"Bad Ax, Wisconsin, a little ways from La Crosse."
It was Shorty"s turn to start, and it flashed upon him just where he had seen that squarish face. It was in an ambrotype that he carried in his breastpocket. He almost choked on the merrythought of the chicken, but recovered himself, and said quickly:
"I have heard o" the place. Lived there long?"
"Always, you might say. Father took me there as a child during the mine excitement, growed up there, went into business, married, lost my wife, and married again. We"re now on what you might call our bridal tower. I had to come down here on business, so I brung my wife along, and worked it off on her as our bridal tower. Purty cute, don"t you think?"
And he reached over and tried to squeeze his wife"s hand, but she repulsed it.
The bridegroom plied Shorty with questions as to the army for awhile after they had finished eating, and then arose and remarked:
"I"m goin" into the smokin"-car for a smoke. Won"t you come along with me, soldier, and have a cigar?"
"No, thankee," answered Shorty. "I"d like to, awfully, but the doctor"s shut down on my smokin" till I git well."
As soon as he was well on his way the woman leaned forward and asked Shorty in an earnest tone:
"Did you say that you belonged to the 200th Ind.?"
"Yes"m," said Shorty very meekly. "To Co. Q."
"The very same company," gasped the woman.
"Did you happen to know a Mr. Daniel Elliott in that company?"
"Very well, mum. Knowed him almost as well as if he was my own brother."
"What sort of a man was he?"
"Awful nice feller. I thought a heap of him. Thought more of him than any other man in the company. A nicer man you never knowed. Didn"t drink, nor swear, nor play cards, nor chaw terbacker. Used to go to church every Sunday. Chaplain thought a heap of him. Used to call him his right bower--I mean his strong suit--I mean his two pair--ace high. No, neither o" them"s just the word the Chaplain used, but it was something just as good, but more Bible-like."
"I"m so glad to hear it," murmured the woman.
"O, he was an ornament to the army," continued the unblushing Shorty, who hadn"t had a good opportunity to lie in all the weeks that the Deacon had been with him, and wanted to exercise his old talent, to see whether he had lost it. "And the handsomest man! There wasn"t a finer-looking man in the whole army. The Colonel used to get awfully jealous o" him, because everybody that"d come into camp "d mistake him for the Colonel. He"d "a" bin Colonel, too, if he"d only lived. But the poor fellow broke his heart. He fell in love with a girl somewhere up North--Pewter Hatchet, or some place like that. I never saw her, and don"t know nothin" about her, but I heard that the boys from her place said that she was no match for him. She was only plain, ordinary-lookin"."
"That wasn"t true," said the woman, under her breath.
"All the same, Elliott was dead-stuck on her. Bimeby he heard some way that some stay-at-home widower was settin" up to her, and she was encouragin" him, and finally married him. When Elliott heard that he was completely beside himself. He lost all appet.i.te for everything but whisky and the blood of widowers. Whenever he found a man who was a widower he wanted to kill him. At Chickamauga, he"d pick out the men that looked old enough to be widowers, and shoot at them, and no others.
In the last charge he got separated, and was by himself with a tall rebel with a gray beard. "I surrender," said the rebel. "Are you a widower?" asked Elliott. "I"m sorry to say that my wife"s dead," said the rebel. "Then you can"t surrender. I"m goin" to kill you," said Elliott. But he"d bin throwed off his guard by too much talkin". The rebel got the drop on him, and killed him."
"It ain"t true that his girl went back on him before she heard he was killed," said the woman angrily, forgetting herself. "She only married after the report of his death in the papers."
"Jerusha," said Shorty, pulling out the letters and picture, rising to his feet, and a.s.suming as well as he could in the rocking car the pose and manner of the indignant lovers he had seen in melodramas, "I"m Dan Elliott, and your own true love, whose heart you"ve broke. When I learned of your faithlessness I sought death, but death went back on me.
I"ve come back from the grave to reproach you. You preferred the love of a second-hand husband, with a silver watch-chain and a raft o" logs, to that of an honest soldier who had no fortune but his patriotic heart and his Springfield rifle. But I"ll not be cruel to you. There are the evidences of your faithlessness, that you was so anxious to git hold of.
Your secret"s safe in this true heart. Take "em and be happy with your bridge-timber contractor. Be a lovin" wife to your warmed-over husband.
Be proud of his speculations on the needs o" his country. As for me, I"ll go agin to seek a soldier"s grave, for I cannot forgit you."
As he handed her the letters and picture he was dismayed to notice that the piece of Maria"s dress was mixed in with them. He s.n.a.t.c.hed it away, shoved it back in his pocket, pulled his hat down over his eyes, and, with a melodramatic air, rushed forward into the smoking-car, where he seated himself and at once fell asleep.
He was awakened in the morning at Jeffersonville, by the provost-guard shaking him and demanding his pa.s.s.
CHAPTER IX. SHORTY IN TROUBLE
HAS AN ENCOUNTER WITH THE PROVOST-MARSHAL.
"I AINT got no pa.s.s," said Shorty, in response to the demand of the Provost-Guard. "Bin home on sick-furlough. Goin" back to the front now.
Left my papers at home. Forgot "em."
"Heard all about lost and missing papers before," said the Sergeant drily. "Fall in there, under guard." And he motioned Shorty to join the gang of stragglers and runaways which had already been gathered up.
"Look here. Sergeant," remonstrated Shorty, "I don"t belong in that pack o" sh.e.l.l-fever invalids, and I won"t fall in with "em. There"s no yaller or cotton in me. I"m straight goods, all wool, and indiG.o.dyed. I"ve bin promoted Corpril in my company for good conduct at Chickamauga. I"m goin" back to my regiment o" my own accord, before my time"s up, and I propose to go my own way. I won"t go under guard."
"You"ll have to, if you can"t show a pa.s.s," said the Sergeant decisively. "If you"re a soldier you know what orders are. Our orders are to arrest every man that can"t show a pa.s.s, and bring him up to Provost Headquarters. Fall in there without any more words."
"I tell you I"m not goin" back to the regiment under guard," said Shorty resolutely. "I"ve no business to go back at all, now. My furlough ain"t up for two weeks more. I"m goin" back now of my own free will, and in my own way. Go along with your old guard, and pick up them deadbeats and sneaks, that don"t want to go back at all. You"ll have plenty o" work with them, without pesterin" me."
"And I tell you you must go," said the Sergeant, irritably, and turning away, as if to end the discussion. "Williams, you and Young bring him along."
"I"ll not go a step under guard, and you can"t make me," answered Shorty furiously, s.n.a.t.c.hing up the heavy poker from the stove. "You lunkheaded, feather-bed soldiers jest keep your distance, if you know what"s good for you. I didn"t come back here from the front to be monkeyed with by a pa.s.sel o" fellers that wear white gloves and dresscoats, and eat soft bread. Go off, and "tend your own bizniss, and I"ll "tend to mine."
The Sergeant turned back and looked at him attentively.
"See here," he said, after a moment"s pause.
"Don"t you belong to the 200th Ind.?"
"You bet I do. Best regiment in the Army o" the c.u.mberland."
"You"re the feller they call Shorty, of Co. Q?"
Shorty nodded a.s.sent.
"I thought I"d seen you somewhere, the moment I laid eyes on you,"
said the Sergeant in a friendly tone. "But I couldn"t place you. You"ve changed a good deal. You"re thinner"n a fishing-rod."
"Never had no meat to spare," acquiesced Shorty, "but I"m an Alderman now to what I was six weeks ago. Got a welt on my head at Chickamaugy, and then the camp fever at Chattanoogy, which run me down till I could"ve crawled through a greased flute."
"Well, I"m Jim Elkins. Used to belong to Co. A," replied the Sergeant.
"I recollect your stealing the caboose door down there at Murfreesboro.
Say, that was great. How that conductor ripped and swore when he found his door was gone. I got an ax from you. You never knew who took it, did you? Well, it was me. I wanted the ax, but I wanted still more to show you that there was somebody in the camp just as slick on the forage as you were. But I got paid for it. The blamed old ax glanced one day, while I was chopping, and whacked me on the knee."
"A thief always gits fetched up with," said Shorty, in a tone of profound moralizing. "But since it had to go I"m glad one o" our own boys got it. I s.n.a.t.c.hed another and a better one that night from the Ohio boys. I"m awful sorry you got hurt. Was it bad?"
"Yes. The doctors thought I"d lose my leg, and discharged me. But I got well, and as soon as they"d take me I re-enlisted. Wish I was back in the old regiment, though. Say, you"ll have to go to Headquarters with me, because that"s orders, but you just walk alongside o" me. I want to talk to you about the boys."
As they walked along, the Sergeant found an opportunity to say in low tone, so that the rest could not hear: