ON THEIR way back from "settling the battery," Si and Shorty each broke off a big armful of cedar branches. These they spread down on the ground when the regiment resumed its place in the line-of-battle, and lay down on them to spend the rest of the night as comfortably as possible. The fire with which they had roasted the pig, and from which they had drawn much comfort during the day, had had to be extinguished when darkness came on. But it had dried out and warmed the ground for a considerable space around, and on this they made their bed.
"We seem to play in fair luck right along, Shorty," said the hopeful Si, as they curled up on the boughs. "Most of the boys 've got to lay down in a foot of mud."
"Don't get to crowin' too loud," grumbled Shorty. "If they find out what a good thing we have, some Jigadier-Brindle'll snatch it away for himself." But Si was fast asleep before Shorty finished speaking.
Sometime before midnight the Orderly-Sergeant came around, and after vigorous kicking and shaking, succeeded in waking them.
"Get up," he said, "and draw some rations. The wagons've got in from Nashville."
"My gracious!" said Si, as soon as he was wide enough awake to understand the Orderly-Sergeant's words, "is it possible that we're going to have plenty of hardtack and pork and coffee again? Seems to me a hundred years since we drew a full ration."
He and Shorty jumped up and ran over to where the Quartermaster-Sergeant and his assistants were dealing out a handful of crackers and a piece of pork to each man as he came up.
"Mebbe I oughtn't to say it," said Si, as he munched away, taking a bite first off the crackers in his right and then off the meat in his left, "but nothing that ever mother baked tasted quite as good as this."
"This does seem to be a specially good lot," assented Shorty. "Probably a wagon load that they intended for the officers and give us by mistake. Better eat it all up before they find it out."
The morning of Jan. 2, 1863, dawned bleak and chill, but this at least brought the great comfort that the dreary rain was at last over. The sharp air was bracing, and put new life and hope into the hearts of the Union soldiers. Many wagons had been gotten up during the night, bringing food and ammunition for all. Soon after daylight cheerful fires were blazing everywhere, and the morning air was laden with the appetizing fragrance of boiling coffee and broiling meat. The sun began to rise over Murfreesboro' and the rebel camps, giving promise of a bright, invigorating day.
"I hope this thing'll be brought to a focus to-day, and the question settled as to who shall occupy this piece of real estate," said Shorty, as he and Sifinished a generous breakfast, filled their boxes and pockets with cartridges, and began knocking the dried mud off their clothes and rubbing the rust from their guns. "I want them gents in brown clothes to clear out and leave. It frets me to see them hangin' 'round. They're bad neighbors."
"I hope," said Si, carefully picking out the tube of his gun with a pin, "we won't put in to-day as we did yesterday layin' 'round making faces an' shakin' our fists at one another. Let's have the thing out at once."
Evidently the rebels were of the same frame of mind. They saluted the dawn with a noisy fusillade that ran along the miles of winding line. It was spiteful, crashing and persistent, but as the Union lines lay beyond good musket range and the rebels showed no disposition to advance across the fields and come to close quarters, the noise was quite out of proportion to the harm done.
The two rebel batteries on the opposite side of the river opened up a terrific fire upon one of our batteries, and the air seemed torn to shreds by the storm of howling missiles.
The 200th Ind. was too far away to have more than a spectacular interest in this tempestuous episode. They stood around their gun-stacks and watched and listened while the hours passed in ineffective noise, and wondered when the crisis of action was going to arrive.
"They seem to have lost their appetite for close acquaintance with the 200th Ind.," remarked Shorty. "They found that Jordan was a hard road to travel whenever they came across the fields at us, and aretryin' to scare us by makin' a racket. I think we kin stand it as long as their powder kin. But I'm gittin' hungry agin. Let's have somethin' to eat."
"Good gracious, it is noon," answered Si, looking up at the sun. "I believe I do want some dinner."
They had scarcely finished dinner-eating when the 200th Ind. was ordered to move over toward Stone River. It halted on a little rise of ground on the bank, which commanded an extensive view on both sides of the river. There was a portentous flow in the great, dark-blue sea of men. The billows, crested with shining steel, were rolling eastward toward the river.
"Something's goin' to happen; meetin's about to break up; school's goin' to let out," said Shorty eagerly. "Isn't it a grand sight."
"Gracious me!" said Si, devouring the spectacle with his eyes. "How I wish that father and mother and sister could see all this. It's worth going through a great deal to see this."
It was by far the most imposing spectacle they had yet seen. The whole Army of the Cumberland was crowded into the narrow space between the Nashville Pike and Stone River. Its compact regiments, brigades, and divisions showed none of the tearing and mangling they had endured, but stood or moved in well-dressed ranks that seemed the embodiment of mighty purpose and resistless force.
Around its grand array, a half mile away, lay the somber, portentous line of brown-clad men. Beyond them rose the steeples and roofs of the sleepy old town of Murfreesboro', with crowds of men and women occupying every point of vantage, to witness the renewal of the awful battle.
It was now long past noon. The bright sun had long ago scattered the chill mists of the morning, and radiated warmth and light over the dun landscape. Even the somber cedars lost some of the funereal gloom they wore when the skies were lowering.
"There go two brigades across the river," said Si. "We're goin' to try to turn their right."
They saw a long line of men file down the river bank, cross, and go into line on the high ground beyond. Their appearance seemed to stir the brown mass lying on the hights a mile in front of them to action. The rebels began swarming out of their works and moving forward into the woods.
Presently a thin line of men in butternut-colored clothes ran forward to a fence in front, and began throwing it down. Behind them came three long, brown lines, extending from near the river to the woods far away to the left. Batteries galloped in the intervals to knolls, on which they unlimbered and opened fire.
It was an overpowering mass of men for the two little brigades to resist. Si's heart almost stood still as he saw the inequality of the contest.
"Why don't they send us over there to help those men?" he anxiously asked. "They can't stand up against that awful crowd."
"Just wait," said Shorty hopefully. "Old Rosy knows what he's doin'. He's got enough here for the business."
The artillery all along the line burst out in torrents of shells, but Si's eyes were glued on the two little brigades. He saw the white spurts from the skirmishers' rifles, and men drop among the rebels,who yet moved slowly forward, like some all-engulfing torrent. The skirmishers ran back to the main line, and along its front sped a burst of smoke as each regiment fired by volley. The foremost rebel line quivered a little, but moved steadily on.
Then a cloud of white smoke hid both Union and rebel lines, and from it came the sound as of thousands of carpenters hammering away industriously at nails.
Presently Si was agonized to see a fringe of blue break back from the bank of smoke, and run rapidly to the rear. They were followed by regiments falling back slowly, in order, and turning at the word of command to deliver volleys in the faces of their yell ing pursuers.
Si looked at his Colonel, and saw him anxiously watching the brigade commander for orders to rush across the river to the assistance of the two brigades.
Suddenly there was a whirl in front. A battery galloped up, the drivers lashing the horses, the cannoneers sitting stolidly on the limbers with their arms folded. It swept by to a knoll in front and to the right, which commanded the other side of the river. Instantly the gunners sprang to the ground, the cannon were tossed about as if they were play things, and before Si could fairly wink he saw the guns lined up on the bank, the drivers standing by the horses' heads, and the cannons belching savagely into the flanks of the horde of rebels.
Then another battery swept up alongside the first, and another, until 58 guns crowned the high banks and thundered until the earth shook as with the ague. A deluge of iron swept the fields where the mightyhost of rebels were advancing. Tops were torn out of trees and fell with a crash, fence-rails and limbs of oak went madly flying through the air, regiments and brigades disappeared before the awful blast.
For a few minutes Si and Shorty stood appalled at the deafening crash and the shocking destruction. Then they saw the rebels reel and fly before the tornado of death.
A great shout arose from thousands of excited men standing near. Regiments and brigades started as with one impulse to rush across the river and pursue the flying enemy. The 200th Ind. was one of these. No one heard any orders from the officers. The men caught the contagion of victory and rushed forward, sweeping with them the lately-defeated brigades, hurrying over the wreckage of the cannon-fire, over the thickly-strewn dead and wounded, and gathering in prisoners, flags and cannon.
They went on so, nearly to the breastworks behind which the rebels were seeking shelter.
Si and Shorty were among the foremost. A few hundred yards from the rebel works Si fell to the ground without a groan. Shorty saw him, and ran to him. The side of his head was covered with blood, and he was motionless.
Si Klegg Fell Without a Groan 113
"Stone dead—bullet plum through his head," said the agonized Shorty. But there was no time for mourning the fallen. The pursuit was still hot, and Shorty's duty was in front. He ran ahead until the Colonel halted the regiment. Fresh rebels were lining up in the breastworks and threatening a return charge which would be disastrous. The Colonel hastily re-formed the regiment to meet this, and slowly withdrew it in good order to resist any counter-attack. After marching a mile or more the regiment halted and went into bivouac. The rejoicing men started great fires and set about getting supper. But the saddened Shorty had no heart for rejoicing over the victory, or for supper. He drew off from the rest, sat down at the roots of an oak, wrapped the cape of his overcoat about his face, andabandoned himself to his bitter grief. Earth had no more joy for him. He wished he had been shot at the same time his partner was. He could think of nothing but that poor boy lying there dead and motionless on the cold ground. He felt that he could never think of anything else, and the sooner he was shot the better it would be.
The other boys respected his grief At first they tried to tempt him to eat something and drink some coffee, but Shorty would not listen to them, and they drew away, that he might be alone.
He sat thus for some hours. The loss of their sturdy Corporal saddened the whole company, and as they sat around their fires after supper they ex tolled his good traits, recounted his exploits, and easily made him out the best soldier in the regiment.
Presently the fifes and rums played tattoo, and the boys began preparations for turning in.
Shorty had become nearly frozen sitting there motionless, and he got up and went to the fire to thaw out. He had just picked up a rail to lay it on the fire in better shape, when he heard a weak voice in quiring:
"Does anybody know where the 200th Ind. is?"
Shorty dropped the rail as if he had been shot, and rushed in the direction of the voice. In an instant he came back almost carrying Si Klegg.
There was a hubbub around the fire that kept everybody from paying the least attention to "taps."
"Yes, it's really me," said Si, responding as well as he was able to the hearty handshakings. "And I ain't no ghost, neither. I've got an appetite on me like a prairie fire, and if you fellers are really gladto see me you'll hustle up here all the grub in the Commissary Department. I can eat every mite of it. I was hit by a spent ball and knocked senseless. But I ain't going to tell you any more till I get something to eat."
THE BOYS were so glad to see Si back again alive that they robbed themselves of any choice morsel of food they might have saved for to-morrow's delectation.
"Here, Si," said one, "is a nice knuckle-bone o' ham, that I pulled back there at the General's when his cook returned to the tent for something. You ought t've heard the nigger cussing as I walked away, but he couldn't recognize the back o' my head, nor see under my overcoat. Me and my chum 've had supper off it, and we wuz saving the rest for breakfast, but I'll brile it for you."
"Some of them Kentucky fellers," said another, "found a sheep in the briars and killed it. I traded 'em my silk handkerchief for a hunk o' the meat. I'm going to cook a slice for you, Si."
"Si, I'll bile some coffee for you," said a third.
"I'll toast some crackers for you," added a fourth.
Shorty roused. He felt so much gladder than any of them, that he was jealous of their attentions.
"See here, you fellers," said he, "this is my partner, an' I'm able to take care of him. I'll bile all the coffee an' toast all the crackers he kin eat; though I'm much obliged to you, Jim, for your ham, and to you, Billy, for your mutton, though I'm afraid it'll taste too much of the wool for a wounded man."
"Don't mind about that," said Si; "I'm hungry enough to eat the wool on the sheep's back, even. Hand over your mutton, Billy, and thankee for it. My appetite's not delicate, I can tell you. Woolly mutton won't faze it more'n bark would a buzz-saw." Si didn't over-state the case. He ate everythingthat was cooked and offered him, until he declared that he was so full he "could touch it with his finger."
Shorty Thinks si Does Not Look Like a Ghost. 118
"I'm sure you're not a ghost, from the way you eat," said Shorty, who was beginning to recover his propensity for sarcasm. "If ghosts et like you there'd have to be a steam bakery an' a pork packery run in connection with every graveyard."
"And I'd never take no ghost to board," said Billy.
"Come, Si," said Jimmy Barlow, filling his briarwood pipe with kinnikinnick, lighting it from the fire, taking a few puffs to start it, and handing it to Si, "tell us just what happened to you. We're dyin' to hear."
"Well," said Si, settling down with the pipe into a comfortable position, "I don't know what happened. Last thing I knowed I wuz runnin' ahead on Shorty's left, loadin' my gun, an' tryin' to keep up with the Colonel's hoss. Next thing I knowed I wuz wakin' up at the foot of a black-oak. Everything was quiet around me, except the yellin' of two or three wounded men a little ways off. At first I thought a cannonball' d knocked my whole head off. Then it occurred to me that if my head was knocked off I couldn't hear nor see."
"Nor think, even," injected Shorty.
"No, nor think, even. For what'd you think with?"
"I know some fellers that seem to think with their feet, and that blamed awkwardly," mused Shorty.
"I kept on wakin' up," continued Si. "At first I thought I had no head at all, an' then it seemed to me I was all head, it hurt so awfully. I couldn't move hand nor foot. Then I thought mebbe only half my head was shot away, an' the rest was aching for all.
"I tried shuttin' one eye an' then the other, an' found I'd at least both eyes left. I moved my head a little, an' found that the back part was still there, for a bump on the roots of the oak hurt it.
"By-and-by the numbness began to go out of my head an' arm, but I was afraid to put my hand up to my head, for I was afraid to find out how much was gone. Nearly the whole of the left side must be gone, an' all my schoolin' scattered over the ground. I lay there thinkin' it all over how awful I'd look when you fellers came to find me and bury me, an' how you wouldn't dare tell the folks at home about it.
"Finally, I got plum desperate. I didn't seem to be dyin', but to be gettin' better every minute. I determined to find out just however much of my head was really gone. I put up my hand, timid-like, an' felt my forehead. It was all there. I passed my hand back over my hair an' the whole back of my head was there. I felt around carefully, an' there was the whole side of my head, only a little wet where I'd got a spent ball. Then I got mad an' I jumped up. Think of my makin' all that fuss over a little peck that might have been made by a brick-bat. I started out to hunt you fellers, an' here I am."
"Yes, but you wouldn't 've bin here," philosophized Shorty, examining the wound, "if the feller that fired that shot'd given his gun a little hunch. If that bullet'd went a half-inch deeper, you'd be up among the stars a bow-legged Wabash angel."
"Well, we've licked the stuffin' out of 'em at last, haven't we?" asked Si.
"Well, I should say we had," replied Shorty with an impressive whistle. "I thought the artillery wouldtear the foundations out of the whole State of Tennessee, the way it let into them. There won't ba more crashin' an' bangin' when the world breaks up. I'd a-bin willin' to serve 100 years just to see that sight. Lord, what a chance the cannoneers had. First time I ever wanted to be in the artillery. The way they slung whole blacksmith shops over into them woods, an' smashed down trees, and wiped out whole brigades at a clip, filled my soul with joy."
"We must go over there in the mornin' an' take a look at the place," said Si drowsily. "It will be good to remember alongside o' the way they slapped it to us the first day."
Si and Shorty woke up the next morning to find the chill rain pouring down as if the country had been suffering from a year's drouth, and the rain was going to make up for it in one forenoon.
"Lord have mercy," said the disgusted Shorty, as he fell into line for roll-call. "Another seepin', soppin', sloshin', spatterin' day. Only had 14 of 'em this week so far. Should think the geese 'd carry umbrellas, an' the cows wear overshoes in this, land of eternal drizzle. If I ever get home they'll have to run me through a brick-kiln to dry me out."
In spite of the down-pour the army was forming up rapidly to resume the advance upon Murfreesboro', and over the ground on the left, that had proved so disastrous to the rebels the day before.
While the 200th Ind. was getting ready to fall in, the sick-call sounded, and the Orderly-Sergeant remarked to Si:
"Fall into this squad, Corporal Klegg."
"What for?" asked Si, looking askance at the squad.
"To go to the Surgeon's tent," answered the Orderly-Sergeant. "This is the sick squad."
"That's what I thought," answered Si; "an' that's the reason I ain't goin' to join it."
"But your head's bigger'n a bushel, Si," remonstrated the Sergeant. "Better let the doctor see it."
"I don't want none of his bluemass or quinine," persisted Si. "That's all he ever gives for anything. The swellin' 'll come out o' my head in time, same as it does out o' other people's."
"Corporal, I'll excuse you from duty to-day," said the Captain kindly. "I really think you ought to go to the Surgeon."
"If you don't mind, Captain," said Si, saluting, "I'll stay with the boys. I want to see this thing to the end. My head won't hurt me half so bad as if I was back gruntin' 'round in the hospital."
"Probably you are right," said the Captain. "Come along, then."
Willing and brave as the men were, the movements were tiresomely slow and laggard. The week of marching and lying unsheltered in the rain, of terrific fighting, and of awful anxiety had brought about mental and physical exhaustion. The men were utterly worn out in body and mind. This is usually the case in every great battle. Both sides struggle with all their mental and physical powers, until both are worn out. The one that can make just a little more effort than the other wins the victory. This was emphatically so in the battle of Stone River. The rebels had exhausted themselves, even, more in their assaults than the Union men had in repelling them.
When, therefore, the long line of blue laboredslowly through the mud and the drenching rain up the gentle slopes on the farther side of Stone River, the rebels sullenly gave ground before them. At last a point was reached which commanded a view of Murfreesboro' and the rebel position. The rebels were seen to be in retreat, and the exhausted Army of the Cumberland was mighty glad to have them go.
As soon as it was certain that the enemy was really abandoning the bitterly-contested field, an inexpressible weariness overwhelmed everybody. The 200th Ind. could scarcely drag one foot after another as it moved back to find a suitable camping-ground.
Si and Shorty crawled into a cedar thicket, broke down some brush for a bed, laid a pole in two crotches, leaned some brush against it to make a par tial shelter, built a fire, and sat down.
"I declare, I never knew what being tuckered out was before," said Si. "And it's come to me all of a sudden. This morning I felt as if I could do great things, but the minute I found that them rebels was really going, my legs begun to sink under me."
"Same way with me," accorded Shorty. "Don't believe I've got strength enough left to pull a settin' hen offen her nest. But we can't be drowned out this way. We must fix up some better shelter."
"The Colonel says there's a wagon-load o' rations on the way here," said Si, sinking wearily down on the ground by the fire, and putting out his hands over the feeble blaze. "Let's wait till we git something to eat. Mebbe we'll feel more like work after we've eaten something."
"Si Klegg," said Shorty sternly, but settling down himself on the other side of the fire, "I never knowedyou to flop down before. You've always bin, if any thing, forwarder than me. I was in hopes now that you'd take me by the back o' the neck and try to shake some o' this laziness out o' me."
"Wait till the rations come," repeated Si listlessly. "Mebbe we'll fell livelier then. The shelter we've fixed up'll keep out the coarsest o' the rain, anyway. Most o' the boys ain't got none."
When the rations arrived, Si and Shorty had energy enough to draw, cook and devour an immense supper. Then they felt more tired than ever. Shorty had managed to tear off a big piece of the wagon cover while he was showing much zeal in getting the rations distributed quickly. He got the company's share in this, and helped carry it to the company, but never for a minute relaxed his hold on the coveted canvas. Then he took it back to his fire. Si and he spent what energy they had left in making a tolerable tent of it, by stretching it over their shelter. They tied it down carefully, to keep anybody else from stealing it off them, and Shorty took the additional precaution of fastening a strip of it around his neck. Then they crawled in, and before night come on they were sleeping apparently as soundly as the Seven of Ephesus.
THE NEXT day Sunday after the battle dawned as clear, bright and sparkling as only a Winter's day can dawn in Tennessee, after a fortnight of doleful deluges. Tennessee Winter weather is like the famous little girl with the curl right down in the middle of her forehead, who,
"When she was good, she was very, very good,And when she was bad, she was horrid."
After weeks of heart-saddening down-pour that threatened to drench life and hope out of every breathing thing, it will suddenly beam out in a day so crisp and bright that all Nature will wear a gladsome smile and life become jocund.
When the reveille and the Orderly-Sergeant's brogans aroused Si and Shorty the latter's first thought was for the strip of canvas which he had secured with so much trouble from the wagon-cover, and intended to cherish for future emergencies. He felt his neck and found the strip that he had tied there, but that was all that there was of it. A sharp knife had cut away the rest so deftly that he had not felt its loss.
Shorty's boiler got very hot at once, and he began blowing off steam. Somehow he had taken an especial fancy to that piece of canvas, and his wrath was hot against the man who had stolen it.
Shorty Retaliates. 126
"Condemn that onery thief," he yelled. "He ought to be drummed out o' camp, with his head shaved. A man that'll steal ought to be hunted down andkicked out o' the army. He's not fit to associate with decent men."
"Why, Shorty," said Si, amused at his partner's heat, "you stole that yourself."
"I didn't nothin' o' the kind," snorted Shorty, "and don't want you sayin' so, Mr. Klegg, if you don't want to git into trouble. I took it from a teamster. You ought to know it's never stealin' to take anything from a teamster. I'll bet it was some of that Toledo regiment that stole it. Them Maumee River Muskrats are the durndest thieves in the brigade. They'd steal the salt out o' your hardtack if you didn't watch 'em not because they wanted the salt, but just because they can't help stealin'. They ought to be fired out o' the brigade. I'm going over to their camp to look for it, and if I find it I'll wipe the ground up with the feller that took it. 'Taint so much the value of the thing as the principle. I hate a thief above all things."
Si tried to calm Shorty and dissuade him from going, but his partner was determined, and Si let him go, but kept an eye and ear open for developments.
In a few minutes Shorty returned, with jubilation in his face, the canvas in one hand and a nice frying-pan and a canteen of molasses in the other.
"Just as I told you," he said triumphantly. "It was some o' them Maumee River Muskrats. I found them asleep in a bunch o' cedars, with our nice tent stretched over their thievin' carcasses. They'd been out on guard or scoutin', and come in after we'd gone to sleep. They were still snorin' away when I yanked the tent off, an' picked up their fryin'-pan an' canteen o' molasses to remember 'em by."
"I thought you hated a thief," Si started to say; but real comrades soon learn, like husband and wife, that it is not necessary to say everything that rises to their lips. Besides, the frying-pan was a beauty, and just what they wanted.
It became generally understood during the day that the Army of the Cumberland would remain around Murfreesboro' indefinitely probably until Spring to rest, refit and prepare for another campaign. Instructions were given to regimental commanders to select good camping ground and have their men erect comfortable Winter quarters.
The 200th Ind. moved into an oak grove, on a gentle slope toward the south, and set about making itself thoroughly at home.
Si and Shorty were prompt to improve the opportunity to house themselves comfortably.
Si had now been long enough in the army to regard everything that was not held down by a man with a gun and bayonet as legitimate capture. He passed where one of the Pioneer Corps had laid down his ax for a minute to help on some other work. That minute was spent by Si in walking away with the ax hidden under his long overcoat. Those long overcoats, like charity, covered a multitude of sins.
The ax was not sharp no army ax ever was, but Si's and Shorty's muscles were vigorous enough to make up for its dullness. In a little while they had cut down and trimmed enough oak saplings to make a pen about the size of the corn-crib at Si's home. While one would whack away with the ax the other would carry the poles and build up the pen. Byevening they had got this higher than their heads, and had to stop work from sheer exhaustion.
"I'll declare," said Si, as they sat down to eat supper and survey their work, "if father'd ever made me do half as much work in one day as I have done to-day I should have died with tiredness and then run away from home. It does seem to me that every day we try a new way o' killing ourselves."
"Well," said Shorty, arresting a liberal chunk of fried pork on the way to his capacious grinders to cast an admiring glance on the structure, "it's worth it all. It'll just be the finest shebang in Tennessee when we git it finished. I'm only afraid we'll make it so fine that Gen. Rosecrans or the Governor of Tennessee 'll come down and take it away for him self. That'd just be our luck."
"Great Scott!" said Si, looking at it with a groan; "how much work there is to do yet. What are we goin' to do for a roof? Then, we must cut out a place for a door. We'll have to chink between all the logs with mud and chunks; and we ought to have a fireplace."
"I've bin thinkin' of all them things, and I've thunk 'em out," said Shorty cheerfully. "I've bin thinkin' while you've bin workin'. Do you know, I believe I was born for an architect, an' I'll go into the architect business after the war! I've got a head plumb full of the natural stuff for the business. It growed right there. All I need is some more know-how an' makin' plans on paper."
"O, you've got a great big head, Shorty," said Si, admiringly, "and whatever you start to do you do splendid. Nobody knows that better'n me. But what's your idee about the roof?"
"Why, do you see that there freight-car over there by the bridge" (pointing to where a car was off the track, near Stone River), "I've bin watchin' that ever since we begun buildin', for fear somebody else'd drop on to it. The roof of that car is tin. We'll jest slip down there with an ax after dark, an' cut off enough to make a splendid roof. I always wanted a tin-roofed house. Old Jack Wilson, who lives near us, had a tin roof on his barn, an' it made his daughters so proud they wouldn't go home with me from meetin'. You kin write home that we have a new house with a tin roof, an' it'll help your sisters to marry better."
"Shorty, that head o' your'n gits bigger every time I look at it."
Si and Shorty had the extreme quality of being able to forget fatigue when there was something to be accomplished. As darkness settled down they picked up the ax and proceeded across the fields to the freight-car.
"There's someone in there," said Si, as they came close to it. They reconnoitered it carefully. Five or six men, without arms, were comfortably ensconed inside and playing cards by the light of a fire of pitch-pine, which they had built upon some dirt placed in the middle of the car.
"They're blamed skulkers," said Shorty, after a minute's survey of the interior. "Don't you see they hain't got their guns with 'em? We won't mind 'em."
They climbed to the top of the car, measured off about half of it, and began cutting through the tin with the ax. The noise alarmed the men inside. They jumped out on the ground, and called up:
"Here, what're you fellers doin' up there? This is our car. Let it alone."
"Go to the devil," said Shorty, making another slash at the roof with the ax.
"This is our car, I tell you," reiterated the men. "You let it alone, or we'll make you." Some of the men looked around for something to throw at them.
Si walked to the end of the car, tore off the brake-wheel, and came back.
"You fellers down there shut up and go back in side to your cards, if you know what's good for you," he said. "You're nothing but a lot of durned skulkers. We are here under orders. We don't want nothin' but a piece o' the tin roof. You kin have the rest. If any of you attempts to throw anything I'll mash him into the ground with this wheel. Do you hear me? Go back inside, or we'll arrest the whole lot of you and take you back to your regiments."
Si's authoritative tone, and the red stripes on his arm, were too much for the guilty consciences of the skulkers, and they went back inside the car. The tearing off the roof proceeded without further interruption, but with considerable mangling of their hands by the edges of the tin.
After they had gotten it off, they proceeded to roll it up and started back for their "house." It was a fearful load, and one that they would not have attempted to carry in ordinary times. But their blood was up; they were determined to outshine everybody else with their tin roof, and they toiled on over the mud and rough ground, although everylittle while one of them would make a misstep and both would fall, and the heavy weight would seem to mash them into the ground.
"I don't wonder old Jake Wilson was proud of his tin roof," gasped Si, as he pulled himself out of a mudhole and rolled the tin off him and Shorty. "If I'd a tin roof on my barn durned if my daughter should walk home with a man that didn't own a whole section of bottom land and drove o' mules to boot."
It was fully midnight before they reached their pen and laid their burden down. They were too tired to do anything more than lay their blankets down on a pile of cedar boughs and go to sleep.
The next morning they unrolled their booty and gloated over it. It would make a perfect roof, and they felt it repaid all their toils. Upon measurement they found it much larger each way than their log pen.
"Just right," said Shorty gleefully. "It'll stick out two feet all around. It's the aristocratic, fashion able thing now-a-days to have wide cornishes. Remember them swell houses we wuz lookin' at in Louisville? We're right in style with them."
The rest of Co. Q gathered around to inspect it and envy them.
"I suppose you left some," said Jack Wilkinson. "I'll go down there and get the rest."
"Much you won't," said Si, looking toward the car; "there ain't no rest."
They all looked that way. Early as it was the car had totally disappeared, down to the wheels, which some men were rolling away.
"That must be some o' them Maumee River Muskrats," said Shorty, looking at the latter. "They'll steal anything they kin git away with, just for the sake of stealin'. What on earth kin they do with them wheels?"
"They may knock 'em off the axles an' make hearths for their fireplaces, and use the axles for posts," suggested Si.
"Here, you fellers," said Shorty, "give us a lift. Let's have a house-raisin'. Help us put the roof on."
They fell to with a will, even the Captain assisting, and, after a good deal of trouble and more cut hands, succeeded in getting the piece of tin on top of the pen and bent down across the ridge-pole. Si and Shorty proceeded to secure it in place by putting other poles across it and fastening them down with ropes and strips of bark to the lower logs.
"Your broad cornice is aristocratic, as you say," said the Captain, "but I'm afraid it'll catch the wind, and tip your house over in some big storm."
The House Beautiful. 133
"That's so," admitted Shorty; "but a feller that puts on airs always has to take some chances. I don't want people to think that we are mean and stingy about a little tin, so I guess we'll keep her just as she is."
The next day they borrowed a saw from the Pioneers, cut out a hole for the door, and another for the fireplace. They made a frame for the door out of pieces of cracker-boxes, and hung up their bit of canvas for a door. They filled up the spaces be tween the logs with pieces of wood, and then daubed clay on until they had the walls tight. They gathered up stones and built a commodious fireplace, daubing it all over with clay, until it was wind and water tight.
"What are we goin' to do for a chimney, Si?" saidShorty, as their fireplace became about breast-high. "Build one o' sticks, like these rebels around here? That'll be an awful lot o' work."
Solid Comfort. 135
"I've had an idee," said Si. "I ain't goin' to letyou do all the thinkin', even if you are a born architect. When I was helpin' draw rations yesterday, I looked at the pork barrels, and got an idee that one of them'd make a good chimney. I spoke to Bill Suggs, the Commissary-Sergeant, about it, and he agreed to save me a barrel when it was empty, which it must be about now. I'll go down and see him about it."
Si presently came back rolling the empty barrel. They knocked the bottom out, carefully plastered it over inside with clay, and set it up on their fireplace, and made the joints with more clay. It made a splendid chimney. They washed the clay off their hands, built a cheerful fire inside, cooked a bountiful supper, and ate it in the light and comfort of their own fireside. It was now Saturday night. They had had a week of severer toil than they had ever dreamed of performing at home, but its reward was ample.
"Ah," said Shorty, as he sat on a chunk of wood, pipe in mouth, and absorbed the warmth, "this is something like home and home comforts. It's more like white livin' than I've had since I've bin in the army. Let's act like men and Christians tomorrow, by not doin' a lick o' work o' any kind. Let's lay abed late, and then wash up all over, and go to hear the Chaplain preach."
"Agreed," said Si, as he spread out their blankets for the night.
It had been threatening weather all day, and now the rain came down with a rush.
"Ain't that music, now," said Shorty, listening to the patter on the roof. "Nothin' sounds so sweet asrain upon a tin roof. Let it rain cats and dogs, if it wants to. The harder the better. Si, there's nothin' so healthy to sleep under as a tin roof. I'll never have anything but a tin roof on my house when I git home. And we've got the only tin roof in the regiment. Think o' that." But Si was too sleepy to think.