But they had to go much farther now to find blackberries. The whole hungry regiment had been hunt ing blackberries all day, and for more than a mile around camp the briers were bare. Si and Shorty succeeded at last in finding another plentiful patch, upon which they filled up, and returned to camp for another smoke and an impatient look for the Commissary teams.
"I like blackberries as well as any other man," mused Shorty, "but it don"t seem to me that last lot was nearly so good as the first we had this morning. Mebbe the birds kin eat "em four times a day and seven days in the week without gittin" tired, but I ain"t much of a bird, myself. I"d like to change off just now to about six big crackers, a pound o" fat pork and a quart o" coffee. Wonder if the rebel cavalry could"ve got around in our rear and jumped our trains? No; "Joe Wheeler"s critter company," as that rebel called "em, hain"t quit runnin" yit from the lickin" Minty give "em at Shelbyville. Mebbe the mules have struck. I"d "a" struck years ago if I"d bin a mule."
The sun began to sink toward the western hills, and still no welcome sign of coming wagons.
Si remarked despairingly:
"Well, after all the berry-eatin" I"ve done to-day I feel as holler as a bee-gum. I don"t believe any wagons"ll git up to-night, and if we"re goin" to have any supper at all we"d better go out and pick it before it gits too dark to see."
They had to go a long distance out this time to find a good berry patch.
It was getting dark be fore they fairly began picking their supper.
Presently they heard voices approaching from the other side. They crouched down a little behind the brier-clumps and listened.
"Be keerful. The Yankee pickets must be nigh. Thar"s their campfires."
"Pshaw. Them fires is two miles away. Thar"s no pickets fur a mile yit.
Go ahead."
"No sich thing. Them fires ain"t a mile off.
"Their pickets are likely right along that "ere ridge thar."
"Bushwhackers," whispered Si, rising a little to reconnoiter. "One, two, three, four, five, six on "em. Sneakin" up to pick off our pickets.
What"d we better do?"
"Only thing I kin think of," whispered Shorty back, feeling around for a stick that would represent a gun, "is the old trick of ordering "em to surrender. It"s an awful bluff, but we may work it this time. If they"ve got any grit we needn"t worry no more about rations. They"ll git us."
Si s.n.a.t.c.hed up a piece of rail, and they sprang up together, shouting:
"Halt! Surrender! Don"t move a hand or we"ll blow your heads off."
"All right, Yank. We surrender. Don"t shoot. We"uns "ve bin a-huntin"
yo"uns to gin ourselves up. We"uns is tired o" the wah."
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BLUFF WORKED 107]
"The thunder you do," said Si in amazement.
"Yes," said the leader, walking forward; "we"uns is plumb sick o" the wah, and want t" take the oath and go home. "Deed we"uns do."
"Well, you liked to "ve scared two fine young soldiers to death,"
murmured Si under his breath.
"Halt, there," called out the suspicious Shorty.
"Don"t come any nearer, or I"ll fire. Stand still, and hold your guns over your heads, till I send a man out to git "em."
The rebels obediently held their guns in the air.
"Sergeant," commanded Shorty, "go forward and relieve the men of their arms, while the rest of us keep "em kivvered to prevent treachery and gittin" the drop on us."
Si went out and took the guns, one by one, from the hands of the men, and made as good an examination as he could, hastily, to see that they carried nothing else.
"Lordy, Yank, if you only knowed how powerful glad we"uns is to git to yo"uns, you wouldn"t "spicion us. We"uns "s nigh on to starved t" death.
Hain"t had nothin" to eat but blackberries for days. And hit"s bin march, march, all the time, right away from we"uns"s homes. Goramighty only knows whar ole Bragg"s a-gwine tuh. Mebbe t" Cuby. We"uns wuz willin" t" fout fur ole Tennessee, but for nary other State. When he started out o" Tennessee we"uns jest concluded t" strike out and leave him. Lordy, Mister, hain"t you got something t" eat? We"uns is jest starvin" t" death. "Deed we"uns is."
"Awful sorry," replied Shorty, as he and Si gathered up the guns and placed themselves behind the group. "But we hain"t nothin" to eat ourselves but blackberries, and won"t have till our wagons git up, which "ll be the Lord and Gen. Rosecrans only knows when. You shall have it when we kin git it. h.e.l.lo, the boys are cheerin". That means a wagon"s got in. Skip out, now, at a quarter-hoss gait. They may gobble it all up before we git there."
Inspired by this, they all started for camp in quick-time. Shorty was right in interpreting the cheering to mean the arrival of a ration-wagon.
When they reached Co. Q they found the Orderly-Sergeant standing over a half-box of crackers.
Around him was gathered the company in a petulant state of mind.
"Cuss and swear, boys, all you"ve a mind to," he was saying, "if you think that"ll swell your grub. You know it won"t. Only one wagon"s come up, and it had only a half-load. Our share in it is what you see here. I figure that there"s just about one cracker apiece for you, and as I call your names you"ll step up and get it. Don"t swear at me. I"ve done the best I could. Cuss the Tennessee mud and freshets in the cricks all you want to, if you think that"ll fill your crops, but let me alone, or I"ll bust somebody."
"I"ve my opinion o" the glorious Fourth o" July," said Shorty, as he nibbled moodily at his solitary cracker. "I"ll change my politics and vote for Thanksgiving Day and Christmas after this."
"Well, I think that we"ve had a pretty fine Fourth," said the more cheerful Si. "For once in my life I"ve had all the blackberries I could eat, and otherwise it"s a pleasant day. Them deserters gave me a cold chill at first, but I"m glad we got "em. There"ll certainly be more wagons up to-night, and to-morrow we"ll have all we kin eat."
And that night, for the first in 10 days, they slept under dry blankets.
CHAPTER IX. A LITTLE EPISODE OVER LOVE LETTERS.
HOW exuberantly bright, restful, and happy were those long July days on the foothills of the c.u.mberland Mountains, after the fatigues and hardships, the endless rains, the fathom less mud, the angry, swollen streams, the exhaust ing marches, and the feverish anxieties of the Tullahoma campaign.
The insolent, threatening enemy had retreated far across the mountain barrier. For the while he was out of reach of striking or being struck.
The long-delayed commissary-wagons had come up, and there was an abundance to eat. The weather was delightful, the forests green, shady and inviting, the scenery picturesque and inspiring, and every day brought news of glorious Union victories, over which the cannon boomed in joyful salutes and the men cheered themselves hoa.r.s.e. Grant had taken Vicksburg, with 25,000 prisoners, and chased Joe Johnston out of sight and knowledge. Prentiss had bloodily repulsed Sterling Price at Helena.
Banks had captured Port Hudson, with 6,000 prisoners. The Mississippi River at last "flowed unvexed to the sea." Meade had won a great victory at Gettysburg, and Lee"s beaten army was in rapid retreat to Virginia.
"The blasted old Southern Confederacy is certainly havin" its underpinnin" knocked out, its j"ints cracked, and its roof caved in,"
remarked Si, as the two boys lay under the kindly shade of a low-growing jackoak, lazily smoked their pipes, and gazed contentedly out over the far-spreading camps, in which no man was doing anything more laborious than gathering a little wood to boil his evening coffee with. ""Tain"t fit to store brick-bats in now. By-and-by we"ll go out and hunt up old Bragg and give him a good punch, and the whole crazy shebang "ll come down with a crash."
"I only wish old Bragg wasn"t of sich a retirin" nature," lazily commented Shorty. "The shade o" this tree is good enough for me. I don"t want to ever leave it. Why couldn"t he"ve waited for me, and we could"ve had it out here, coolly and pleasantly, and settled which was the best man! The thing" d bin over, and each feller could"ve gone about his business."
Both relapsed into silence as each fell into day dreams the one about a buxom, rosy-cheeked little maiden in the Valley of the Wabash; the other of one in far-off Wisconsin, whom he had never seen, but whom he mentally endowed with all the virtues and charms that his warmest imagination could invest a woman. Neither could see a woman without thinking how inferior she was in looks, words or acts to those whose images they carried in their hearts, and she was sure to suffer greatly by the comparison.
Such is the divinely transforming quality of love.
Each of the boys had taken the first opportunity, after getting enough to eat, a shelter prepared, and his clothes in shape and a tolerable rest, to write a long letter to the object of his affections. Shorty"s letter was not long on paper, but in the time it took him to write it.
He felt that he was making some progress with the fair maid of Bad Ax, and this made him the more deeply anxious that no misstep should thwart the progress of love"s young dream.
Letter-writing presented unusual difficulties to Shorty. His training in the n.o.ble art of penmanship had stopped short long before his sinewy fingers had acquired much knack at forming the letters. Spelling and he had a permanent disagreement early in life, and he was scarcely on speaking terms with grammar. He had never any trouble conveying his thoughts by means of speech. People had very little difficulty in understanding what he meant when he talked, but this was quite different from getting his thoughts down in plain black and white for the reading of a strange young woman whom he was desperately anxious to please, and desperately afraid of offending. He labored over many sheets of paper before he got a letter that seemed only fairly satisfactory. One he had rejected because of a big blot on it; second, because he thought he had expressed himself too strongly; a third, because of an erasure and unseemly correction; a fourth, because of some newborn suspicions about the grammar and spelling, and so on. He thought, after he had carefully gathered up all his failures and burned them, together with a number of envelopes he had wrecked in his labor to direct one to Miss Lucinda Briggs, Bad Ax, Wis., sufficiently neatly to satisfy his fastidious taste.
He carefully folded his letter, creasing it with a very stalwart thumb-nail, sealed it, gave it a long inspection, as he thought how much it was carrying, and how far, and took it up to the Chaplain"s tent to be mailed.
Later in the afternoon a hilarious group was gathered under a large cottonwood. It was made up of teamsters, Quartermaster"s men, and other bobtail of the camp, with the officers" servants forming the dark fringe of an outer circle. Groundhog was the presiding spirit. By means best known to himself he had become possessed of a jug of Commissary whisky, and was dispensing it to his auditors in guarded drams to highten their appreciation of his wit and humor. He had come across one of the nearly-completed letters which Shorty had thrown aside and failed to find when he burned the rest. Groundhog was now reading this aloud, accompanied by running comments, to the great amus.e.m.e.nt of his auditors, who felt that, drinking his whisky, and expecting more, they were bound to laugh uproariously at anything he said was funny.