Si Klegg, Book 2

"Good, substantial vittles, that stick to the ribs," he muttered to himself, "and I'll fix up a good mess o' them. But the boys ought to have something of a treat once in a while, and I must think up some way to give it to 'em."

He pondered over the problem as he carefully cleaned the beans, and set them to boiling in a kettle over the fire. He washed some potatoes to put in the ashes and roast. But these were too common place viands. He wanted something that would be luxurious.

"I recollect," he said to himself finally, "seein' a little store, which some feller 'd set up a little ways from here. It's a board shanty, and I expect he's got a lots o' things in it that the boys'd like, for there's nearly always a big crowd around it. I'll jest fasten up the house, and walk over there while the beans is a-seethin', and see if I can't pick up something real good to eat."

He made his way through the crowd, which seemed to him to smell of whisky, until he came to the shelf across the front, and took a look at the stock. It seemed almost wholly made up of canned goods, and boxes of half-Spanish cigars, and play ing-cards.

"Don't seem to ba much of a store, after all," soliloquized the Deacon, after he had surveyed the display. "Ain't a patchin' to Ol Taylor's. Don't see anything very invitin' here. O, yes, here's a cheese. Say, Mister, gi' me about four pounds o' that there cheese."

"Plank down your $2 fust, ole man." responded the storekeeper. "This is a cash store cash in advance every time. Short credits make long friends. Hand me over your money, and I'll hand you over the cheese."

"Land o' Goshen, four bits a pound for cheese," gasped the Deacon. "Why, I kin git the best full-cream cheese at home for a bit a pound."

"Why don't you buy your cheese at home, then, old man?" replied the storekeeper. "You'd make money, if you didn't have to pay freight to Murfreesboro'. Guess you don't know much about gettin' goods down to the front. But I hain't no time to argy with you. If you don't want to buy, step back, and make room for someone that does. Business is lively this mornin'. Time is money. Small profits and quick returns, you know. No time to fool with loafers who only look on and ask questions."

"Strange way for a storekeeper to act," muttered the Deacon. "Must've bin brung up in a Land Office. He couldn't keep store in Posey County a week. They wouldn't stand his sass." Then aloud: "You may gi' me two pounds o' cheese."

"Well, why don't you plank down the rhino?" said the storekeeper impatiently. "Put up your money fust, and then you'll git the goods. This ain't no credit concern with a stay-law attachment. Cash in advance saves bookkeeping."

"Well, I declare," muttered the Deacon, as he fished a greenback out of a leather pocketbook fastened with a long strap. "This is the first time I ever had to pay for things before I got 'em."

"Never went to a circus, then, old man, or run for office," replied the storekeeper, and his humor was rewarded with a roar of laughter. "Anything else? Speak quick or step back."

"I'll take a can o' them preserved peaches and a quart jug o' that genuine Injianny maple molasses," said the Deacon desperately, naming two articles which seemed much in demand.

"All right; $2 for the peaches, and $2 more for the molasses."

"Sakes alive!" ejaculated the Deacon, producing the strapped pocketbook again. "Five dollars gone, and precious little to show for it."

He took his jug and his can, and started back to the cabin. A couple of hundred yards away he met a squad of armed men marching toward the store, under the command of a Lieutenant. He stepped to one side to let them pass, but the Lieutenant halted them, and asked authoritatively:

"What have you got there, sir?"

"Jest some things I've been buyin' for the boys' dinner," answered the Deacon.

"Indeed! Very likely," remarked the Lieutenant sarcastically. He struck the jug so sharply with his sword that it was broken, and the air was filled with a powerful odor of whisky. The liquor splashed over the Deacon's trousers and wet them through. The expression of anger on his face gave way to one of horror. He had always been one of the most rigid of Temperance men, and fairly loathed whisky in all shapes and uses.

"Just as I supposed, you old vagabond," said the Lieutenant, contemptuously. "Down here sneaking whisky into camp. We'll stop that mighty sudden."

He knocked the can of peaches out of the Deacon's arms and ran his sword into it. A gush of whisky spurted out. The Sergeant took the package of cheese away and broke it open, revealing a small flask of liquor.

"The idea of a man of your age being engaged in such business," said the Lieutenant indignantly. "You ought to be helping to keep the men of the army sober, instead of corrupting them to their own great injury. You are doing them more harm than the rebels."

The Deacon was too astonished and angry to reply. Words utterly failed him in such a crisis.

"Take charge of him, Corporal," commanded the Lieutenant. "Put him in the guard-house till tomorrow, when we'll drum him out of camp, with his partner, who is running that store."

The Corporal caught the Deacon by the arm roughly and pulled him into the rear of the squad, which hurried toward the store. The crowd in front had an inkling of what was coming. In a twinkling of an eye they made a rush on the store, each man snatched a can or a jug, and began bolting away as fast as his legs could carry him.

The storekeeper ran out the back way, and tried to make his escape, but the Sergeant of the provost squad threw down his musket and took after him. The storekeeper ran fast, inspired by fear and the desire to save his ill-gotten gains, but the Sergeant ran faster, and presently brought him back, panting and trembling, to witness the demolition of his property. The shanty was being torn down, each plank as it came off being snatched up by the soldiers to carry off and add to their own habitations. The "canned fruit" was being punched with bayonets, and the jugs smashed by gun-butts.

"You are a cheeky scoundrel," said the Lieutenant, addressing himself to the storekeeper, "to come down here and try to run such a dead-fall right in the middle of camp. But we'll cure you of any such ideas as that. You'll find it won't pay at all to try such games on us. You'll go to the guard house, and to-morrow we'll shave your head and drum you and your partner there out of camp."

"I ain't no partner o' his," protested the Deacon earnestly. "My name's Josiah Klegg, o' Posey County, Injianny. I'm down here on a visit to my son in the 200th Injianny Volunteer Infantry. I'm a Deacon in the Baptist Church, and a Patriarch of the Sons o' Temperance. It'd be the last thing in the world I'd do to sell whisky."

"That story won't wash, old man," said the Lieutenant. "You were caught in the act, with the goods in your possession, and trying to deceive me."

He turned away to order the squad forward. As they marched along the storekeeper said to the Deacon:

"I'm afraid they've got me dead to rights, old man, but you kin git out. Just keep up your sanctimonious appearance and stick to your Deacon story, and you'll git off. I know you. I've lived in Posey County myself. I'm going to trust you. I've already made a clean big profit on this venture, and I've got it right down in my pocket. In spite of all they've spiled, I'd be nigh $500 ahead o' the game if I could git out o' camp with what I've got in my sock. But they'll probably search me and confiscate my wad for the hospital. You see, I've been through this thing before. I'm goin' to pass my pile over to you to take keer of till I'm through this rumpus. You play fair with me, an' I'll whack up with you fair and square, dollar for dollar. If you don't I'll follow you for years."

"I wouldn't tech a dirty dollar of yours for the world," said the Deacon indignantly; but this was lost on the storekeeper, who was watching the Lieutenant.

"Don't say a word," he whispered; "he's got his eye on us. There it is in your overcoat pocket."

In the meantime they had arrived at the guard house. The Sergeant stepped back, took the store keeper roughly by the shoulders, and shoved him up in front of a tall, magisterial-looking man wearing a Captain's straps, who stood frowning before the door.

"Search him," said the Captain briefly.

The Sergeant went through the storekeeper's pockets with a deftness that bespoke experience. He produced a small amount of money, some of it in fractional currency and Confederate notes, a number of papers, a plug of tobacco, and some other articles. He handed these to the Captain, who hastily looked over them, handed back the tobacco and other things and the small change.

"Give these back to him," he said briefly. "Turn the rest of the money over to the hospital fund. Where's our barber? Shave his head, call up the fifers and drummers, and drum him out of camp at once. I haven't time to waste on him."

Before he had done speaking the guards had the storekeeper seated on a log, and were shearing his hair.

"General," shouted the Deacon.

"That's a Cap'n, you fool," said one of the guards.

"Captain, then," yelled the Deacon.

"Who is that man?" said the Captain severely.

"He's his partner," said the Lieutenant.

"Serve him the same way," said the Captain shortly, turning to go.

The Deacon's knees smote together. He, a Deacon of the Baptist Church, and a man of stainless repute at home, to have his head shaved and drummed out of camp. He would rather die at once. The guards had laid hands on him.

"Captain," he yelled again, "it's all a horrible mistake. I had nothin' to do with this man."

"Talk to the Lieutenant, there," said the Captain, moving off. "He will attend to you."

The Lieutenant was attentively watching the barbering operation. "Cut it close closer yet," he admonished the barber.

"Lieutenant! Lieutenant!" pleaded the Deacon, awkwardly saluting.

"Stand back; I'll attend to you next," said the Lieutenant impatiently. "Now, tie his hands behind him."

The Lieutenant turned toward the Deacon, and the barber picked up his shears and made a step in that direction. Just in the extremity of his danger the Deacon caught sight of the Captain of Co. Q walking toward Headquarters.

"Capt. McGillicuddy! Capt. McGillicuddy! come here at once! Come quick!" he called in a voice which had been trained to long-distance work on the Wabash bottoms.

Capt. McGillicuddy looked up, recognized the waving of the Deacon's bandanna, and hastened thither. Fortunately he knew the Provost officers; there were explanations all around, and profuse apologies, and just as the fifes and drums struck up the "Rogue's March" behind the luckless storekeeper, who had to step off in front of a line of leveled bayonets, the Deacon walked away arm-in-arm with the Captain.

"I'm not goin' to let go o' you till I'm safe back in our own place," he said. "My gracious! think of havin' my head shaved and marched off the way that feller's bein'."

He walked into the cabin and stirred up the beans.

"The water's biled off," said he to himself, "but they hain't been in nigh as hot a place as I have. I guess the boys'll have to do with a plain dinner to day. I'm not goin' to stir out o' this place agin unless they're with me."

He put his hand into his pocket for his bandanna and felt the roll of bills, which he had altogether forgotten in his excitement.

His face was a study.

CHAPTER XIX. THE DEACON IS TROUBLED

DISPOSES OF THE $500 "WHISKY" MONEY AND GOES OUT FORAGING

FROM the door of the cabin the Deacon could see the fort on which the boys were piling up endless cubic yards of the red soil of Tennessee. As he watched them, with an occasional glance at the beans seething in the kettle, fond memories rose of a woman far away on the Wabash, who these many years had thought and labored for his comfort in their home, while he labored within her sight on their farm. It was the first time in their long married life that he had been away from her for such a length of time.

"I believe I'm gittin' real homesick to see Mariar," he said with a sigh. "I'd give a good deal for a letter from her. I do hope everything on the farm's all right. I think it is. I'm a little worried about Brown Susy, the mare, but I think she'll pick up as the weather settles. I hope her fool colt, that I've give Si, won't break his leg nor nothin' while I'm away."

Presently he saw the men quit work, and he turned to get ready for the boys. He covered the rough table with newspapers to do duty for a cloth; he had previously scoured up the tinware to its utmost brightness and cleanliness, and while the boys were washing off the accumulations of clay, and liberally denouncing the man who invented fort building, and even West Point for educating men to pursue the nefarious art, he dished out the smoking viands.

"Upon my word, Pap," said Si, as he helped him self liberally, "you do beat us cookin' all holler. Your beans taste almost as good as mother's. We must git you to give us some lessons."

"Yes; you're a boss cook," said Shorty, with his mouth full. "Better not let Gen. Rosecrans find out how well you kin bile beans, or he'll have you drafted, and keep you with him till the end o' the war."

After supper they lighted their pipes and seated themselves in front of the fire.

"How'd you git along to-day, Pap," said Si. "I hope you didn't have no trouble."

The Deacon took his pipe out of his mouth, blew a cloud of smoke, and considered a moment before replying. He did not want to recount his experiences, at least, until he had digested them more thoroughly. He was afraid of the joking of the boys, and still more that the story would get back home. Then, he was still sorely perplexed about the disposition of the money. He had not thought that out yet, by a great deal. But the question was plump and direct, and concealment and untruth were alike absolutely foreign to his nature. After a minute's pause he decided to tell the whole story.

"Well, boys," he began with a shamefaced look, "I had the flamboyantest racket to-day I've had yit."

The two boys took their pipes out and regarded him with surprise.

"Yes," he continued, with a deep sigh, "it laid away over gittin' down here, and my night in the guard-house, even. You see, after you went away I began to think about gittin' up something a little extry for you to eat. I thought about it for awhile, and then recollected seein' a little grocery that'd been set up nigh here in a board shanty."

"Yes, we know about it," said Shorty, exchanging a look with Si.

"Well," continued the Deacon, "I concluded that I'd jest slip over there, and mebbe I could find something that'd give variety to your pork and beans. He didn't seem to have much but canned goods, and his prices wuz jest awful. But I wuz de termined to git something, and I finally bought a jug o' genuine Injianny maple molasses, a chunk o' cheese and a can o' peaches. I had to pay $5 for it. He said he had to charge high prices on account o' freight rates, and I remembered that I had some trouble in gittin' things down here, and so I paid him. He wuz very peart and sassy, and it was take-it-or-leave-it-and-be-plaguey- quick-about-it all the time. But I paid my $5, gathered the things up, and started back to the house. I hadn't got more'n 100 rods away when I met one o' these officers with only one o' them things in his shoulder straps."

"A First Lieutenant," interjected Si.

"Yes, they called him a Lieutenant. He spoke very bossy and cross to me, and hit my jug a welt with his sword. He broke it, and what do you suppose was in it?"

"Whisky," said Si and Shorty simultaneously, with a shout of laughter.

"That's jest what it wuz. I wuz never so mortified in my life. I couldn't say a word. The Lieutenant abused me for being a partner in sellin' whisky to the soldiers me, Josiah Klegg, Patriarch of the Sons o' Temperance, and a Deacon. While I wuz tryin' to tell him he jabbed his sword into the can o' peaches, and what do you suppose was in that?"

"Whisky," yelled Si and Shorty, with another burst of laughter.

"That's jest what it wuz. Then one o' the Lieutenant's men jerked the chunk o' cheese away and broke it open. And what do you suppose was in that?"

"Whisky, of course," yelled the boys in uncontrollable mirth.

"That's jest what it was. I wuz so dumfounded that I couldn't say a word. They yanked me around in behind the squad, and told me they'd shave my head and drum me out o' camp. The Lieutenant took his men up to the grocery and tore it down, and ketched the feller that wuz keepin' it. They put him alongside o' me, and tuk us up to the guard house. On the way he whispered to me that they wuz likely to salt him, 'cause they knowed him, but I'd likely git off easy. He'd made $500 clean out o' the business already, and had it in his clothes. He'd pass it over to me to keep till the racket wuz over, when he'd divide fair and square with me. I told him that I'd rather burn my hand off than tech a dirty dollar o' his money, but he dropt it into my overcoat pocket all the same, and I wuz so excited that I clean forgot about it, and brung it away with me. When we got to the guard-house they tuk all the rest of his money away, shaved his head, and drummed him out o' camp."

"Yes, we saw that," answered Si; "but didn't pay no attention to it. They're drummin' some feller out o' camp nearly every day, for something or other."

"I don't see that it does any good," said Shorty. "It'd be a heap better to set 'em to work on the fortifications. That'd take the deviltry out o' 'em."

"When they'd got through with him," continued the Deacon, "they Burned their attention to me. I never wuz so scared in all my born days. But luckily, jest in the nick o' time, I ketched sight o' Capt. McGillicuddy, and hollered to him. He come up and explained things, and they let me go, with lots o' apologies. When I got back to the house, I felt for my handkerchief, and found that scalawag's roll o' bills, which I'd clean forgot. Here it is."

He pulled out a fat roll of crisp greenbacks. Si took them, thumbed them over admiringly, counted them, and handed them to Shorty, who did the same.

"Yes, there's $500 there," said Si. "What are you goin' to do with it, Pap?"

"That's jest what's worrying the life out o' me," answered his father. "By rights I ought to throw the condemned stuff into the fire, only I hold it a great sin to destroy property of any kind."

"What, burn all that good money up?" said Shorty with a whistle. "You don't live in an insane asylum when you're at home, do you?"

"'Twouldn't be right to burn it, Pap," said Si, who better understood the rigidity of his father's principles. "It'd do a mighty sight o' good somewhere."

"The money don't belong at all to that feller," mused the Deacon. "A man can't have no property in likker. It's wet damnation, hell's broth, to nourish murderers, thieves, and paupers. It is the devil's essence, with which he makes widows and orphans. Every dollar of it is minted with women's tears and children's cries of hunger. That feller got the money by violatin' the law on the one hand and swindling the soldiers on the other, and corruptin' them to their ruin. To give the money back to him would be rewardin' him for his rascality. It'd be like givin' a thief his booty, or a burglar his plunder, and make me his pardner."

"You're right there, Pap," assented Si. "You'd jest be settin' him up in business in some other stand. Five hundred dollars'd give him a good start. His hair'll soon grow agin."

"The worst of it," sighed Shorty, "is that it ain't good likker. Otherwise it'd be different. But it's pizener than milk-sick or loco-weed. It's aqua-fortis, fish-berries, tobacco juice and ratsbane. That stuff'd eat a hole in a tin pan."

"The Captain turned the rest o' his money over to the hospital," continued the Deacon. "I might do that."

"Never do it in the world, Pap," protested Si. "Better burn it up at once. It'd be the next worst thing to givin' it back to him. It'd jest be pamperin' and encouragin' a lot o' galoots that lay around the hospitals to keep out o' fights. None o' the wounded or really sick'd git the benefit of a cent of it. They wuz all sent away weeks ago to Nashville, Louisville, and back home. You jest ought to see that bummer gang. Last week me and Shorty wuz on fatigue duty down by one o' the hospitals. There wuzzent nobody in the hospital but a few 'shell-fever' shirks, who're too lazy to work on the fortifications, and we saw a crowd of civilians and men in uniform set down to a finer dinner than you kin git in any hotel. Shorty wanted to light some shells and roll in amongst 'em, but I knowed that it'd jest make a muss that we'd have to clean up afterward."

"But what am I going to do with it?" asked the Deacon despairingly. "I don't want no money in my hands that don't belong to me, and especially sich money as that, which seems to have a curse to every bill. If we could only find out the men he tuk it from."

"Be about as easy as drivin' a load o' hay back into the field, and fitting each spear o' grass back on the stalk from which it was cut," interjected Shorty.

"Or I might send it anonymously to the Baptist Board o' Missions," continued the Deacon.

"Nice way to treat the little heathens," objected Si. "Send them likker money."

The Deacon groaned.

"Tell you what we might do, Pap," said Si, as a bright idea struck him. "There's a widder, a Union woman, jest outside the lines, whose house wuz burned down by the rebels. She could build a splendid new house with $100 better'n the one she wuz livin' in before. Send her $100.

"Not a bad idee," said the Deacon approvingly, as he poked the ashes in his pipe with his little finger.

"And, Pap," continued Si, encouraged by the reception of this suggestion, "there's poor Bill Ellerlee, who lost his leg in the fight. He used to drink awful hard, and most of his money went down his throat. He's got a wife and two small children, and they hain't a cent to live on, except what the neighbors gives. Why not put up $200 in an express pack age and send it to him, marked 'from an unknown friend?'"

"Good," accorded the Deacon.

"And Jim Pocock," put in Shorty, seeing the drift. "He's gone home with a bullet through his breast. His folks are pretty poor. Why not send him $100 the same way?"

"Excellent idee," said the father.

"That leaves $100 yit," said Si. "If you care to, you kin divide it between Shorty and me, and we'll use it among the boys that got hurt, and need some thing."

A dubious look came into the Deacon's face.

"You needn't be afeared of us, Pap," said Si, with a little blush. "I kin promise you that we won't use a cent ourselves, but give every bit where it is really needed."

"I believe you, my son," said the Deacon heartily. "We'll do jest as you say."

They spent the evening carrying their plan into execution.

At the 9 o'clock roll-call the Orderly-Sergeant announced:

"Co. Q to go out with a forage-train to-morrow morning."

This was joyful news a delightful variation from the toil on the fortifications. "Taps" found every body getting his gun and traps ready for an excursion into the country.

"You'd like to go with us, Pap, wouldn't you?" asked Si, as he looked over his cartridge-box to see what it contained.

"Indeed I would," replied the father. "I'll go any where with you rather than spend such another day in camp. You don't think you will see any rebels, do you?" he asked rather nervously.

"Don't know; never kin tell," said Shorty oracularly. "Rebels is anywhere you find 'em. Sometimes they're seldomer than a chaw of terbaker in a Sunday school. You can't find one in a whole County. Then, the first thing you know, they're thicker'n fleas on a dog's back. But we won't likely see no rebels to-morrow. There ain't no great passel o' them this side o' Duck River. Still, we'll take our guns along, jest like a man wears a breast-pin on a dark night, because he's used to it."

"Can't you give me a gun, too? I think it'd be company for me," said the Deacon.

"Certainly," said Si.

The Deacon stowed himself in the wagons with the rest the next morning, and rode out with them through the bright sunshine, that gave promise of the soon oncoming of Spring. For miles they jolted over the execrable roads and through the shiftless, run-down country before they found anything worth while putting in the wagons.