"Don"t want to ain"t goin" to," answered Shorty.
"What"s the reason you ain"t?" asked the Sergeant, catching hold of the gun. "n.o.body"s going to take it, and if they did, you can pick up another. Plenty of "em, jest as good as that, all around here."
"Don"t care. This is my own gun. I think more of it than any gun ever made, and I ain"t goin" to take any chance of losin" it."
"Well, then, you"ll take a chance of losing your supper," answered the Sergeant, "or rather you"ll be certain of it, for the orders are strict against taking guns into the supper-room. Too many accidents have happened."
"Well, then," said Shorty stoutly, "I"ll do without my supper, though I"m hungrier than a wolf at the end of a long Winter."
"Well, if you"re so infernal pig-headed, you"ve got to," answered the Sergeant, nettled at Shorty"s obstinacy. "Go back beyond the gunstack, and stay there. Don"t you come nearer the door than the other side of the stack."
Shorty"s dander rose up at once. At any other time he would have conclusions with the Sergeant then and there. But the remembrance of his charge laid a repressive hand upon his quick choler, and reminded him that any kind of a row would probably mean a night in the guard-house, his gun in some other man"s hands, probably lost forever, and so on. He decided to defer thrashing the Sergeant until his return, when he would give it to him with interest. He shouldered his gun, paced up and down, watching with watering mouth the rest luxuriating in a hot supper with fragrant coffee and appetizing viands, to which his mouth had been a stranger for many long months. It cost a severe struggle, but he triumphed.
Si, in his own hungry eagerness, had not missed him, until his own appet.i.te began to be appeased by the vigorous onslaught he made on the eatables. Then he looked around for his partner, and was horrified not to find him by his side.
"Where"s Shorty," he anxiously inquired.
Each looked at the other in surprise, and asked: "Why, ain"t he here?"
"No, confound it; he ain"t here," said Si, excitedly springing to his feet; "he has been knocked down and robbed."
Si bolted out, followed by the rest. They saw Shorty marching up and down as a sentinel sternly military, and holding his Springfield as rigidly correct as if in front of the Colonel"s quarters.
"What"s the matter with you, Shorty? Why don"t you come in to supper?" called out Si. "It"s a mighty good square meal. Come on in."
"Can"t do it. Don"t want no supper. Ain"t hungry. Got business out here," answered Shorty, who had gotten one of his rare fits of considering himself a martyr.
"Nonsense," said Si. "Put your gun in the stack and come in. It"s a bully supper. Best we"ve had for a year."
"Well, eat it, then," answered Shorty crustily. "I"ve got something more important to think of than good suppers."
"O, rats! It"s as safe in there as out here. Set your gun down and come on in."
"This gun shall not leave my side till we"re home," said Shorty in a tone that would have become the Roman sentinel at Pompeii.
"O, I forgot," said Si. "Well, bring it in with you."
"Can"t do it. Strictly agin orders to take any guns inside. But leave me alone. Go back and finish your gorge. I kin manage to hold out somehow," answered Shorty in a tone of deep resignation that made Si want to box his ears.
"That"s too bad. But I"ll tell you what we can do. I"ve had a purty good feed already enough to last me to Looeyville. Let me take your gun. I"ll carry it while you go in and fill up. We hain"t much time left."
The fragrance of the coffee, the smell of the fried ham smote Shorty"s olfactories with almost irresistible force. He wavered just a little--.
"Si, I"d trust you as I would no other man in Co. Q or the regiment. I"ll--"
Then his Spartan virtue rea.s.serted itself: "No, Si; you"re too young and skittish. You mean well, but you have spells, when--"
"Fall in, men," said Lieut. Bowersox, bustling out from a good meal in the officers" room. "Fall in promptly. We must hurry up to catch the Looeyville train."
The car for Louisville was filled with characters as to whom there was entirely too much ground for fear--gamblers, "skin-game" men, thieves, and all the human vermin that hang around the rear of a great army. Neither of the boys allowed themselves a wink of sleep, but sat bolt upright the entire night, watching everyone with steady, stern eyes. They recognized all the rascals they had seen "running games" around the camps at Murfreesboro, and who had been time and again chased out of camp even the whisky seller with whom Si"s father had the adventure. The Provost-Guard had been making one of its periodical cleaning-ups of Nashville, and driving out the obnoxious characters. Several of these had tried to renew their acquaintance by offering drinks from well-filled bottles, but they were sternly repulsed, and Shorty quietly knocked one persistent fellow down with a quick whirl of his gun-barrel. When Shorty was hungry it was dangerous to trifle with him.
They arrived at Louisville late in the morning, and were hurried across the river to Jeffersonville. Fortunately they were able to find there an eating-room where guns were not barred, and Shorty made amends for the past by ravaging as far as his arms could reach, holding his precious gun firmly between his knees.
"Say, pardner," said the man who ran the establishment, "I"d much rather board you for a day than a week. Rebels must"ve cut off the supply-trains where you"ve bin. You"re not comin" this way agin soon, air you? I"m afraid I won"t make "nough this month to pay my rent."
Lieut. Bowersox came in with a telegram in his hand.
"We won"t go on to Indianapolis," he said. "I"m ordered to wait here for our squad, which will probably get here by to-morrow evening."
A wild hope flashed up in Si"s mind.
"Lieutenant," he said, "we live right over there in Posey County. Can"t you let us go home? We can make it, and be back here before to-morrow night."
"I don"t know," said the Lieutenant doubtfully, as he mentally calculated the distance to Posey County. "I hadn"t ought to let you go. Then, you can"t have more than an hour or two at home."
"O," goodness; just think o" havin" one hour at home," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Si.
"It seems too bad," continued the Lieutenant, moved by Si"s earnestness, "to bring you this near, and not let you have a chance to see your folks.
"It"ll be a risk for me, and there are not many men in the regiment I"d take it for, but I"ll let you go.
"Remember, it"ll make a whole lot of trouble for me if you"re not here by to-morrow evening."
"We"ll be here by to-morrow evening, if alive," he pledged himself.
"Well, then, go," said the Lieutenant.
Si"s head fairly swam, and he and Shorty ran so fast to make sure of the train that there was a suspicion in the minds of some of the citizens that they were escaping from their officers.
Si"s heart was in a tumult as the engine-bell rang its final warning and the engine moved out with increasing speed. Every roll of the swift wheels was carrying him nearer the dearest ones on earth. The landscape seemed to smile at him as he sped past.
"Isn"t this the grandest country on earth, Shorty?" he bubbled over. "It"s G.o.d"s country for a fact. So different from old run-down, rebel-ridden Tennessee. Look at the houses and the farms; look at the people and the live-stock. Look at the towns and the churches. Look at everything. Here"s the country where people live. Down yonder"s only where they stay and raise Cain."
"Yes," admitted Shorty, who had not so much reason for being enthusiastic; "but the Wisconsin boys say that Wisconsin"s as much finer than Injianny as Injianny"s finer"n Tennessee. I"ll take you up there some day and show you."
"Don"t believe a dumbed word of it," said Si, hot with State pride. "G.o.d never made a finer country than Injianny. Wisconsin"s nowhere."
Then he bethought himself of the many reasons he had for gladness in his home-coming which his partner had not, and said thoughtfully: "I wish, Shorty, you wuz goin" home, too, to your father and mother and sisters, and--and best girl. But my father and mother"ll be as glad to see you as if you was their own son, and the girls"ll make just as much of you, and mebbe you"ll find another girl there that"s purtier and better, and--"
"Stop right there, Si Klegg," said Shorty. "All girls is purty and nice that is, them that is purty and nice, but some"s purtier and nicer than others. Then, agin, one"s a hundred times purtier and nicer than any o" them. I"ve no doubt that the girls out your way are much purtier and nicer"n the general run o" girls, but none o" them kin hold a candle to that girl up in Wisconsin, and I won"t have you sayin" so."
"If we"re on time," said Si, by way of changing the subject, "we"ll git to the station about sundown. The farm"s about three miles from the station, and we"ll reach home after supper. Pap"ll be settin" out on the front porch, smokin", and readin" the Cincinnati Gazette, and mother"ll be settin" beside him knittin", and the girls"ll be clearin" away the supper things. My, won"t they be surprised to see us! Won"t there be a time! And won"t mother and the girls fly around to git us something to eat! Won"t they shake up that old cook-stove, and grind coffee, and fry ham and eggs, and bake biscuits, and git us cool, sweet milk and delicious b.u.t.ter from the old spring-house, and talk all the time! Shorty, you never heard my sisters talk, especially when they"re a little excited. Gracious, they"ll just talk the ears off both of us."
"Well, if they take after you, they are talkers from Talkville," said Shorty. "Mill-wheels ain"t in it with your tongue, when it gits fairly started."
The train was on time, and just as the sun was setting behind the fringe of cottonwoods along Bean Blossom Creek they stopped at the little station, and started to walk out to the farm. A neighbor who was drawing a load of tile from the station recognized Si, and begged them to get up and ride, but the team was too slow for the impatient boys, and they forged ahead. A thousand well-remembered objects along the road would have arrested Si"s attention were it not for the supreme interest farther on. At last they came to a little rise of ground which commanded a view of the house, and there, as Si predicted, sat his father and mother engaged in smoking, reading and knitting. His first impulse was to yell with delight, but he restrained himself, and walked as steadily on as he could to the front gate. Old Towser set up a bark and ran down the walk, and then changed his note to de lightful yelps of recognition. Si was so nervous that he fumbled vainly for a minute at the gate-latch, and while he did so he heard his mother say: "Father, there"s a couple o" soldiers out there." "Wonder if they kin be from Si"s company," said the father, lowering his paper, and looking over his spectacles.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "FATHER, THERE"S A COUPLE OF SOLDIERS OUT THERE." 159]
"Why, it"s Si himself," screamed the mother in joyful accents. The next instant she had sped down the walk quicker than she had ever gone in her girlhood days, her arms about his neck, and she was crying on his shoulder.
CHAPTER XIII.
MANY HAPPY EVENTS.
HOURS THAT WERE ALL-TOO-FEW AND ALL-TOO-SHORT.
THE girls heard their mother"s happy scream and rushed out, dish towels in hand. They at once realized what had happened, piped up their joyous altos, and precipitated themselves upon Si. The good old Deacon came trotting down the walk, fidgeting with his spectacles, but so enveloped was his son with skirts and women"s arms and happy, teary faces that he could not get within arm"s length of him. So he turned to Shorty: "Great day, Shorty, but I"m glad to see you! Come right up on the steps and set down. How"d you happen to come home. Either of you sick or wounded?"
"Nope," answered Shorty sententiously. "Both sound as nuts and healthy as mules."
"Well, come right up on the porch and set down. You must be awful tired. Le"me carry your gun and things for you."
He took hold of the gun with such a desire to do something that Shorty was fain to yield it, saying: "Deacon, you are the first man in about a million betwixt here and the Tennessee River that I"d let tech that gun. I don"t know now of another man in the United States that I"d trust it with. That "ere gun is loaded plum full of other folks"s money."
"Goodness, is that so?" said the Deacon, handling the musket with increased respect. "I"ve heard o" a bar"l o" money, but never supposed that it was a gun bar"l."
"And more"n that," continued Shorty, "there"s a full-grown cartridge below that might shoot a war widow"s new dress and shoes for the children off into the moon."
"Goodness gracious!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the Deacon, holding out the gun as he did Si the first time that interesting infant was placed in his hands, "handlin" other people"s money"s always ticklish business, but this"s a leetle the ticklishest I ever heard of."
"That"s what bin wearin" me down to the bone," responded Shorty soberly, and as they reached the porch he explained the situation to the Deacon, who took the gun in the house, and laid it carefully on a bed in the "spare room."
"Girls, you"re smotherin" me! Let up, won"t you? Mandy, you dabbed that wet dishcloth right in my eye then. Maria, I can"t talk or even breathe with your arm over my windpipe. You, dear mother, I"ll pick you up and carry you into the house, if you"ll let me," Si was trying to say. "I can"t answer all your questions at once, "specially when you"re shuttin" off my breath an" dinnin" my ears till I can"t hear myself think."
"Le"s carry your things up, Si," said Maria, after Si had gotten them calmed down a little. "You must be awful tired."
Si saw that this would be the best way to keep the girls off, while he devoted his attention to his mother. He handed his gun and belt to Maria, who marched on ahead, triumphantly waving her dish-towel as a gonfalon of victory, while she cheered for the Union in her sweet contralto. Mandy took possession of his blanket roll and haversack, while Si almost carried his tearful mother on to the porch. There her housewifely instinct at once a.s.serted it self.
"I know you and your friend there must jest be starvin"," she said, gathering herself up. "I never knowed when you wasn"t, if you"d bin an hour from the table."
"Shorty"s worse"n me," said Si with a grin. "But I haven"t interduced him yit. Mother, girls, this is Shorty, my pardner, and the best pardner a feller ever had."
"Glad to know you, Mr. Shorty," said they, shaking his hand. "We"ve heard so much of you that we feel that we"ve knowed you all along."
"Drop the Mister, then," said Shorty. "I"m plain Shorty to everybody until I"m out o" the army. I"ve heard so much of you that I feel, too, that I"ve bin acquainted with you all my life."
"Girls," commanded the mother, "come on and let"s git the boys something to eat."
"No, mother," pleaded Si, holding fast to her hand. "Let the girls do it. I want you to sit here and talk to me."
"No, Si," answered the mother, kissing him again, and releasing her hand, "I must do it myself. I must cook your supper for you. The girls won"t do it half well enough."
She hustled away to the kitchen, and Si and Shorty explained to the Deacon the circ.u.mstances of their visit, and that they must leave by the next train going east, in order to keep their promise to Lieut. Bowersox. The Deacon immediately started Abraham Lincoln and the boy on saddle horses to bring in the neighbors to see the boys, and get the money that had been sent them. They went into an inner room, carefully blinded the windows, and began to draw out the money from various pockets, cartridge-boxes, and other receptacles about their persons.
All drew a long breath of relief when, counting that in Shorty"s gun, every dollar was found to be safe.
"But how in time you"re ever goin" to git that money out o" that gun beats me," said the Deacon, picking up the musket, and gazing dubiously into the muzzle. "It was a mighty smart thing to do down at the front, but what are you going to do now, when you want to give the money to the people it belongs to?"
"It certainly don"t seem as smart as it did that night on the banks o" the Tennessee," Shorty admitted as he fixed his bullet screw on the end of his rammer, "but I"m goin" to trust to my own smartness and the Providence that provides for war widows and orphans to git out every dollar in good shape for them it was intended for."
The bullet-screw brought out the first "wad" easily and all right.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FIRST WAD CAME OUT EASILY AND ALL RIGHT. 165]
"Well, Providence is lookin" out for Jim Irvin"s wife and children all right," said Shorty, as they smoothed out the bills and found them intact.
The next attempt was equally successful, and as Shorty unrolled the bills he remarked: "Providence is again overlookin". There"s Jim Beardslee"s $50 for his widowed mother."
"And she needs it, poor woman," said the Deacon. "I"ve seen that she had all the meat and wood she"s needed since Jim enlisted, and Deacon Flagler keeps her in flour."
The next offered more difficulty. The rammings on those above had compacted it pretty solidly. The bullet screw cut off bits of it, and when finally it was gotten out the $10 bill was in pieces.
"That"s Alf Ellerby"s gift to his lame sister," said Shorty, as he ruefully surveyed the fragments. "I"m afraid Providence wasn"t mindin" just then, but I"ll give her a good bill out o" my own pocket."
"No, you needn"t," said Maria, who had slipped in, fork in hand, to pinch Si, kiss him, and ask him a question which she did not want Mandy to hear; "I kin paste that all together with white of egg so"s it"ll look as good as ever. I done that with a bill that Towser s.n.a.t.c.hed out o" my hand and chawed before I could git it away from him. The store keeper took it and said it was just as good as any. Sophy Ellerby "d rather have it that way than a new bill, so long"s it comes direct from Alf."
Again Shorty sent down the bullet screw, and again there was more tearing off of bits, and finally a mangled $20 bill was dragged forth and laid aside for Mandy to repair. "Ike Englehardt sent that to his mother to help take his sister through the Normal School, so"s she kin become a teacher. She"ll git that all right. But I"ve broken my bullet screw in that wrastle. It snapped clean off, and I"ve got the worst job of all now to get out $100 in two 50"s that Abe Trelawney sent his mother to meet that mortgage on her little house. Abe"s bin savin" it up for months, and I was more anxious about it than any other, and so I put it down first. Si, let me have your bullet-screw."
"Hain"t got none. Lost mine weeks ago, while we was on the Tullahomy march."
"Great Jehosephat! what am I goin" to do?" groaned Shorty, the sweat starting out on his fore head. "Now"s the time for Providence to help out, if He"s goin" to. I"m at the end o" my string."
"Supper"s ready, boys; come on in," announced the sweet, motherly voice of Mrs. Klegg. She seconded her invitation with her arm around Si and a kiss on his cheek. "Father, bring Shorty, unless he"d rather walk with the girls."
Shorty was altogether too bashful to take advantage of the direct hint. Si"s lively sisters filled him with a nervous dread of his social shortcomings. He grew very red in the face, hung back from them, and caught hold of the Deacon"s arm.
"Go slow with him, girls," whispered the Deacon to his daughters, after they were seated at the table. "He"s a mighty good boy, but he ain"t used to girls."
"He"s rather good looking, if he does act sheepish," returned Mandy.
"Well, he ain"t a mite sheepish when there"s serious business on hand," returned the father. "And next to ourselves, he"s the best friend your brother has."
It had been many years since the wandering, rough-living Shorty had sat down to such an inviting, well-ordered table. Probably he never had. No people in the whole world live better than the prosperous Indiana farmers, and Mrs. Klegg was known far and wide for her housewifely talents. The snowy table linen, the spotless dishes, the tastefully-prepared food would have done credit to a royal banquet. Hungry as he was, the abashed Shorty fidgeted in his chair, and watched Si begin before he ventured to make an attack. The mother and girls were too busy plying Si with questions and antic.i.p.ating his wants to notice Shorty"s embarra.s.sment.
Si was making a heroic effort to eat everything in sight, to properly appreciate all the toothsome things that loving hands were pressing upon him, and to answer the myriad of questions that were showered upon him, and to get in a few questions of his own at the same time. He just found time to ask Shorty: "Say, this is great this "s like livin", ain"t it?"
And Shorty replied with deep feeling: "Just out o" sight. How in the world"d you ever come to enlist and leave all this?"
The neighbors began gathering in fathers, mothers and sisters of members of Co. Q, all full of eager questions as to their kindred, and this relieved Shorty, for he could tell them quite as well as Si.