- -
- 100%
- +
"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 reasserted 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," ejaculated 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 God'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. "God 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 butter 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.
"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-SHORTTHE 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!" ejaculated 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 asserted 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 circumstances 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.
"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 snatched 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 anticipating his wants to notice Shorty's embarrassment.
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.
The supper ended, the problem of the money in the gun again loomed up. Everyone had an opinion as to how to extricate the valuable charge. The women, of course, suggested hair-pins, but these were tried without success. A gimlet taken from its handle and secured to the ramrod, refused to take hold.
Somebody suggested shooting the gun across a pond of water, and getting the money that way, but it was decided that the force of the Springfield seemed too great for any body of water in the neighborhood. Then Jabe Clemmons, the "speculative" genius of the neighborhood, spoke up:
"Gentlemen, I've an idee. Deacon, how much is in that small haystack of your'n?"
"'Bout 10 tons," answered the Deacon.
"Jest about. Well, I'll pay you the regular market price for it, and give $100 to Miss Trelawney. Now, let this gentleman stand 50 feet from it and shoot his gun at it. He mustn't tell none of us where he aims at. I'll sell you, gentlemen, that hay in 40 quarter-ton lots, commencing at the top, each man to pay $2 besides the regular price for a quarter ton o' hay, an' we'll draw numbers as to our turns in takin' the fodder."
"Looks somethin' like gamblin'," demurred the Deacon.
"No more'n church lotteries," answered Jabe, "since it's for a good purpose. Now, gentlemen, who wants to buy a quarter ton of Deacon Klegg's first-class hay?"
At once he had replies enough to take the whole stack, but while he was writing down the names Deacon Klegg had another idea.
"I can't quite git my mind reconciled to gamblin', even for a good purpose," he said. "And I ain't sure about how the two 50's 'll strike the haystack. It'd be a sin if they were destroyed, as they are likely to be. I've another idee. My well there is 25 foot deep. Let's take the bucket out, and let Shorty shoot his gun straight down into the well. I believe the money'll come out all right. If it don't I'll make it up myself, rather than be a party to a gamble."
"May blow the bottom o' your old well out," muttered Jabe Clemmons, who dearly loved anything in the shape of a game of hazard.
"I'll resk that," said the Deacon. "I kin dig an other well, if necessary."
The Deacon's proposal was carried. Shorty, holding the butt of his gun carefully upright, fired down into the well. A boy was lowered in the bucket, and soon announced by a joyful cry that he had gotten the bills. Upon being brought up and examined they were found to be uninjured, ex cept by a slight singeing at the edges.
"Providence's agin managin' things," murmured Shorty gratefully; "but the Deacon's gumption helped out."
All the money for those not present to receive it in person was turned over to the Deacon, and then for the first time the boys felt relieved of a great responsibility.
"There are two trains goin' east," said the Deacon, in response to their inquiries as to the facilities for returning. "The through express passes here at 3:15, and it'll git you to Jeffersonville early in the morning. The accommodation passes about day break, and it'll git you there in the evenin', if it makes connections, which it often doesn't."
"We must go on the through express," said Si firmly. There was a loud outcry by the mother and sisters, but the father recognized the demands of military discipline.
Si began to fidget to get away from the crowd of eager inquirers, which Mandy noticing, she found opportunity to whisper:
"Don't fret. She'll be here presently."
Si's face burned. He had thought his secret well-kept, but here his sisters read his thoughts like an open book. He had wanted to go to Annabel, and have a few golden minutes alone with her. Just what for just what he would say or do he did not in the least know he could not imagine. Only he felt that in some way the main interest of his life depended on seeing her somewhere remote from curious eyes and listening ears. He wanted to go to her, not to have her come to him, and meet him in such a throng as was gathered at his home.
While these thoughts were coursing through his mind he heard Maria call:
"Si, come here into my room. I want to show you the purtiest thing you ever saw."
While Mandy was a most correct young woman, she could not withstand giving a significant wink to those around, to which they responded with knowing smiles. These, fortunately, Si did not see. He arose at once, the people made way, and he was led by Maria to her room. She opened the door and said:
"There, now, kiss me for a loving sister."
It was a fervent kiss that Si rewarded her with, for, there, rising from her chair as the door opened, dressed in her best, and her face wreathed with smiles and blushes, stood Annabel.
"Since you are so mean about goin' away so soon, you can only have 10 minutes together; make the most of it," laughed Maria, and she scudded back to the sitting-room.
Si stood for an instant dazed. How beautiful she was far more so than his recollections had painted her. She had blossomed out from the school-girl into the mature woman, and every feature ripened. Fair as his home seemed in contrast with the country he had left, she seemed still fairer in contrast with any woman he had ever seen. Where were the thousand things that, brooding by the campfire and lying in his tent, he thought over to say to her when they met? All forgotten or dismissed as inappropriate. He simply stood and gazed at her. She re covered herself first, and said teasingly:
"Well, how do you do? Ain't you going to speak? Ain't you glad to see me?"
Si could only step forward and take her hand, and murmur:
"Annabel, how purty you look. How you've growed, and all purtier. I'm awfully glad to see you. That's what I most wanted to come home for."
Then his face burned with new blushes to think how much he had said. They sat down, he still holding her hand, with his eyes fixed upon her face. Somehow, in the mysterious telegraphy of first love, they so fully understood one another that words were unnecessary.
Speechless, but fuller of happiness than they ever dreamed was possible in the world, they sat with clasped hands until Maria came back, calling out:
"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. God keep you for me, safe through battles and dangers."
She turned away to hide her bursting tears.