrequent among the soldiers, when he "didn't care whether school kept or not."
"Well, Si, I s'pose you love your country this mornin'!" said Shorty. He was endeavoring to be cheerful under adverse circumstances.
"I ain't quite as certain about it," said Si, reflectively, "as I was when I left home, up in Posey County. I'm afeared I haven't got enough of it to last me through three years of this sort of thing!"
Si felt at that moment as though he was of no account for anything, unless it was to be decked with paint and feathers and stood for a sign in front of a cigar store.
The rain had ceased, and the Colonel of the 200th felt that he must, like the busy bee, "improve each shining hour" in putting his command into condition for effective service. So he told the Adjutant to have the companies marched over to an adjacent pasture for drill.
"Attention, Co. Q!" shouted the Captain, after the Orderly had got the boys limbered up enough to get into ranks. The Captain didn't know very much about drilling himself, but he had been reading up "Hardee," and thought he could handle the company; but it was a good deal like the blind trying to lead the blind.
"Right—Face!"
Not quite half the men faced the wrong way, turning to the left instead of the right, which was doing pretty well for a starter.
"Get around there, Klegg, and the rest of you fellows! Can't ye ever learn anything."
'right--face!' 075
Si was so particularly awkward that the Captain put him at the tail-end of the company. Then he tried the right face again, and as the boys seemed to get around in fair shape he commanded:
"Right shoulder shift arms! Forward—March!"
The company started off; but the Captain was not a little surprised, on looking back, to see Si marching: off in the opposite direction. He had faced the wrong way again, and, as he didn't see the others, he thought he was all right, and away he went on his own hook, till a shout from the Captain told him of his mistake.
'forward--march!' 076
When the Captain reached the field which was the drill-ground for the day, he thought he would try a wheel. After a brief lecture to the company on the subject he gave the command for the movement.
'company--right Wheel!' 077
It is scarcely necessary to say that the first trial was a sad failure. The line bulged out in the center, and the outer flank, unable to keep up, fell behind, the company assuming nearly the shape of a big letter C. Then the boys on the outer end took the double-quick, cutting across the arc of the proper circle, which soon resulted in a hopeless wreck of the whole company. The Captain halted the chaotic mass of struggling men, and with the help of the Orderly finally succeeded in getting them straightened out and into line again. The men had often seen practiced soldiers going through this most difficult of all tactical movements, and it seemed easy enough; they didn't see why they couldn't do it just as well as the other fellows. They kept at it, and in the course of half an hour had improved so much that they could swing around in some kind of shape without the line breaking to pieces.
"COMPANY Q, tumble up here and git yer mail!" shouted the Orderly one afternoon, soon after the 200th Ind. turned into a tobacco patch to bivouac for the night. It had been two weeks since the regiment left Louisville, and this was the first mail that had caught up with it.
It seemed to the boys as if they had been away from home a year. For a whole fortnight they hadn't heard a word from their mothers, or sisters, or their "girls." Si Klegg couldn't have felt more lonesome and forsaken if he had been Robinson Crusoe.
In the excitement of distributing the mail everything else was forgotten.. The boys were all getting their suppers, but at the thought of letters from home even hunger had to take a back seat.
Si left his coffee-pot to tip over into the fire, and his bacon sizzling in the frying-pan, as he elbowed his way into the crowd that huddled around the Orderly.
"If there ain't more'n one letter for me," said Si softly to himself, "I hope it'll be from Annabel; but, of course, I'd like to hear from Ma and sister Marier, too!"
The Orderly, with a big package of letters in his hand, was calling out the names, and as the boys received their letters they distributed themselves through the camp, squatting about on rails or on the ground, devouring with the greatest avidity the welcome messages from home. The camp looked as if there had been a snowstorm.
Si waited anxiously to hear his name called as the pile letters rapidly grew smaller, and he began to think he was going to get left.
"Josiah Klegg!" at length shouted the Orderly, as he held out two letters. Si snatched them from his hand, went off by himself, and sat down on a log.
Si looked at his letters and saw that one of them was addressed in a pretty hand. He had never received a letter from Annabel before, but he "felt it in his bones" that this one was from her. He glanced around to be certain nobody was looking at him, and gently broke the seal, while a ruddy glow overspread his beardless cheeks. But he was secure from observation, as everybody else was similarly intent.
"Dear Si," the letter began. He didn't have to turn over to the bottom of the last page to know what name he would find there. He read those words over and over a dozen times, and they set his nerves tingling clear down to his toe-nails. Si forgot his aches and blisters as he read on through those delicious lines.
It's from Annabel 081
She wrote how anxious she was to hear from him and how cruel it was of him not to write to her real often; how she lay awake nights thinking about him down among those awful rebels; how she supposed that by this time he must be full of bullet-holes; and didn't he ge' hungry sometimes, and wasn't it about time for him to get a furlough? how it was just too mean for anything that those men down South had to get up a war; how proud she was of Si because he had 'listed, and how she watched the newspapers every day to find some thing about him; how she wondered how many rebels he had killed, and if he had captured any batteries yet—she said she didn't quite know what batteries were, but she read a good deal about capturing 'em, and she supposed it was something all the soldiers did; how she hoped he wouldn't forget her, and she'd like to see how he looked, now that he was a real soldier, and her father had sold the old "mooley" cow, and Sally Perkins was engage to Jim Johnson, who had stayed at home, and as for herself she wouldn't have anybody but a soldier about the size of Si, and 'Squire Jones's son had been trying to shine up to her and cut Si out, but she sent him off with a flea in his ear.
"Yours till deth, Annabel."
The fact that there was a word misspelt now and then did not detract in the least from the letter, so pleasing to Si. In fact, he was a little lame in orthography himself, so that he had neither the ability nor the disposition to scan Annabel's pages with a critic's eye. Si was happy, and as he began to cast about for his supper he even viewed with complacence his bacon burned to a crisp and his capsized coffee-pot helplessly melting away in the fire.
"Well, Si, what does she say?" said his friend Shorty.
"What does who say?" replied Si, getting red in the face, and bristling up and trying to assume an air of indifference.
"Just look here now. Si," said Shorty, "you can't play that on me. How about that rosy-cheeked girl up in Posey County?"
It was Si's tender spot. He hadn't got used to that sort of thing yet, and he felt that the emotions that made his heart throb like a sawmill were too sacred to be fooled with. Impelled by a sudden impulse he smote Shorty fairly between the eyes, felling him to the ground.
The Orderly, who happened to be near, took Si by the ear and marched him up to the Captain's quarters.
"Have him carry a rail in front of my tent for an hour!" thundered the Captain. "Don't let it be a splinter, either; pick out a good, heavy one. And, Orderly, detail a guard to keep Mr. Klegg moving."
Si Carries a Rail 083
Of course, it was very mortifying to Si, and he would have been almost heartbroken had he not been comforted by the thought that it was all for her! At first he felt as if he would like to take that rail and charge around and destroy the whole regiment; but, on thinking it over, he made up his mind that discretion was the better part of valor.
As soon as Si's hour was up, and he had eaten supper and "made up" with Shorty, he set about answering his letter. When, on his first march, Si cleaned out all the surplusage from his knapsack, he had hung on to a pretty portfolio that his sister gave him. This was stocked with postage stamps and writing materials, including an assortment of the envelopes of the period, bearing in gaudy colors National emblems, stirring legends, and harrowing scenes of slaughter, all intended to stimulate the patriotic impulses and make the breast of the soldier a very volcano of martial ardor.
When Si got out his nice portfolio he found it to be an utter wreck. It had been jammed into a shapeless mass, and, besides this, it had been soaked with rain; paper and envelopes were a pulpy ruin, and the postage stamps were stuck around here and there in the chaos. It was plain that this memento of home had fallen an early victim to the hardships of campaign life, and that its days of usefulness were over.
"It's no use; 'tain't any good," said Si sorrowfully, as he tossed the debris into the fire, after vainly endeavoring to save from the wreck enough to carry, out his epistolary scheme.
Then he went to the sutler—or "skinner," as he was better known—and paid 10 cents for a sheet of paper and an envelope, on which were the cheerful words, "It is sweet to die for one's country!" and 10 cents more for a 3-cent postage stamp. He borrowed a leadpencil, hunted up a piece of crackerbox, and sat down to his work by the flickering light of the fire. Si wrote:
"Deer Annie."
There he stopped, and while he was scratching his head and thinking what he would say next the Orderly came around detailing guards for the night, and directed Klegg to get his traps and report at once for duty.
Si Writes to 'deer Annie.' 085
"It hain't my turn," said Si. "There's Bill Brown, and Jake Schneider, and Pat Dooley, and a dozen more—I've been since they have!"
But the Orderly did not even deign to reply. Si remembered the guard-house, and his shoulder still ached from the rail he had carried that evening; so he quietly folded up his paper and took his place with the detail.
The next morning the army moved early, and Si had no chance to resume his letter. As soon as the regiment halted, after an 18-mile march, he tackled it again. This time nothing better offered in the way of a writing-desk than a tin plate, which he placed face downward upon his knee. Thus provided, Si plunged briskly into the job before him, with the following result:
"I now take my pen in hand to let you know that I am well, except the doggoned blisters on my feet, and I hope these few lines may find you enjoying the same blessings."
Si thought this was neat and a good start for his letter. Just as he had caught an idea for the next sentence a few scattering shots were heard on the picket-line, and in an instance the camp was in commotion. "Tall in!" "Be lively, men!" were heard on every hand.
Si sprang as if he had received a galvanic shock, cramming the letter into his pocket. Of course, there wasn't any fight. It was only one of the scares that formed so large a part of that campaign. But it spoiled Si's letter-writing for the time.
It was nearly a week before he got his letter done. He wrote part of it using for a desk the back of a comrade who was sitting asleep by the fire. He worked at it whenever he could catch a few minutes between the marches and the numerous details for guard, picket, fatigue and other duty. He said to Annie:
An Army Writing-desk 087
"Bein' a soljer aint quite what they crack it up to be whenthey're gittin' a fellow to enlist. It's mity rough, andyou'd better believe it. You ought to be glad you're a gurland don't haf to go. I wish't I was a gurl sometimes. Ihaven't kild enny rebbles yet. I hain't even seen one excepta fiew raskils that was tuk in by the critter soljers, theycalls em cavilry. Me and all the rest of the boys wants tohav a fite, but it looks like Ginral Buil was afeared, andwe don't git no chance. I axed the Ordly couldn't he get mea furlow. The Ordly jest laft and says to me, Si, says he,yer don't know as much as a mule. The Capt'n made me walk upand down for an hour with a big rail on my sholder."You tell Squire Joneses boy that he haint got sand enuff tojine the army, and if he don't keep away from you I'll busthis eer when I git home, if I ever do. Whattle you do if Ishouldn't ever see you agin? But you no this glorus Govymentmust be pertected, and the bully Stars and Strips mustflote, and your Si is goin to help do it."My pen is poor, my ink is pale,My luv for you shall never fale."Yours, aflfeckshnitly, Si Klegg."
SI KLEGG was a good specimen of a healthy, robust Hoosier lad—for he could scarcely be called' a man yet. Since he lay in his cradle and was dosed with paregoric and catnip tea like other babies, he had never seen a sick day, except when he had the mumps on "both sides" at once. He had done all he could to starve the doctors.
When the 200th Ind. took the field it had the usual outfit of men who wrote their names sandwiched between a military title in front and "M. D." behind, a big hospital tent, and an apothecary shop on wheels, loaded to the guards with quinine, blue-mass, castor oil, epsom salts, and all other devices to assuage the sufferings of humanity.
The boys all started out in good shape, and there had been hardly time for them to get sick much yet. So up to this stage of the regiment's history the doctors had found little to do but issue arnica and salve for lame legs and blistered feet, and strut around in their shiny uniforms.
But there came a day when they had all they could attend to. On going into camp one afternoon, the regiment, well in advance, struck a big field of green corn and an orchard of half-ripe apples. Of course, the boys sailed in, and natural consequences followed.
"Now this is something like!" said Si, as he squatted on the ground along with Shorty and half a dozen messmates. They surrounded a camp-kettle full of steaming ears and half a bushel or so of apples heaped on a poncho.
"Wish we had some o' mother's butter to grease this corn with," observed Si, as he flung a cob into the fire and seized a fresh ear.
All agreed that Si's head was level on the butter question, but under all the circumstances of the case they were glad enough to have the com without butter.
The ears went off with amazing rapidity. Every man seemed to be afraid he wouldn't get his share. When the kettle was empty the boys turned themselves loose on the apples, utterly reckless of results. So, they were filled full, and were thankful.
When Si got up he burst off half the buttons on his clothes. He looked as if he was carrying a bass-drum in front of him. After he began to shrink he had to tie up his clothes with a string until he had a chance to repair damages. But during the next 24 hours he had something else to think of.
In fact, it wasn't long till Si began to wish he had eaten an ear of corn and an apple or two less. He didn't feel very well. He turned in early, thinking he would go to sleep and be all right in the morning.
Along in the night he uttered a yell that came near stampeding the company. An enormous colic was raging around in his interior, and Si fairly howled with pain. He thought he was going: to die right away.
Laying the Foundation 091
"Shorty," said he, between the gripes, to his comrade, "I'm afeared I'm goin' to peter out. After I'm gone you write to—to—Annie and tell her I died for my country like a man. I'd ruther been shot than die with the colic, but I 'spose 'twont make much difference after it's all over!" 9 "I'll do it," replied Shorty. "We'll plant you in good shape; and Si, we'll gather up the corn-cobs and build a monument over you!"
But Si wasn't cut off in the bloom of youth by that colic. His eruptive condition frightened Shorty, however, and though he was in nearly as bad shape himself, he went up and routed out one of the doctors, who growled a good deal about being disturbed.
The debris of the supper scattered about the camp told him what was the matter, and he had no need to make a critical diagnosis of Si's case. He gave him a dose of something or other that made the pain let up a little, and Si managed to rub along through the night.
Fortunately for Si, and for more than half the members of the regiment, the army did not move next day, and the doctors had a good opportunity to get in their work.
At the usual hour in the morning the bugle blew the "sick-call." A regiment of tanned and grizzled veterans from Ohio lay next to the 200th Ind., and as Si lay there he heard them take up the music:
"Git yer qui-nine! Git yer qui-nine!Tumble up you sick and lame and blind;Git a-long right smart, you'll be left be-hind."
"Fall in fer yer ipecac!" shouted the Orderly of Co. Q. Si joined the procession and went wabbling up to the "doctor's" shop. He was better than he had been during the night, but still looked a good deal discouraged.
It was a regular matinee that day. The Surgeon and his assistants were all on hand, as the various squads, colicky and cadaverous, came to a focus in front of the tent.
A Rude Awakening 093
The doctors worked off the patients at a rapid rate, generally prescribing the same medicine for all, no matter what ailed them. This was the way the army doctors always did, but it happened in this case that they were not far wrong, as the ailments, arising from a common cause, were much the same.
Si waited till his turn came, and received his rations from the Hospital Steward. Of course, he was excused from duty for the day, and as he speedily recovered his normal condition he really had a good time.
Visits the Doctor 094
A few days after this the whole regiment was ordered on fatigue duty to repair an old corduroy road. Si didn't want to go, and "played off." He told the Orderly he wasn't able to work, but the Orderly said he would have to shoulder an ax or a shovel, unless he was excused by the doctor. He went up at sick-call and made a wry face, with his hands clasped over his body in the latitude of his waistband.
The doctor gave him a lot of blue-mass pills, which Si threw into the fire as soon as he got back to his quarters. Then he played seven-up all day with Shorty, who had learned before Si did how to get a day off when he wanted it.
Si thought it was a great scheme, but he tried it once too often. The doctor "caught on," and said, the next time Si went up, that castor oil was what he needed to fetch him around. So he poured out a large dose and made Si take it right then and there.
The next time fatigue duty was ordered Si thought he felt well enough to go along with the boys.
"HELLO Si; goin' for a soljer, ain't ye?"
"You bet!"
"Wall, you'd better b'lieve its great fun; it's jest a picnic all the time! But, say, Si, let's see yer finger-nails!"
"I'd like ter know what finger-nails 's got to do with soljerin'!" said Si. "The 'cruitin' ossifer 'n' the man 't keeps the doctor shop made me shuck myself, 'n' then they 'xamined my teeth, 'n' thumped me in the ribs, 'n' rubbed down my legs, 'n' looked at my hoofs, same 's if 'I'd bin a hoss they wuz buyin', but they didn't say nothin' 'bout my finger-nails."
"You jest do 's I tell ye; let 'em grow, 'n' keep 'em right sharp. Ye'll find plenty o' use fer 'em arter a while, 'n' 'twont be long, nuther. I know what I'm talkin' 'bout; I've been thar!"
This conversation took place a day or two before Si bade farewell to his mother and sister Marier and pretty Annabel and left the peaceful precincts of Posey County to march away with the 200th Ind. for that awful place vaguely designated as "the front!" He had promptly responded to the call, and his name was near the top of the list of Company Q.
'let Yer Nails Grow; Ye'll Need 'em' 097
Si already had his blue clothes on. By enlisting early he had a good pick of the various garments, and so got a suit that fitted his form—which was plump as an apple-dumpling tolerably well. It was left for the tail-enders of the company to draw trousers that were six inches too long or too short, and blouses that either wouldn't reach around, and left yawning chasms in front, or were so large that they looked as if they were hung on bean-poles.
Of course, Si couldn't be expected to do any more plodding farm work, now that he had "jined" the army. While the company was filling up he spent most of his time on dress parade in the village near by, eliciting admiring smiles from all the girls, and an object of the profoundest awe and wonder to tha small boys.
One day Si was sitting on the sugar-barrel in the corner grocery, gnawing a "blind robin," and telling how he thought the war wouldn't last long after the 200th Ind. got down there and took a hand and got fairly interested in the game; they would wind it up in short meter. Such ardent emotions always seethed and bubbled in the swelling breasts of the new troops when they came down to show the veterans just how to do it.
One of the town boys who had been a year in the service, had got a bullet through his arm in a skirmish, and was at home on furlough, came into the store, and then took place the dialog between him and Si that opens this chapter.
Si wondered a good deal what the veteran meant about the finger-nails. He did not even know that there existed in any nature a certain active and industrious insect which, before he had been in the army a great while, would cause his heart to overflow with gratitude to a beneficent Providence for providing him with nails on his fingers.
When the 200th left Indiana all the boys had, of course, brand-new outfits right from Uncle Sam's great one-price clothing house. Their garments were nice and clean, their faces well washed, and their hair yet showed marks of the comb. At Louisville they stuck up their noses, with a lofty consciousness of superiority, at the sight of Buell's tanned and ragged tramps, who had just come up on the gallop from Tennessee and northern Alabama.
'say, Cap, What Kind O' Bug is This?' 099
If the new Hoosier regiment had been quartered for a while in long-used barracks, or had pitched its tents in an old camp, Si would very soon have learned, in the school of experience, the delightful uses of finger-nails. But the 200th stayed only a single night in Louisville and then joined the procession that started on the chase after the rebel army. It generally camped on new ground, and under these circumstances the insect to which allusion has been made did not begin its work of devastation with that suddenness that usually marked its attack upon soldiers entering the field. But he never failed to "git there" sooner or later, and it was more frequently sooner than later.
One afternoon, when a few days out on this march, a regiment of Wisconsin veterans bivouacked next to the 200th Ind. The strange antics as they threw off their accouterments attracted Si's attention.
"Look a' thar," he said to Shorty. "What 'n name of all the prophets 's them fellers up to?"
"Seems like they was scratchin' theirselves!"
"I s'pose that's on account of the dust 'n' sweat," said Si.
"It's a mighty sight worse 'n that!" replied Shorty, who knew more about these things than Si did. "I reckon we'll all be doin' like they are 'fore long."
Si whistled softly to himself as he watched the Wisconsin boys. They were hitching and twisting their shoulders about, evidently enjoying the friction of the clothing upon their skins. There was a general employment of fingers, and often one would be seen getting come other fellow to scratch his back around where he couldn't reach himself. If everybody was too busy to do this for him he would back up to a tree and rub up and down against the bark.
Life has few pleasures that can equal the sensations of delightful enjoyment produced in those days, when graybacks were plenty, by rubbing against a tree that nicely fitted the hollow of the back, after throwing off one's "traps" at the end of a day's march.
Directly the Wisconsin chaps began to scatter into the woods. Si watched them as they got behind the trees and threw off their blouses and shirts. He thought at first that perhaps they were going in swimming, but there was no stream of water at hand large enough to justify this theory in explanation of their nudity. As each man set down, spread his nether garment over his knees and appeared to be intently engaged, with eyes and fingers. Si's curiosity was very much excited.
"Looks 's if they wuz all mendin' up their shirts and sewin' on buttons," said Si, "Guess it's part o' their regular drill, ain't it, Shorty?"
Shorty laughed at Si's ignorant simplicity. He knew what those veterans were doing, and he knew that Si would have to come to it, but he didn't want to shock his tender sensibilities by telling him of it.
"Them fellers ain't sewin' on no buttons. Si," he replied; "they're skirmishin'."
"Skirmishin'!" exclaimed Si, opening his eyes very wide. "I haint seen any signs o' rebs 'round here, 'n' there aint any shootin' goin' on, 'nless I've lost my hearin'. Durned if 't aint the funniest skirmishin' I ever hearn tell of!"
"Now, don't ax me nuthin' more 'bout it, Si," said Shorty. "All I'm goin' to tell ye is that the longer ye live the more ye'll find things out. Let's flax 'round 'n' git supper!"
A little while after, as Si was squatting on the ground holding the frying-pan over the fire, he saw a strange insect vaguely wandering about on the sleeve of his blouse. It seemed to be looking for something, and Si became interested as he watched it traveling up and down his arm. He had never seen one like it before, and he thought he would like to know what it was. He would have asked Shorty, but his comrade had gone to the spring for water. Casting his eye around he saw the Captain, who chanced to be sauntering through the camp.
The Captain of Co. Q had been the Principal of a seminary in Posey County, and was looked upon with awe by the simple folk as a man who knew about all that was worth knowing. Si thought he might be able to tell him all about the harmless's-looking little stranger.
So he put down his frying-pan and stepped up to the Captain, holding out his arm and keeping his eye on the insect so that he shouldn't get away.
"Good evenin', Cap.," said Si, touching his hat, and addressing him with that familiar disregard of official dignity that characterised the average volunteer, who generally felt that he was just as good as anybody who wore shoulder straps.
"Good evening, Klegg," said the Captain, returning the salute.
"Say, Cap, you've been ter collidge 'n' got filled up with book-larnin'; p'raps ye kin tell me what kind o' bug this is. I'm jest a little bit curious to know."
And Si pointed to the object of his inquiry that was leisurely creeping toward a hole in the elbow of his outer garment.
"Well, Josiah," said the Captain, after a brief inspection, "I presume I don't know quite as much as some people think I do; but I guess I can tell you something about that insect. I never had any of them myself, but I've read of them."
"Never had 'em himself," thought Si. "What 'n the world does ha mean?" And Si's big eyes opened with wonder and fear at the thought that whatever it was he had "got 'em."
"I suppose," continued the Captain, "you would like to know the scientific name?"
"I reck'n that'll do 's well 's any."
"Well, sir, that is a Pediculus. That's a Latin word, but it's his name."
"Purty big name fer such a leetle bug, ain't it, Perfessor?" observed Si. "Name's big enough for an el'fant er a 'potamus."
'skirmishing' 103
"It may seem so, Klegg; but when you get intimately acquainted with him I think you will find that his name isn't any too large for him. There is a good deal more of him than you think."
The young soldier's eyes opened still wider.
"I was going on to tell you," continued the Captain, "that there are several kinds of Pediculi—we don't say Pediculuses. There is the Pediculus Capitis—Latin again—but it means the kind that lives on the head. I presume when you were a little shaver your mother now and then harrowed your head with a fine-tooth comb?"
"Ya-as" said Si; "she almost took the hide off sometimes, an' made me yell like an Injun."
"Now, Klegg, I don't wish to cause you unnecessary alarm, but I will say that the head insect isn't a circumstance to this one on your arm. As you would express it, perhaps, he can't hold a candle to him. This fellow is the Pediculus Corporis!"
"I s'pose that means they eats up Corporals!" said Si.
"I do not think the Pediculus Corporis confines himself exclusively to Corporals, as his name might indicate," said the Captain, laughing at Si's literal translation and his personal application of the word. "He no doubt likes a juicy and succulent Corporal, but I don't believe he is any respecter of persons. That's my opinion, from what I've heard about him. It is likely that I 'will be able to speak more definitely, from experience, after a while. Corporis means that he is the kind that pastures on the human body. But there's one thing more about this fellow, some call him Pediculus Vestimenti; that is because he lives around in the clothing."
"But we don't wear no vests," said Si, taking a practical view of this new word; "nothin' but blouses, 'n' pants, 'n' shirts."
"You are too literal, Klegg. That word means any kind of clothes. But I guess I've told you as much about him as you care to know at present. If you want any more information, after two or three weeks, come and see me again. I think by that time you will not find it necessary to ask any more questions."
Si went back to his cooking, with the Pediculus still on his arm. He wanted to show it to Shorty. The Captain's profound explanation, with its large words, was a little too much for Si. He did not yet clearly comprehend the matter, and as he walked thoughtfully to where Shorty was "bilin'" the coffee he was trying to get through his head what it all meant.
"Hello, Si," said Shorty; "whar ye bin? What d'ye mean, goin' off 'n' leavin' yer sowbelly half done?"
"Sh-h!" replied Si. "Ye needn't git yer back up about it. Bin talkin' to the Cap'n. Shorty, look at that 'ere bug!"
And Si pointed to the object of the Captain's lecture on natural history that was still creeping on his arm. Shorty slapped his thigh and burst into a loud laugh.
"Was that what ye went to see the Cap'n 'bout?" he asked as soon as he could speak.
"Why—ya-as," replied Si, somewhat surprised at Shorty's unseemly levity. "I saw that thing crawlin' round, 'n' I was a-wonderin' what it was, fer I never seen one afore. I knowed Cap was a scolard, 'n' a perfesser, 'n' all that 'n' I 'lowed he c'd tell me all about it. So I went 'n' axed him."
"What'd he tell ye?"
"He told me lots o' big, heathenish words, 'n' said this bug was a ridiculous, or suthin' like that."
"'Diculus be blowed!" said Shorty, "The ole man was a'stuffin' ye. I'll tell ye what that is, Si," he added solemnly, "that's a grayback!"
"A grayback!" said Si. "I've hearn 'em call the Johnnies graybacks, but I didn't know 's there was any other kind."
"I reck'n 'twont be long, now, till yer catches on ter the meanin' ol what a grayback is. Ye'll know all 'bout it purty sudden. This ain't the first one I ever seen."
Si was impressed, as he had often been before, by Shorty's superior wisdom and experience.
"See here. Si," Shorty continued, as his eye suddenly lighted up with a brilliant thought, "I guess I kin make ye understand what a grayback is. What d'ye call that coat ye've got on?"
"Why, that's a fool question; it's a blouse, of course!"
"Jesso!" said Shorty. "Now, knock off the fust letter o' that word, 'n' see what ye got left!"
Si looked at Shorty as if he thought his conundrums were an indication of approaching idiocy. Then he said, half to himself:
"Let's see! Blouse—blouse—take off the 'b' 'n' she spells l-o-u-s-e, louse! Great Scott, Shorty, is that a louse?"
"That's jest the size of it. Si. Ye'll have millions of 'em 'fore the war's over 'f they don't hurry up the cakes."
Si looked as if he would like to dig a hole in the ground, get into it, and have Shorty cover him up.
"Why didn't the Cap'n tell me it was that? He said suthin' about ridiculus corporalis, and I thought he was makin' fun o' me. He said these bugs liked to eat fat Corporals.'
"I reck'n that's so," replied Shorty; "but they likes other people jest as well—even a skinny feller like me. They lunches off'n privits, 'n' Corp'rils, 'n' Kurnals, 'n' Gin'rals, all the same. They ain't satisfied with three square meals a day, nuther; they jest eats right along all the time 'tween regular meals. They allus gits hungry in the night, too, and chaws a feller up while he sleeps. They don't give ye no show at all. I rayther think the graybacks likes the ossifers best if they could have their ch'ice, 'cause they's fatter 'n the privits; they gits better grub."
Si fairly turned pale as he contemplated the picture so graphically portrayed by Shorty. The latter's explanation was far more effectual in letting the light in upon Si's mind than the scientific disquisition of the "Perfesser." He had now a pretty clear idea of what a "grayback" was. Whatever he lacked to make his knowledge complete was soon supplied in the regular way. But Si was deeply grieved and shocked at what Shorty had told him. It was some minutes before he said anything more.
"Shorty," he said, with a sadness in his tone that would almost have moved a mule to tears, "who'd a-thought rd ever git as low down 's this, to have them all-fired graybacks, 's ye call 'em, crawlin' over me. How'd mother feel if she knew about 'em. She wouldn't sleep a wink fer a month!"
"Ye'll have to come to it. Si. All the soljers does, from the Major-Gin'rals down to the tail-end of the mule-whackers. Ye mind them 'Sconsin chaps we was lookin' at a little bit ago?"
"Yes," said Si.
"Well, graybacks was what ailed 'em. The fellers with their shirts on their knees was killin' 'em off. That's what they calls 'skirmishin'. There's other kinds o' skirmishing besides fitin' rebels! Ye'd better git rid of that one on yer arm, if he hasn't got inside already; then there'll be one less of 'em."
Si found him after a short search, and proposed to get a chip, carry him to the fire and throw him in.
"Naw!" said Shorty in disgust, "that's no way. Lemme show yer how!"
'naw! Lemme Show Ye How!' 107
Shorty placed one thumb-nail on each side of the insect. There was a quick pressure, a snap like the crack of a percussion cap, and all was over.
Si shuddered, and wondered if he could ever engage in such a work of slaughter.
"D'ye s'pose," he said to Shorty, "that there's any more of 'em on me?" And he began to hitch his shoulders about, and to feel a desire to put his fingers to active use.
"Shouldn't wonder," replied Shorty. "Mebbe I've got 'em, to. Let's go out'n do a little skirmishin' ourselves."
"We'd better go off a good ways," said Si, "so's the boys won't see us."
"You're too nice and pertickler for a soljer. Si. They'll all be doin' it, even the Cap'n himself, by termorrer or nex' day."
They went out back of the camp, where Si insisted on getting behind the largest tree he could find. Then they sat down and engaged in that exciting chase of the Pediculus up and down the seams of their garments, so familiar to all who wore either the blue or the gray. Thousands of nice young men who are now preachers and doctors and lawyers and statesmen, felt just as bad about it at first as Si did.
"Shorty," said Si, as they slowly walked back to eat their supper, which had been neglected in the excitement of the hour, "before Co. Q left Posey County to jine the rigiment a feller 't was home on furlow told me ter let my finger-nails grow long 'n' sharp. He said I'd need 'em. I didn't know what he meant then, but I b'lieve I do now."