"Time"s up. The folks say that they can"t let Annabel have you any longer. Come into the sitting-room, both of you. Come along, Si. Come along, Annabel."
Si rose obediently, but Annabel declined to go. She did not say why, but Maria, with a woman"s instincts, knew that she wanted to be alone to think it all over. Maria therefore hurried back.
"Good-by, Annabel," he said, pressing her hand again. "I"ll write to you first thing when I git back."
"Good-by, Si. G.o.d keep you for me, safe through battles and dangers."
She turned away to hide her bursting tears.
It was astonishing how quick midnight came. When the clock striking 12 smote the ears of the family, n.o.body had said, heard or asked one t.i.the of what he or she was burning eager to, yet the parting was but a little more than two brief hours away.
With a heart heavier even than when she parted from her boy for the first time, Mrs. Klegg arose, and sought to distract her thoughts by collecting as big a package as they could carry of the choicest eatables. How often she stopped to cry softly into her ap.r.o.n not even the girls knew, for she was resolved to keep up a brave front, especially before Si, and would carefully wash all traces of tears from her face, and clear the sobs from her throat before re-entering the room where he was.
Shorty had at once been taken to the hearts of everyone, and all the older men urged him to "come back here as soon as the war"s over, marry a nice girl, and settle down among us."
Si received many compliments upon his development into such a fine, stalwart man.
One after another said:
"Si, what a fine, big man you"ve growed into. I declare, you"re a credit to your father and mother and the settlement. We all expect you to come back a Captain or a Colonel, and we"ll run you for Sheriff or County Commissioner, or something as big."
"O, anything but Treasurer," Si would laughingly reply. "I"ve had enough handling other folks" money to last me my life."
Presently Abraham Lincoln brought the spring wagon around. Even in the moonlight Si could see that freedom and the Deacon"s tuition had developed the ex-slave into a much better man than the wretched runaway whom his father had protected. He wanted to know more of him, but there were too many demands upon his attention. They all mounted into the wagon, the bundles were piled in, one last embrace from his mother, and they drove away, reaching the station just in time to catch the train.
As he kissed Maria good-by she shoved a letter into his hand, saying:
"This is from Annabel. Read it after you git on."
As the train whirled away Si made an excuse to go away from Shorty, and standing up under the lamp in the next car he read on a tear-stained sheet:
"Deer Si: I wanted so much to tel you, but the words wooddent come to my lips, that Ime yours til deth, no matter what happens, and Ime shure you feel the saim way. Annabel."
Coming back with his heart in a tumult of rapture, he found his partner fast asleep and even snoring.
CHAPTER XIV. THE FRISKY YOUNGSTERS
TRYING TO LICK A BATCH OF RECRUITS INTO SHAPE.
FOR awhile the tumult of thought kept Si awake, but he was too young, healthy, and tired for this to last long, and soon he had his head pillowed on his blanket-roll, placed in the open car-window, and was sleeping too sound to even dream of Annabel, while the rushing train pelted his face with cinders from the engine and a hail of gravel from the road-bed. But what was that to a soldier-boy who had been home, seen his best girl, and had one of his mother"s square meals?
When the train rolled into Jeffersonville in the afternoon, they saw Lieut. Bowersox on the platform anxiously waiting for them. His face lighted up with pleasure when he saw them, and eagerly coming forward he said:
"Great Cesar, boys, but I"m glad you"ve come. I"ve been waiting for you all day. Rush orders came last night to send everybody to the front.
I guess they are in need of every gun they can get. I should have gone last night, but I managed to stave off my orders till now. If you hadn"t come on this train, though, I should "ve had to go on with out you.
Hurry along, now. We are going right across the river."
Despite the Lieutenant"s urgency, Si found time to hand him a jar of honey and a small crock of b.u.t.ter from their home supplies, which he received with proper appreciation, and handed over to the grinning negro boy he had picked up somewhere in Tennessee for a servant. They followed the Lieutenant to where he had his squad of about 100 recruits gathered.
He said:
"Here, Klegg, you will act as Orderly-Sergeant, and Shorty and the rest of you as Sergeants of this detachment. Here is the list of them, Klegg.
Make up a roll and call it whenever I order you to do so."
Si took the list and looked over the crowd. They were mainly boys of about the same age and style as himself when he first enlisted, but he thought he had never seen so green, gawky a lot in the world. Like him then, every one was weighted down with a bundle of things that would evidently be contributed to the well-being of the people along the line of march.
It seemed to him that they stood around the platform in as ugly crookedness as a lodgment of driftwood on a Wabash bottom after a freshet.
"Where on the Wea prairies," muttered Shorty, "did Old Abe pick up that job lot o" wind shaken, lopsided saplings? Must"ve bin pulled when green and warped in the dryin"."
"Well, we"ve got to git "em into some sort o" shape," answered Si. "You must help."
"I help?" returned Shorty despairingly. "You"ll need a West Point perfessor and a hay-press to git that crowd into soldier shape. I ain"t once."
"Here, Sergeant," ordered Lieut. Bowersox, "line the men up, count them, learn their names, and give them a little preliminary drill, while I go to Headquarters and see the Colonel again about our transportation."
"Fall in, boys; fall in," commanded Si.
The crowd looked at him curiously. They knew that he wanted them to do something, they were willing to do it, but they hadn"t the slightest idea what it was. They made a move by huddling up a little toward him.
"Fall in in two ranks, with the right here," shouted Si.
There was more inconsequent huddling, which seemed so purposely awkward that it irritated Si, and he spoke sharply:
"Gosh all Krismuss, what"s the matter with you lunkheads? Don"t you know nothing? You"re dummer"n a lot o" steers."
"Guess we know "bout as much as you did when you first enlisted," said the smallest of the lot, a red-cheeked, bright-eyed boy, who looked as if he should have been standing up before a blackboard "doing a sum" in long division, instead of on his way to the field of strife. "Show us how, and we"ll learn as quick as you did."
Si looked at the fresh young boy. There was something actually girlish in his face, and it reminded him of Annabel. His heart softened toward him at once, and he remembered his own early troubles. He said gently to the boy:
"You"re right. What"s your name, my boy?"
"Abel Waite."
"Well, Abel, we"ll make a soldier out of you in a little while. You are the smallest; you"ll be the left of the line. Go and stand there at the corner. Now, boys, all lay your bundles down. Here, you tall fellow, what"s your name?"
"James Bradshaw."
"Well, Bradshaw, you"ll be the right of the line all the time, and the rest "ll form on you. Come, stand here."
Bradshaw shambled forward in a way that made Shorty call out:
"Here, Bradshaw, wake up! You ain"t now follerin" a plow over the last year"s corn-furrers. Straighten up, lift them mud-hooks livelier and drop your hands to your side."
The man stopped, raised his hands, and looked at Shorty with his mouth wide open.
"Come, Bradshaw," said Si gently, taking hold of him, "I"ll show you.
Now you stand right here. Put your heels together. Now turn your toes out. Throw your shoulders back this way. Close your mouth. Put your little fingers on the seams of your pantaloons that way. Now stand just so."