"Yes; yes," shouted Shorty. "You fellers keep to your side o" the river, and we will to ours."
The agreement was carried into instantaneous effect, and soon both sides of the stream were filled with laughing, romping, splashing men.
There was something very exhilarating in the cool, clear, mountain water of the stream. The boys{149} got to wrestling, and Si came off victorious in two or three bouts with his comrades.
"c.o.c.k-a-doodle-doo," he shouted, imitating the crow of a rooster. "I kin duck any man in the 200th Injianny."
The challenge reached the ears of the rebel with whom Si had traded. He was not satisfied with the result of his conference.
"You kin crow over your fellers, Yank," he shouted; "but you da.s.sent come to the middle an" try me two falls outen three."
Si immediately made toward him. They surveyed each other warily for a minute to get the advantages of the first clinch, when a yell came from the rebel side:
"Scatter, Confeds! Hunt yer holes, Yanks! The Cunnel"s a-comin"."
Both sides ran up their respective banks, s.n.a.t.c.hed up their guns, took their places behind their trees, and opened a noisy but harmless fire.
{150}
CHAPTER XI. SHORTY"S CORRESPONDENT
GETS A LETTER FROM BAD AX, WIS., AND IS ALMOST OVERCOME WITH JOY.
SHORTY had always been conspicuously lacking in the general interest which his comrades had shown in the mails. Probably at some time in his life he had had a home like the rest of them, but for some reason home now played no part in his thoughts. The enlistment and muster-rolls stated that he was born in Indiana, but he was a stranger in the neighborhood when he enrolled himself in Co. Q.
His revelations as to his past were confined to memories of things which happened "when I was cuttin" wood down the Mississippi," or "when I was runnin" on an Ohio sternwheel."
He wrote no letters and received none. And when the joyful cry, "Mail"s come," would send everybody else in the regiment on a run to the Chaplain"s tent, in eager antic.i.p.ation, to jostle one another in impatience, until the contents of the mailpouch were distributed, Shorty would remain indifferent in his tent, without an instant"s interruption in his gun cleaning, mending, or whatever task he might have in hand.
A change came over him after he sent his letter to Bad Ax, Wis. The cry, "Mail"s come," would make{151} him start, in spite of himself, and before he could think to maintain his old indifference. He was ashamed, lest he betray his heart"s most secret thoughts.
The matter of the secure transmission of the mails between camp and home began to receive his earnest attention. He feared that the authorities were not taking sufficient precautions. The report that John Morgan"s guerrillas had captured a train between Louisville and Nashville, rifled the mail car, and carried off the letters, filled him with burning indignation, both against Morgan and his band and the Generals who had not long ago exterminated that pestiferous crowd.
He had some severe strictures on the slovenly way in which the mail was distributed from the Division and Brigade Headquarters to the regiments.
It was a matter, he said, which could not be done too carefully. It was a great deal more important than the distribution of rations. A man would much rather lose several days" rations than a letter from home.
He could manage in some way to get enough to live on, but nothing would replace a lost letter.
Then, he would have fits of silent musing, sometimes when alone, sometimes when with Si in the company, over the personality of the fair stocking-knitter of Wisconsin and the letter he had sent her. He would try to recall the exact wording of each sentence he had laboriously penned, and wonder how it impressed her, think how it might have been improved, and blame himself for not having been more outspoken in his desire to hear from her again. He would steal off into the brush, pull out the socks{152} and letter, which he kept carefully wrapped up in a sheet of the heavy letter paper, and read over the letter carefully again, although he knew every word of it by heart. These fits alarmed Si.
"I"m af eared," he confided to some cronies, "that rebel bullet hurt Shorty more"n he"ll let on. He"s not actin" like hisself at times. That bullet sc.r.a.ped so near his thinkery that it may have addled it. It was an awful close shave."
"Better talk to the Surgeon," said they. "Glancing bullets sometimes hurt worse"n they seem to."
"No, the bullet didn"t hurt Shorty, any more than make a scratch," said the Surgeon cheerfully when Si laid the case before him. "I examined him carefully. That fellow"s head is so hard that no mere sc.r.a.ping is going to affect it. You"d have to bore straight through it, and I"d want at least a six-pounder to do it with if I was going to undertake the job.
An Indiana head may not be particularly fine, but it is sure to be awfully solid and tough. No; his system"s likely to be out of order. You rapscallions will take no care of yourselves, in spite of all that I can say, but will eat and drink as if you were ostriches. He"s probably a little off his feed, and a good dose of bluema.s.s followed up with quinine will bring him around all right. Here, take these, and give them to him."
The Surgeon was famous for prescribing bluema.s.s and quinine for every ailment presented to him, from sore feet to "sh.e.l.l fever." Si received the medicines with a proper show of thankfulness, saluted, and left.
As he pa.s.sed through the clump if bushes he was tempted to add them to the{153} collection of little white papers which marked the trail from the Surgeon"s tent, but solicitude for his comrade restrained him. The Surgeon was probably right, and it was Si"s duty to do all that he could to bring Shorty around again to his normal condition. But how in the world was he going to get his partner to take the medicine? Shorty had the resolute antipathy to drugs common to all healthy men.
It was so grave a problem that Si sat down on a log to think about it.
As was Si"s way, the more he thought about it, the more determined he became to do it, and when Si Klegg determined to do a thing, that thing was pretty nearly as good as done.
"I kin git him to take the quinine easy enough," he mused. "All I"ve got to do is to put it in a bottle o" whisky, and he"d drink it if there wuz 40 "doses o" quinine in it. But the bluema.s.s"s a very different thing.
He"s got to swaller it in a lump, and what in the world kin I put it in that he"ll swaller whole?"
Si wandered over to the Sutler"s in hopes of seeing something there that would help him. He was about despairing when he noticed a boy open a can of large, yellow peaches.
"The very thing," said Si, slapping his thigh. "Say, young man, gi" me a can o" peaches jest like them."
Si took his can and carefully approached his tent, that he might decide upon his plan before Shorty could see him and his load. He discovered that Shorty was sitting at a little distance, with his back to him, cleaning his gun, which he had taken apart.
"Bully," thought Si. "Just the thing. His hands{154} are dirty and greasy, and he won"t want to tech anything to eat."
He slipped into the tent, cut open the can, took out a large peach with a spoon, laid the pellet of bluema.s.s in it, laid another slice of peach upon it, and then came around in front of Shorty, holding out the spoon.
"Open your mouth and shut your eyes, Shorty," he said. "I saw some o" the nicest canned peaches down at the Sutler"s, and I suddenly got hungry for some. I bought a can and brung "em up to the tent. Jest try "em."
He stuck the spoon out towards Shorty"s mouth. The latter, with his gunlock in one hand and a greasy rag in the other, looked at the tempting morsel, opened his mouth, and the deed was done.
"Must"ve left a stone in that peach," he said, as he gulped it down.
"Mebbe so," said Si, with a guilty flush, and pretending to examine the others. "But I don"t find none in the rest Have another?"
Shorty swallowed two or three spoonfuls more, and then gasped:
"They"re awful nice, Si, but I"ve got enough. Keep the rest for yourself."
Si went back to the tent and finished the can with mingled emotions of triumph at having succeeded, and of contrition at playing a trick on his partner. He decided to make amends for the latter by giving Shorty an unusually large quant.i.ty of whisky to take with his quinine.
Si was generally very rigid in his temperance ideas, He strongly disapproved of Shorty"s{155} drinking, and always interposed all the obstacles he could in the way of it. But this was an extraordinary case--it would be "using liquor for a medicinal purpose"--and his conscience was quieted.
Co. Q had one of those men--to be found in every company--who can get whisky under apparently any and all circ.u.mstances. In every company there is always one man who seemingly can find something to get drunk on in the midst of the Desert of Sahara. To Co. Q"s representative of this cla.s.s Si went, and was piloted to where, after solemn a.s.surances against "giving away," he procured a halfpint of fairly-good applejack, into which he put his doses of quinine.
In the middle of the night Shorty woke up with a yell.
"Great Cesar"s ghost!" he howled, "what"s the matter with me? I"m sicker"n a dog. Must"ve bin them dodgasted peaches. Si, don"t you feel nothin"?"
"No," said Si sheepishly; "I"m all right. Didn"t you eat nothin" else but them?"
"Naw," said Shorty disgustedly. "Nothin" but my usual load o" hardtack and pork. Yes, I chawed a piece o" sa.s.safras root that one of the boys dug up."
"Must"ve bin the sa.s.safras root," said Si. He hated to lie, and made a resolution that he would make a clean breast to Shorty--at some more convenient time. It was not opportune now. "That must"ve bin a sockdologer of a dose the Surgeon gave me," he muttered to himself.
Shorty continued to writhe and howl, and Si made{156} a hypocritical offer of going for the Surgeon, but Shorty vetoed that emphatically.
"No; blast old Sawbones," he said. "He won"t do nothin" but give me bluema.s.s, and quinine, and I never could nor would take bluema.s.s. It"s only fit for horses and hogs."