BY the time Shorty had gotten the boys fairly tented, he was ordered to take a squad and guard some stores at the Division Quartermaster's. Si, instead of going on camp-guard, had to go out to the grand guard. When he came back the next morning the Orderly-Sergeant said to him:
"See here, Si, you've got to take that squad of kids you brung into your particular charge, and lick 'em into shape. They need an awful sight of it, and I hain't got any time to give 'em. I've something else to do besides teaching an infant class. I never was good at bringing children up by hand, anyway. I ain't built that way. I want you to go for them young roosters at once, and get 'em into shape in short meter. Marching orders may come any day, and then we want everybody up and dressed. There'll be no time for foolishness. Those dratted little rats were all over camp last night, and into more kinds of devilment than so many pet crows. I've been hearing about nothing else this morning."
"Why," said Si, "I supposed that they was too tired to do anything but lay down and go to sleep. What'd they do?"
"Better ask what they didn't do," replied the Orderly. "They done everything that a passel o' impish school boys could think of, and what they couldn't think of them smart Alecks down in the company put 'em up to. I'm going to put some o' them smarties through a course o' sprouts. I like to see boys in good spirits, and I can enjoy a joke with the next man, but there's such a thing as being too funny. I think a few hours o' extry fatigue duty will reduce their fever for fun."
"Why, what'd they do?" repeated Si.
"Well, in the first place, they got that Joslyn and Mackall to mark a big number 79 on their tents, and then put the same, with their names, on a sheet of paper, and take it up to the Captain's tent.
"The Captain was having a life-and-death rassle with Cap Summerville over their eternal chess, when he's crosser'n two sticks, and liable to snap your head off if you interrupt him. 'Hello, what do you want? What's this?' says he, taking the paper."
Them's Our Names and Addresses 59
"'Them's our names and addresses,' says the brats, cool as cucumbers. Thought we ought to give 'em to you, so's you'd know where to find us, in case you wanted us in a hurry, say, at night.'
"The blazes it is,' says Cap, and Cap Summerville roared. 'You get back to your quarters quick as you can run. Don't worry about my not finding you when I want you. It's my business to find you, and I've got men to help me do it. I'll find you sometime in a way that'll make your hair stand up. Get out, now, and never come around my tent with any such blamed nonsense as that.'
"And Cap Somerville took advantage of the break to snap up Cap's queen, which made him hotter'n ever.
"When the boys got back they found them smart Alecks, Bob Walsh and Andy Sweeney, waiting for 'em, and they consoled 'em, saying, That's just the way with that old bull-head. Never'll take no good advice from nobody about running' the company. Thinks he knows it all. You see how he runs the company. He haint got the addresses o' half his men this minnit, and don't know where they are. That's the reason so many o' our letters from home, and the good things they send us, never reach us. He ought to keep a regler directory, same as in the other companies.'"
"Then some o' them smarties found out that Scruggs was stuck on his spouting. Seems that he was the star declaimer in his school. They laid it in to him that I was soft on hearing poetry spouted, especially after night, when the moon was up, and everything quiet in camp, and that I was particularly tender on 'Bingen on the Rhine.' You know that if there is anything I'm dead sore on it's that sniveling rot. There used to be a pasty-faced boy in school that'd wail that out, and set all the girls to bawling. Then they gave us an entertainment just before we left, and all the girls were there, and Pasty-Face he must be the star attraction. He wailed out his condemned old There-was-a-soldier-of-the Legion—laying-i-n-Algiers, and all the girls looked at us as if we were already dead, and they'd better look out for new beaux. My own particular geranium did not lose any time, but married another feller before we got to Stone River. That made me hate the blasted caterwaul worse'n ever. Then that white-eyed, moon-struck Alfonso used to be yowling it at every chance, until he went to the hospital, and he got all the rest so that they were sputtering rags and tags of it. But I've been sorer than a bile on the condemned sick calfishness ever since I brung my chum Jim Bridgewater off the field at Chickamauga, and watched him die as the moon rose, back there at McFarland Gap. Well, what do these smarties do but fill up Scruggs with the idea that the best way to make himself forever solid with me was to stroll down close to my tent and casually let off 'Bingen on the Rhine' in his best style. I'd just got down to work on them pesky pay-rolls, having kept Monaghan two days in the guard-house, so's to be sure that he'd be sober enough to help me—and you know Monaghan's lightning with the pen when he's sober—when that possessed sap-sucker Scruggs began blatting out 'Bingen on the Rhine' till you could hear him down to the Colonel's quarters. It made me so mad that I knocked over the ink as I jumped up, and spoiled the triplicate rolls that we'd got about half made out. I snatched up a club to simply mash the bawling brat, but they got him away before I could reach 'im. They explained to Scruggs afterward that I was subject to fits whenever the moon was in her last quarter, and they'd forgotten to look at the almanac that evening. O, but I'll soak 'em for that yet."
"Trouble is," said Si, laughing, "the boys've bin layin' around doin' nothin' too long. They're fuller o' devilment than a dog is of fleas."
"But I haint told you half," continued the Orderly-Sergeant. "Them smarties were quick to find out that Alf Russell and Jim Humphreys leaned strongly toward religion, and they filled 'em with the idea that Cap McGillicuddy was a very devout man, and held family devotions every evening in his tent, in which his company joined."
"Great goodness," gasped Si. "They never heard Cap's remarks when we balked on a right wheel in company column."
"Well," continued the Orderly, "Cap had been waxed by Cap Summerville two games hand-running, and they were nip-and-tuck on the third, and just as impatient and cross as they always are when they're neck-and-neck in the last heat. The tent-flap raised, and in walked Russell and Humphreys soft and quietlike, as if they were going into the sitting-room for evening prayers. They had their caps in their hands, and didn't say anything but brushed their hair back and took their seats in the first place they could find, which happened to be Cap's cot. Cap didn't notice 'em till after Cap Summerville had caught his queen and then checkmated him in two moves. You know how redhot Cap gets when he loses a game of chess, particularly to Cap Summerville, who rubs it in on him without mercy.
"Cap looked at the boys in astonishment, and then snapped out: 'Well, what do you boys want?' 'We've just come in for evening prayers,' says they, mild as skimmed milk. 'Evening what?' roared the Cap. 'Evening prayers,' says they. 'Don't you have family devotion every evening? Cap Summerville couldn't hold in any longer, and just roared, and the fellers outside, who'd had their ears against the canvas listening to every word, they roared too. Cap was madder'n a July hornet, and cussed till the ridgepole shook. Then he took the two boys by the ears and marched 'em out and says: 'You two brats go back to your tents and stay there. When I want you to come to my tent I'll send for you, and you'll wish I hadn't. You'll do praying enough if you're on hand when the church call's sounded. You'll be mightily different from the rest of my company if you don't prefer going on guard to church. Get, now!'"
"Now the Captain oughtn't to say that about the company," protested Si. "I for one go to church every chance I get."
"O, yes, you do," sneered the Orderly-Sergeant. "Who was it, I'd like to know, that sent word back to the boys in the rear to steal the Chaplain's horse, and keep him hid for a day or two so's he couldn't get up and hold services, because you boys wanted to go fishing in the Tennessee River?"
"Yes, I did," Si confessed; "but it was because the boys begged me to. We'd just got there, and it looked as if the biting was good, and we probably wouldn't stay there longer'n over Sunday."
"Well, I ain't done yet," continued the Orderly-Sergeant. "That little snipe, Pete Skidmore—"
"Good gracious, he wasn't lost again, was he?" gasped Si.
"That's just what he was, the little runt, and we had the devil's own time finding him. What in Sam Hill did the Captain take him for, I'd like to know? Co. Q aint no nursery. Well, the bugler up at Brigade Headquarters blowed some sort of a call, and Skidmore wanted to know what it meant. They told him that it was an order for the youngest man in each company to come up there and get some milk for his coffee tomorrow morning, and butter for his bread. There was only enough issued for the youngest boys, and if he wanted his share he'd have to get a big hustle on him, for the feller whose nose he'd put out o' joint 'd try hard to get there ahead o' him, and get his share. So Skidmore went off at a dead run toward the sound of the bugle, with the boys looking after him and snickering. But he didn't come back at roll-call, nor at tattoo, and the smart Alecks begun to get scared, and abuse each other for setting up a job on a poor, innocent little boy. Osc Brewster and Ol Perry, who had been foremost in the trick had a fight as to which had been to blame. Taps come, and he didn't get back, and then we all became scared. I'd sent Jim Hunter over to Brigade Headquarters to look for him, but he came back, and said they hadn't seen anything of him there. Then I turned out the whole company to look for him. Of course, them too-awfully smart galoots of Co. A had to get very funny over our trouble. They asked why we didn't get the right kind of nurses for our company, that wouldn't let the members stray out of their sight? Why we didn't call the children in when the chickens went to roost, undress 'em, and tuck 'em in their little beds, and sing to 'em after they'd said 'Now I lay me down to sleep?' I stood it all until that big, hulking Pete Nasmith came down with a camp-kettle, which he was making ring like a bell, as he yelled out, 'Child lost! Child lost!' Behind him was Tub Rawlings singing, 'Empty's the cradle, baby's gone.' Then I pulled off my blouse and slung it into my tent, and told 'em there went my chevrons, and I was simply Scott Ralston, and able to lick any man in Co. A. One o' their Lieutenants came out and ordered them back to their quarters, and I deployed the company in a skirmish-line, and started 'em through the brush toward Brigade Headquarters. About three-quarters o' the way Osc Brewster and Ol Perry, when going through a thicket, heard a boy boo-hooing. They made their way to him, and there was little Skidmore sitting on a stump, completely confused and fagged out. He'd lost his way, and the more he tried to find it the worse he got turned around. They called out to him, and he blubbered out: 'Yes, it's me; little Pete Skidmore. Them doddurned fools in my company 've lost me, just as I've bin tellin' 'em right along they would, durn 'em.' Osc and Ol were so tickled at finding him that they gathered him up, and come whooping back to camp, carrying him every step of the way."
"Well, I declare to gracious," ejaculated Si. "But there's one left yet. Didn't anything happen to Sandy Baker?"
"O, yes," groaned the Orderly. "He had to be in it, too. He took advantage of the tumult to fall into the company well. We didn't know anything about it till we come back from hunting Skidmore. By that time he was so chilled that he could hardly holler any more, and his teeth chattered like a nigger minstrel's bones. I'd got a can of brandied peaches down at the sutler's, and it took all the brandy to bring him around, and I had nothing left but the peaches. Now, while I like a little variety in camp-life as well as the next man, I don't want no more ructions like last night's. I'll put you in charge of those kids, and hold you responsible for 'em. I don't care what you do with 'em, so long's you keep 'em quiet, and don't disturb the company. Kill 'em, if you want to, but keep 'em quiet. I've got to finish up them pay-rolls tonight."
"You bet me and Shorty'll stop these smart Alecks from imposin' on the poor little greenies," asserted Si.
"I GUESS," thought Si, as he left the Orderly-Sergeant, and walked down the company street to the left, "that the best way to begin is to get them little whelps into an awkward squad, and give 'em an hour or two o' sharp drillin'. That'll introduce 'em to the realities o' soljerin'."
It was a warm, bright March day, with the North Georgia mountains rapidly robing themselves in fresh green, to welcome the coming Spring. The effervescent boys had entirely forgotten the worries of the previous night, and were frolicking in the bright sunshine as if "out-at-recess" from school.
Mackall, Joslyn, Humphreys and Baker had gotten hold of a ball, and were having a game of "two-cornered cat," with noise enough for a whole school play-ground. Russell and Scruggs were running a foot-race, for the entertainment of a squad of cooks and teamsters, and little Pete Skidmore was giving an exhibition before the same audience of his ability to stand on his head, and turn somersaults.
"Little thought they have of the seriousness of war," thought Si, with a shrug of his shoulders, as he yelled out:
"Come, boys, fall in here."
When the boys had first come under Si's command they regarded him as one of the greatest men in the army. In their shadowy notions of military matters they rather thought that he stood next to the great Generals whose names filled all mouths. These ideas had been toppled into dust by their arrival in camp, and seeing so many different men order him around. They felt ashamed of themselves that they had ever mistaken him for a great man, and put him up on a pedestal. That is the way with boys. They resent nothing more sharply than the thought of their having been deceived into honoring somebody or something unworthy of honor. They can stand anything better than a reflection upon their shrewdness and judgment.
"Hear Klegg a-calling?" said Joslyn, pausing for an instant, with the ball in his hand.
"Let him call," said Mackall, indifferently, finishing his run to base. "He ain't big boss no more. He's only the lowest Sergeant in the company. Throw the ball, Harry. You must do better'n you've been doing. We're getting away with you."
"Fall in here, boys, I tell you," said Si so sternly that Pete Skidmore stopped in his handspring, but seeing the bigger boys making no move to obey, decided that it would be improper for him to show any signs of weakness, and he executed his flip-flap.
"Here, you're out, Gid. Gi' me the bat," shouted Harry Joslyn, as he caught the ball which Mackall had vainly struck at.
Si strode over to the group, snatched the bat from Harry's hand, spanked him with it, and started for the others of the group.
"Say, you musn't hit that boy," exclaimed Gid, jumping on Si's back. Gid was as ready to fight for Harry as to fight with him. The others rushed up, school boy like, to defend their companion against "the man," and little Pete Skidmore picked up a stone and adjusted it for throwing.
"Why, you little scamps you," gasped Si in amazement. "What'd you mean? Ain't you goin' to obey my orders?"
"You haint no right to give us orders no more," asserted Humphreys, flourishing his bat defiantly. "You're only an enlisted man, same as the rest o' us. They told us so, last night, and that we mustn't let you impose on us, as you'd bin doin'. Only the Captain and the Colonel command us. We've bin posted. And if you dare hit any o' us we'll all jump on you and maul your head offen you."
The rest looked approval of Jim's brave words.
"We're goin' to strike for our altars and our fires. Strike for the green graves of our sires. God and our native land," declaimed Monty Scruggs.
The waspish little mutiny was so amusing that Si had to smile in spite of himself. With a quick, unexpected movement he snatched the bat from Jim Humphreys' hand, and said good-humoredly:
"Now, boys, you mustn't make fools of yourselves agin'. Stop this nonsense at once, I tell you. I'm just as much your commandin' officer as I ever was."
"How can you be a commanding officer, when everybody else bosses you about?" persisted the argumentative Monty Scruggs. "Everybody that comes near you orders you around, just the same as you used to us, and you mind 'em. That ain't no way for a commanding officer. We don't want anybody bossing us that everybody else bosses."
"Well, that's the way o' the army," Si explained patiently, "and you've got to git used to it. 'Most everybody bosses somebody else. The President tells Gen. Grant what he wants done. Gen. Grant orders Gen, Thomas to do it. Gen. Thomas orders a Major-General. The Major-General orders a Brigadier-General. The Brigadier-General orders our Colonel. Our Colonel orders Cap McGillicuddy. Cap McGillicuddy orders the Orderly-Sarjint, the Orderly-Sarjint orders me, and I command you."
"Why, it's worse'n 'The-House-That-Jack-Built,'" said Monty Scruggs.
"Well, you needn't learn all of it," said Si. "It's enough for you to know that I command you. That's the A B C of the business, and all you need know. A man in the army gits into trouble offen by knowin' too much. You git it well into your craws that I command you, and that you've got to do just as I say, and I'll do the rest o' the knowin' that you need.—"
"But how're we to know that you're right every time," argued Monty Scruggs.
"Well," explained the patient Si, "if you've any doubts, go to the Orderly-Sarjint. If he don't satisfy you, go to the Captain. If you have doubts about him, carry it to the Colonel. If you're still in doubt, refer it to the Brigadier-General, then to the Major-General, to Gen. Thomas, Gen. Grant, and lastly to the President of the United States."
"Great goodness!" they gasped.
"But the less you bother your heads with Captains and Curnels and Generals the better you'll git along. The feller that's right over you—in arm's length o' you all the time—is the feller that you've got to look out for sharply. I'm him. Now I want you to form in two ranks quicker'n scat, and 'tend to business. I'm goin' to drill you. Gid Mackall, take your place there. Harry Joslyn, stand behind him."
The old squabbles as to precedence immediately broke out between Gid and Harry, which Si impatiently ended by snatching Harry by the collar and yanking him behind Gid, with the wrathful Harry protesting that he intended carrying the matter up through the whole military hierarchy, even to the President of the United States, if necessary. He did not come into the army to be run over.
"You came into the army to do just as I tell you, and you'll do it. Silence in the ranks," commanded Si. "Humphreys, stand next to Mackall. Scruggs, stand behind Humphreys."
"Why do you put one man behind another?" queried Monty Scruggs. "I don't think that's right.—Jim's big head'll be forever in my way, so's I can't see anything. Why don't you put us out in one line, like a class in school? Then everybody's got the same show."
"I didn't make the tactics. Git into your places," snapped Si.
"Well, I don't think much of a teacher that can't explain what he's teaching," mumbled Monty, as he reluctantly obeyed.
"Now, Russell, stand next to Humphreys; Baker, stand behind Russell; Skidmore, stand next to Russell."
"Goody, I'm in the front rank," giggled little Pete, and Harry Joslyn looked as if here was another case of favoritism that he would have to call the President's attention to.
"Now," commanded Si, "put your heels together, turn your toes out, stand erect, draw your stomachs in—"
'draw Your Stomachs In. 73
"Look here, Jim Humphreys," grumbled Monty Scruggs, "when he told you to draw your stomach in he didn't mean for you to stick your hips out till you bumped me over into the next Township. I've got to have room to stand here, as well as you."
"Silence in the ranks," commanded Si. "Draw your stomachs in, put your little fingers down to the seams of your pantaloons—"
"You mean the middle finger, don't you?" queried Monty Scruggs. "That's more natural way of standing."
"No, I mean the little finger," asserted Si.
"But the middle finger is more natural," persisted Monty. "You can't stand straight with your little finger at the seam. See here."
"Scruggs, do as I say, without no words," said Si, and then Monty's face took on an expression of determination to carry the matter to a higher court.
"Now, keep your faces straight to the front, and at the command 'Right dress!' turn your eyes, without moving your heads, until you kin see the buttons on the breast of the second man to the right. 'Right dress!'"
"There's no man on my right for me to look toward. What 'm I to do?" complained Gid Mackall.
"There, you see what come o' putting him in front," exulted Harry Joslyn. "Now, if I'd bin—"
"Say, I can't see up to Jim Humphreys' big breast without twistin' my neck nearly off," murmured little Pete Skidmore. "Can't you make him scrooch a little? Jest see him swell up."
"What's the use o' linin' on a feller that can't stand still a second?" complained the others.
"Great Scott, what a line," groaned Si, walking along, shoving the boys back, and twisting them around, to get them straight. "Crooked as a pumpkin vine in a cornfield. Here, I told you not to turn your heads, but only your eyes. If you snipes wouldn't gab so much, but listen to what I say, you'd git along better. Silence in ranks. Now, try it over again. Faces straight to the front. Eyes cast to the right, until they catch the buttons on the breast of the second man. Right dress!"
"Great grief," sighed he, looking at the result. "You wriggle about like so many eels. Might as well try to line up so many kittens. Won't you straighten Up and keep straight?" Then came a renewal of the noisy discussion, with mutual blaming of one another.
Si picked up a stick and drew a line in the ground. "Now bring your toes to that line, and keep 'em there."
"Shall we take that scratch along with us as we march, or will you draw another one for us as we need it?" Monty Scruggs asked, at which the other boys laughed, which did not improve Si's temper. It was long, hard work before he got the restless, talkative young fellows so that they would form a fairly straight line, and maintain it for a minute or two.
He looked at them, wiped his perspiring brow, and remarked internally:
"Well, I thought them was bright boys, that it'd be no trouble to drill. I'd ruther break in the stoonidest lot o' hayseeds that ever breathed, rather than boys that think they know more'n I do. Now I'm goin' to have the time o' my life learnin' 'em the right face."
He began the explanation of that complicated manuver:
"Now, I want every one o' you to stop talkin', gether up them scatter-fire brains o' your'n, and pay strict 'tention to every word I say—"
"Harry Joslyn," broke in Gid, "if you tramp on my heels just one more time, I'll knock your head off. I've told you often enough."
"Well, you just keep off en my toes with them rockgrinders o' your'n," Harry retorted.
"Silence in ranks," commanded Si. "Each rank will count twos."
"What are twos? Where are they, and how many of 'em do you want us to count?" asked Monty Scruggs, at which the other boys snickered. They were getting very tired of the drill, and in the humor to nag and balk the drillmaster. Si lost a trifle of his temper, and said:
"You're too all-fired smart with your tongue, Scruggs. If you were only half as smart learnin' your business—"
"Sergeant," said one of the Lieutenants who happened to be passing, "keep your temper. You'll get along better. Don't squabble with your men."
This made the boys much worse.
"What I mean by countin' twos," explained Si, "is that the man on the right in each rank shall count one, the next one, two; the next one, one and so on. Count twos!"
They made such an exasperating muddle of it, that Si almost had a fit. The cooks, teamsters and other hangers-on saw the trouble and came flocking around with all manner of jesting remarks and laughter, which strained Si's temper to the utmost, and encouraged the boys in their perversity. Si curbed himself down, and laboriously exemplified the manner of counting until the boys had no excuse for not understanding it.
"Now, said he, at the command 'Right face,' the No. 1 man in the front rank faces to the right and stand fast—"
"What do the rest of us do?" they chorused.
"The rest o' you chase yourselves around him," said a humorist among the cooks, while the others laughed uproariously.
"Shut up, you pot-wrastlers," said Si wrathfully. "If I hear another word from you, I'll light into you with a club. Now you brats—"
"Sergeant," admonished the Lieutenant, "you mustn't use such language to your men."
This made Si angrier, and the boys more cantankerous. Si controlled himself to go on with his explanations in a calm tone:
"No 1 in the front rank will face to the right, and stand fast, and take a side step to the right. Each No. 2 will face to the right, and take on oblique side step to the right to place himself on the right hand of his No. 1 man."
"Say that all again, Sergeant," asked Monty Scruggs.
Si patiently repeated the explanation.
"Now sing it to the tune of 'When this Cruel War is Over,' called out the cook-humorist.
"Right face," commanded Si.
A roar went up from the camp-follower audience at the hopeless tangle which ensued. No two of the boys seemed to have done the same thing. Several had turned to the left, and all were sprinting around in various ways in a more or less genuine pretense of executing the order. Meanwhile the news that Si's squad of recruits were having fun with him spread through the camp, and a crowd gathered to watch the performance and give their jeering advice in that characteristic soldierly way when they see a comrade wrestling with a perplexing job.
"Git a bushel basket, and gather 'em up in it."
"Tie straw around their left feet, and hay around their right ones, so's they'll know 'em."
"Back 'em up agin' a rail fence and git 'em into line;" were among the freely offered suggestions. Si was sweating all over, and so angry that he had to stolidly bite his words off, one at a time, to keep from showing his temper. To add to his troubles, he saw the Colonel, of whom he stood in proper awe, become interested in the crowd and the shouting, and stroll down from his tent to see what the excitement was.
"As you were," Si commanded, steadying his voice with a great effort. "Every one of you git back as I placed you. Right dress!"
To his wonderment they formed as good a line as veterans could have done. They heard a whisper that the Colonel was coming, and it sobered them.
"Right face!" commanded Si.
They all faced to the right and stepped into their places without an error.
"Front!" commanded Si, and they returned to two ranks.
"Ah, Sergeant," said the Colonel, kindly, as he made his way through the respectfully opened, saluting crowd. "Giving your men their first drill, are you? Well, you are getting along remarkably well for recruits. I saw that last movement, and it was very well done, indeed. You've got some very nice-looking boys there, and I think they'll be a credit to the regiment."
"Saved by the skin o' my teeth," gasped Si to himself, as the Colonel strolled on. "Now, you young roosters, I see that you kin do it whenever you want to, and you've got to want to after this. A boy that don't want to I'll take down to the branch there, and hold his head under water till he does want to. I'm goin' to stay with you until you learn the drill dead letter perfect. You can't git rid of me. You'll save trouble by rememberin' that. Now we'll go back for supper. Right face—forward—file left—March!"
AFTER the flush of excitement of returning to his old regiment and meeting his comrades—after the process of readjusting himself to the changed relations made by death, wounds, discharges, resignations and promotions—after the days had brought a settling back into the old routine of camp-life, there developed in Shorty's heart growing homesickness for Maria Klegg.
At least that was what it seemed to him. He did not exactly know what homesickness was from personal experience, as he had never really had a home. But he had seen thousands of boys more or less affected by that obscure but stubborn and dangerous malady, and had noted their symptoms, which strongly resembled his own.
Somehow, the sun only shone with real brightness and warmth over the pleasant homes and fertile fields of Posey County, Ind. Somehow, women had a fairness and sweetness there denied to their sex elsewhere, and somehow the flower of them all was a buxom maiden of 20 dwelling under the roof of Deacon Klegg.
Shorty appreciated very properly the dignity and responsibilities of his two stripes. He was going to be the model Corporal of the regiment, and give all the rest a copy which they could follow to advantage. Of all the Corporals he had ever known, Si Klegg had come nearest his ideas as to what a Corporal should be, but even Si had his limitations. He would show him some improvements. So shorty bent his mind upon the performance of everything pertaining to the Corporalcy with promptness and zeal. He even set to studying the Regulations and Tactics—at least those paragraphs relating to Corporals and their duties—where heretofore he had despised "book-soldiering," and relied on quick observation and "horse sense" to teach him all that was worth knowing. But his stay in the Deacon's home showed him that they esteemed "book-knowledge" even in common things as of much value, and he began to have a new respect for that source of instruction.
Even through the pressure of official duties and responsibilities there would steal, like the wafting of a sweet song to the ears of the reapers in a hot field, thoughts of the coolness, the beauty and the peace of that quiet home on the Wabash, with one flower-faced girl, with white, soft arms, going about her daily tasks, singing with such blithe cheeriness that even the birds stopped to listen to a sweeter note than theirs. Some subtle fragrance from her seemed to be with him wherever he was, and whatever he might be doing. When, as the tallest Corporal in Co. Q, he stood on the right of the company, on drill and dress parade, and made the others "dress" on him, he wished that Maria Klegg could only see how straight the line was, and how soldierly the boys looked. When the Colonel personally selected him to command the squad which was to escort the Paymaster through a dangerous part of the country, he would have given much had Maria known of the trust reposed in him. And when, as Corporal of the Guard, he suppressed in his usual summary way a noisy row among the teamsters and cooks, he was very glad that Maria did not hear the remarks that a Corporal always thinks necessary to make on such occasions. Shorty did not swear with the fluent ease of before his visit to the Klegg homestead, but a little excitement gave the old looseness to his tongue. And when he sat around the guard-fire, he would refuse to be drawn into any "little games," but turn his back upon the chattering crowd, and furtively draw from his breast-pocket the remnant of Maria's dress, and feel it, and muse over it, until aroused by the call:
"Corporal of the Guard, Post No. 14. I want a drink o' water."
Shorty began to watch for Si's mail a good deal more anxiously than that worthy did. He managed to go by the Chaplain's tent whenever duty took him in that part of the camp, and sometimes when it did not, and inquire if there was any mail there for Si. One day he was rewarded by the Chaplain handing him two letters. His heart beat a little quicker by seeing that they were both postmarked Bean Blossom Creek. The smaller—a white envelope, superscribed in Annabel's cramped little hand—he thrust indifferently into his pocket, and the larger—a fat, yellow envelope, covered with the good Deacon's massive crow-tracks, and securely fastened by a dab of sealing wax, pressed down with a cent—he studied with tender interest. It had come directly from her home—from her father. It probably told something about her.
It seemed as if there was something of the perfume of her presence about it. Possibly she had carried it to the station and mailed it. He turned it over gently, studied every detail, and fixed his eyes upon it, as if he would make them pierce the thick, strong paper and devour the contents. Then it occurred to him that the better and quicker way to get at the inside would be to deliver the letters to Si. So he hunted up his partner, whom he found about to take his squad out for a turn at wagon guarding.
Si looked pleased as he recognized his father's letter, but his face flushed to the roots of his sandy hair at the sight of Annabel's. He put the latter carefully in his pocket. It was too sweet and sacred a thing to be opened and read under the gaze of any one else's eyes. He broke open his father's and as his eyes traveled slowly down the large foolscap pages, covered with the Deacon's full-grown characters, for the Deacon made his letters as he liked his stock—big and full—he said:
"They're all well at home, but mother's had a tech of her old rheumatiz. Pap's sold his wheat at a dollar and four bits. Peaches about half killed. Had good luck with his lambs. Wheat's lookin' unusually well. Beck Spangler's married Josh Wilson, whose wife died last Fall, leavin' him two little children. Brindle cow's come in fresh, with a nice calf, quarter Jersey. Copperhead's gittin' sassy agin. Holdin' night meetin's and wearin' butternut badges, and talkin' about resistin' draft. Hogs wintered well, and looks as if Pap'd have a nice drove to sell in the Fall. Pap'll put in 'bout 90 acres o' corn, and'll have to hustle his plowin' ez soon's the ground's fit. Little Sammy Woggles had a fight with Beecham's boy, who's six months older, and licked him. Sammy likes school better now than he did. Pap's bought Abraham Lincoln a new suit o' store clothes and the girls have made him some white shirts. He goes to church every Sunday now, and carries a cane. Pap sends his regards to you, Shorty, and mother and the girls want to be kindly remembered. There, take the letter, Shorty, and read it for yourself. I've got to skip out with my squad."
Shorty took the letter with eagerness, and retired to a nook to read it all over carefully, and see if he could not mayhap glean out of it something more relating to Her. But the main satisfaction was in reading again and again "Mother and the girls want to be kindly remembered to Shorty."
"Not uncomfortably warm, and purty general, like the gal who promised to be a sister to the hull rijimint," mused Shorty, as he refolded the letter and replaced it in the envelope. "But, then, it is better to be kindly remembered by sich people as them than to be slobbered over by anybody else in the world. Wisht I knowed jest how much o' the kind remembrance was Maria's, and if it differed in any way from her mother's and sister's?"
The next evening the Orderly-Sergeant handed Shorty a badly-thumb-marked and blotted yellow envelope, on which was scrawled in a very schoolish hand:
"To Mister Corpril Elliott,"Co. Q, Two Hundred InjiannyVolintears,"Chattynoogy, 10-S-E."Opening it he read:Mister ShorteeU ar a Frawd!!! That's what U ar!!!Whairz mi Gunn??????U ar a long-shanked, brick-topt Frawd & a promisbraker!!!Whairz mi Gunn???U hav now bin away a hole month, & I haint seen no Gunn!Awl the boiz is makin fun ov Me, bekaws I blowed around boutthe Gunn I waz going 2 git, & I didn't git none.Whairz mi Gunn???I likked Ans. Beechum till he hollered nuff, for teezin Mebout mi Gunn. That's quiled the other boiz.But I want mi Gunn!I have just lots & Gobs 2 tell U, bout what Maria's binsayin bout yore saffron head, but I shant write a word tillI git mi Gunn!I wont tell U how the girls is pleggin her bout her BigSunflower till I git mi Gunn!If U doant send mi Gunn rite off He tel Maria everything Ino.I tel U now. He spile yore funOnless at once U send mi Gunn.Yores til deth,SAMUEL WOGGLES.
The reception of this perturbed Shorty to his depths. He had not forgotten his promise to Sammy—merely postponed its execution under the pressure of other engrossments. He reproached himself for not remembering how eagerly the boy had been looking forward to a possession which would make him the envy of the other boys—really hated by them for his towering and undeserved fortune.
"And Maria and the girls is talkin' about me," he communed with himself. "I knowed that my left ear hadn't bin burnin' ever since we crossed the Ohio River for nothin'. I thought it was because it'd got so tender layin' on pillers that the blankets chafed it. Now I understand it. And I can't hear nothin' of what they've bin sayin' till I git that gun to Sammy. I'll start it to him this day, if it takes a leg. I'd intended to go over to the camp o' the Maumee Muskrats today, on a missionary, tower with them new tricks I brung back with me, but I'll put in the time gittin' Sammy's gun and shippin' it to him. Wonder where I kin pick up a rebel musket and trimmins'?" Shorty did not find this so easy as he had anticipated. Generally, rebel guns had been a drug in the market. They could be found lying around camp almost anywhere, and were used for any purpose to which they could be applied—poles to hang kettles on over the fire, tent-sticks, revetments to hold the dirt back, or any other use. But under the rigid system now prevailing in Sherman's camps everything had to be accounted for, and every gun sufficiently serviceable to be worth sending to Sammy had been gathered up and stored away in a large shed. Shorty went down there and scrutinized the armory. There were plenty of guns in there, any one of which would make Sammy's heart leap for joy, and render him the object of the burning envy of all the boys for miles around. But there were guards pacing around, and they looked watchful. Still, if the night were dark he might slip in and steal one. But somehow since he had known Maria there had risen in his mind a repugnance to that way of procuring things. It was not in accordance with Klegg ideas. He sat down and pondered on other methods. He went over and talked to the Sergeant in charge, an old acquaintance, but the Sergeant was obdurate.
"No, sir. Can't let one of 'em go on no account," said the Sergeant firmly. "My Captain's in charge of 'em, and he's put me in charge. He knows he can trust me, and I know that he can. He don't know how many guns and bayonets and cartridge-boxes there are, but I do, for I counted them first thing when I come on. I don't propose that he shall have to have any shortage charged against him when he comes to settle his accounts. I don't know whether they've got an account of the things at Headquarters, but they're likely to have, and I'm not taking any risks. I'm looking out for my Captain."
"But suppose I pay you the value of the blamed old blunderbuss," said Shorty, as a desperate resort, for it was the first time that he had ever thought of a rebel gun having a money value.
"I wouldn't take it," replied the Sergeant. "First place, I haint no idea what they're worth. Next place, if I had, I wouldn't take it, for I don't want any shortage in Cap's accounts. Thirdly, if I took the money I'd like as not set into a game o' poker tonight and lose it, and then where'd I be, and where'd Cap be? I've been having monstrous hard luck at poker lately."
"That's because you ain't up to the latest kinks," said Shorty, hopefully. "I've been back to the rear—just come from Jeffersonville—and I've got on to a lot of new dodges. I'll show 'em all to you for one o' them guns."
The waver in the Sergeant's face showed the temptation was a trying one, but he answered firmly:
"No; I won't do it."
"I'll put up a $10 bill agin one o' the guns, play you two out o' three for it, learn you the tricks, and give you back the money if I win," said Shorty desperately.
Again the Sergeant's face showed great irresolution, but again his fidelity triumphed, and he answered firmly, "No I won't." Then he softened his refusal by saying:
"Come, Shorty, walk over a little way with me. I know where we can get something good."
After they had shared a tincupful of applejack that a teamster supplied them the Sergeant's heart thawed out a little.
"I tell you. Shorty, there's a gun in there that'd just tickle your boy to death. It's an Enfield, new one, and has a Yankee bullet sticking in the butt. Must've knocked the Johnny a double somersault when it struck. I've been thinkin' sending it home myself. But I'll let you have it, and I'll tell you how you can get it. See that camp over there? Well, that's a regiment being organized out o' Tennessee refugees. They and their officers are the carelessest lot of galoots that ever lived. Their Quartermaster stores and their Commissary stores, and everything they have is allowed to lie around loose, just wherever they get the notion to drop them. I've had my eye on 'em for several days, and've helped several of my friends to straighten up their company accounts, and replace things that they'd lost. You just waltz over there, careless like, as if you belonged to the regiment, pick up a gun and traps, put 'em on, and sail back here, and I'll turn your things in, and give you that gun with the bullet in the stock in exchange."
Shorty lost no time in acting on the advice. That afternoon the express from Chattanooga carried a gun to Sammy Woggles, the contemplation of which deprived that youth of sleep the night after he received it, and won him the cordial hatred of every boy in his neighborhood for his overweening pride.
But after the gun was gone, and after Shorty had written a laborious letter, informing Sammy of the shipment of the gun and its history, which letter inclosed a crisp greenback, and was almost as urgent in injunctions to Sammy to write as Sammy had been about his piece of ordnance, Shorty sat down in sadness of heart. He was famishing for information from Maria, and at the lowest calculation he could not hope for a letter from Sammy for two weeks.
"It'll take at least a week for that little rat to git over his fever about that gun," he mused, "until he'll be able to set up and think about anything else. Then it'll take him at least another week to build a letter. Great Jehosephat, how'm I goin' to stand it till then? Where'll I be two weeks from now? What kin I do? I a'most wish that something'd happen to Si that'd give me an excuse for writin'."
He racked his fertile brain with expedients and devices for getting up communication, but for once he had to reject them all. There was a halo of unapproachableness about Maria Klegg that paralyzed him.
He awoke the next morning with the same anxiety gnawing at his heart, and it haunted him so that he went through the morning's routine mechanically. When he came back from taking a squad up to Headquarters to report for fatigue duty, the Orderly-Sergeant called out:
"Here's a letter for you, Corporal Elliott." Shorty took the small white envelope from the Orderly's hand, and looked at it curiously. Who could it be from? It resembled somewhat the letters that once came from Bad Ax, Wis., but then again it was very different. He studied the handwriting, which was entirely strange to him. Then he was electrified by seeing that the postmark seemed to be something the same as on Si's letters, but was blurred. He gave a little gasp, and said:
"Orderly, I'd like to git off a little while today." "Why, Shorty," remonstrated the busy Sergeant, "you were off yesterday. But go. I'll try to get along without you. Don't stay long."