Si Klegg, Book 2

CHAPTER XII. ADDING TO THEIR COMFORT

MAKING ADDITIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS TO THEIR "HOME."

SI AND Shorty kept Sunday as planned. They really did not know how tired they were until they formed the resolution to give the day to absolute restfulness. Then every joint and muscle ached from the arduous toil of the past week, added to the strains and hardships of a week of battle.

"Used to seem to me," said Shorty, "that when Sunday come after the first week's plowin' in Spring that I had a bile in every limb. Now I appear to have one in every j'int, and in my brains as well. I didn't ever suppose that I could be so tired, and yit be able to set up and take nourishment."

"Same here," said Si. "Feel as if I ought to be wrapped in cotton battin' an' sweet oil, an' laid away for awhile."

The only thing about them which did not show deadly lassitude was their appetites. Fortunately, the Commissary took a liberal view of the Regulations as to rations, issuing enough to make up for those they had not drawn during the times when his department was not in working order. They ate all these and wanted more.

The Quartermaster had also succeeded in re-establishing relations. They drew from him new under-clothing to replace that which they had lost, took a thorough wash the first good one they had had since Christmas morning, beat and brushed much of the accumulated mud representing every variety of soil between Murfreesboro' and Nashville out of their clothes, cleaned and greased their heavy brogans, and went with their comrades to divine service, feeling that they had made every provision required for a proper observance of the holy day.

Si had a really fine baritone voice, and led the meeting in singing

     "Am I a soldier of the cross?"

After church Shorty said:

"Si, when you were singing so loud about being a soldier of the cross and a follower of the Lamb I wanted to git right up and tell you that you'd have to git a transfer from the 200th Ind. We've lots of cross soldiers, especially on mud marches, but we don't want any soldiers in this regiment except for the Constitution of the United States and the laws made in pursuance thereof, against all enemies and opposers whatsoever, either foreign or domestic. An' as for follerin' the lamb, you know as well as I do the orders agin foragin'."

"O, dry up, Shorty. I don't believe going to church done you a mite o' good. I tell you it done me lots."

"There you're mistaken," answered Shorty. "It just done me lots o' good. Kind o' restored communications with home and respectable folks once more, an' made me think I still belonged to what the jographies call civilized and partially-civilized people, something that we seem in great danger o' forgettin', the way we've bin goin' on."

The good Chaplain's fervent appeals to devote the day to earnest consideration of their soul's welfare could not keep them from spending the hours in planning and discussing further improvements on the house.

"We must have a real door," said Shorty, looking critically at the strip of canvas that did duty for that important adjunct. "Muslin looks shiftless, an', besides, I think it's unhealthy. Lets in drafts, an' will give us colds."

"Too bad about our ketchin' cold," said Si sardonically. "Most o' the time lately we've bin sleepin' out with nothin' around us but the State line of Tennessee."

"Don't be too flip, young man," said Shorty severely. "You have not had a home with its blessin's long enough to appreciate it. I say we must have a real door an' a winder that'll let in light, an' a bedstead, an' a floor o' planks."

"We ought to have 'em, certainly," agreed Si. "But must have 'em is quite another thing. How are we goin' to git 'em? There's 40,000 men around here, snatchin' at every piece o' plank as big as your hand."

"Well," retorted Shorty, "we're goin' to have a real door, a winder, and a plank floor, all the same. They're to be had somewhere in this country, an' they'll have to run mighty hard to git away from us."

The next morning the Orderly-Sergeant said:

"Corp'l Klegg, you'll take five men, go down to the railroad, and report to the Commissary to load the wagon with rations."

Si took Shorty and four others and started off on this errand. He was soon so busy rolling heavy pork barrels from the car into the wagon that he failed to notice that Shorty was not with him. Finally they got the wagon loaded and started, with them walking alongside, puffing and sweating from their vigorous labor.

They were not 100 yards away from the train, when the Conductor came storming up:

"See here, Lieutenant," he said to the Commissary, "some o' them men o' yours sneaked around and stole the hind door off my caboose while you was loading up."

"I don't believe a word of it," said the Commissary, firing up at once. "Mine ain't that kind of men. I'd have you know they don't steal. What reason have you for saying so?"

"The door was on the car when I came out to meet you, and now it's gone, and there's been no body near the caboose but your men."

"I know my men were working hard all the time right under my eyes," said the Lieutenant, growing angrier every minute. "They're not the men to steal anything, and if they were they didn't have any chance. They were too busy. You can satisfy yourself that they didn't. You see none of them have the door with them, and you can search the wagon. Get right in there and look for it."

The Conductor climbed into the wagon and looked carefully through.

"No, it's not there," he said ruefully.

Then the Commissary's wrath flamed out. "There, confound you, you are at it again, you infernal civilian, slandering and abusing men who are fighting for their country. Charging them with stealing your old caboose door. Think of your disgraceful impudence, villifying men who are shedding their blood for their country by such shameless charges.

"What'd they want with your old car door? Get away from here, before I lose my temper and do you damage."

The Conductor walked away muttering:

"Blasted thieving whelps o' soldiers, what'll they steal next? Lost all my train tools at Lavergne, swiped the bedding at Smyrna, got away with our clothes and dishes at Antioch, stole stove and lanterns at Overall's Crick, and now they've begun on the cars. I'll be lucky to have enough wheels left on the engine to run her back to Nashville."

The Commissary continued to fume about the disgraceful charges brought against his men until they reached camp. The wagon was unloaded and the squad dismissed.

As Si came up to the "house" he saw Shorty busily engaged in hanging the caboose door by means of hinges which he had improvised from some boot tops.

"Why, Shorty," gasped Si, "how did you git away with it?"

"Easy enough," answered his partner. "I saw you fellers gittin' very busy over them pork barrels, an' all the train hands helpin' you. I meandered back to the caboose, gently lifted the back door offen its hinges, slipped down into the weeds in the ditch, an' kept under cover o' them till I was out o' sight. Say, isn't it just a bully door?"

That afternoon Si and Shorty walked over to where a detail of men were at work building a bridge across Stone River, under the direction of a Lieutenant of Pioneers. They had an idea that an opportunity might occur there to pick up something that would add to their home comforts. The Lieutenant was bustling about, hurrying the completion of the work before night. As the detail was made up of squads from various regiments, he was not acquainted with the men, and had much difficulty assigning them to the work that would suit them best. He came up to Si, who still wore the artillery Sergeant's overcoat he had picked up during the battle, and said sharply:

"Here, Sergeant, don't stand around doing nothing. Set the men a good example by pitching in lively. There's plenty to do for everybody. If you can't find anything else, help dig down that bank, and roll those big stones into the fill. Hold on; I've thought of something else. I want a reliable man to send over for some lumber. Put one of your men on that wagon there, and go with him, and take this letter to Capt. Billings, over at the saw-mill. It's a requisition for a load of lumber. Avoid the camps as much as possible on your way back, or they'll steal every inch of it away from you."

"Very good, sir," said Si, saluting. "Shorty, jump on the wagon there, and gather up the lines."

Shorty very obediently took his place on the seat of the two-horse wagon employed by the Pioneers for their jobs.

"Hurry up," enjoined the Lieutenant; "we need those boards at once."

"Very good, sir," said Si, saluting.

"This is what I call a puddin'," said Shorty, oracularly, as they drove away. "The Lord always kin be trusted to help the deservin', if the deservin' only keep their eyes peeled for His p'inters. This comes from not workin' yesterday and goin' to church."

They drove down to the sawmill, delivered their requisition, and had their wagon loaded with newly-sawn plank. The Captain had the planks carefully counted, the number and feet entered upon the record, and set forth upon the return which he gave to Si to be delivered to the Lieutenant of Pioneers.

"Too dod-gasted much bookkeepin' in this army," remarked Si, rather disconsolately, and he put the paper in his blouse pocket, and they drove away. "Wastes entirely too much valuable time. What'd he count them boards for? Looked like he suspicioned us. How are we going to git away with any o' them?"

"I wouldn't have that man's suspicious mind for anything," answered Shorty. "He don't trust no body. All the same, we're goin' to have enough boards for our floor."

"How are we goin' to manage it?" asked Si.

"Lots o' ways. There's no need o' your carryin' that paper back to the Lootenant. I might pick up several hundred feet and sneak away without your knowin' it. Say," as a bright idea struck him, "what's the use o' goin' back to the Lootenant at all? Neither of us belongs to his detail. He don't know us from a side o' sole-leather. What's the matter with drivin' the wagon right up to camp, and swipin' the whole business, horses, wagon and all?"

"I hain't been in the army as long as you have, Shorty," said Si doubtfully. "I've made some progress in petty larceny, as you know, but I ain't yit quite up to stealin' a span o' horses and a wagon. Mebbe I'll come to it in time, but I ain't quite ready for it now."

"That comes from goin' to church yesterday, and hearin' the Chaplain read the Ten Commandments," said Shorty wrathfully. "I don't believe they ought to allow the Chaplains to read them things. They ain't suited to army life, and there ought to be a general order that they're prejudicial to good order and military discipline. Where'd the army be if they obeyed that one about not covetin' a horse or other movable property? I tell you what we'll do, since you're so milky on the thing: We'll drive up in front of our house, unload enough boards for our floor, you git out your gun and bayonet and stand guard over 'em, and I'll drive the wagon down near the bridge, and jump off and leave it."

"All right," said Si; "that'll do splendidly, if you think you kin dodge the Lootenant."

"O, he be darned," said Shorty scornfully. "I could git away from him if I wasn't 10 years old."

They carried out the plan. They drove up in front of their residence, and threw off a liberal quantity of the boards. The other boys raised a yell, and made a break for them. But Si ran inside, got his gun, and established himself on guard.

"Don't you budge an inch from there till I git back," shouted Shorty, as he drove away. "Don't let one of Co. Q lay a finger on them. They're the durndest thieves outside the Jeffersonville Penitentiary. You can't trust one o' them farther than you could sling a bull by the tail. I'll be back soon."

Shorty drove gaily down until he got close to the bridge. The Lieutenant had been impatiently expecting him, and as soon as the wagon came up it was surrounded by a crowd of men to unload it. The Lieutenant looked over the load.

"I wonder if he sent enough. Let me see your return," he said, looking up at the seat, where he expected to find the Sergeant he had put in charge. But the seat was empty. Shorty had jumped down, prudently mingled with the crowd, avoided the Lieutenant's eye with much more than his usual diffidence, and was modestly making his way back to camp behind a thicket of hazel bushes. When he got to the house he was delighted to find Si still master of the situation, with all the boards present and accounted for. They quickly transferred them to the interior, and found that they had enough for a nice floor, besides a couple of extra ones, to cut up into a table and stools.

"You done good work in keepin' the other boys offen 'em, Si," said he. "I was afraid you wouldn't. The only thing I've got agin Co. Q is that the boys will steal. Otherwise they're the nicest kind o' boys."

A couple of days later they got a pass to go down to Murfreesboro' and look the sleepy old town over. They were particularly interested in the quaint old courthouse, which had once been the capitol of Tennessee. They happened into one of the offices, which was entirely deserted. On the wall hung a steel engraving of Jeff Davis in a large oak frame.

"That blamed old rebel picture oughtn't to be hangin' there, Si," observed Shorty.

"Indeed it oughtn't. Jeff ought to be hung to a sour-apple tree, and that glass'd make a nice winder for our house."

"Indeed it would," Shorty started to answer, but time was too precious to waste in speech. In an instant he had shoved an old desk up to the wall, mounted it, and handed the picture down to Si. They wrapped it up in their overcoats, and started back for camp. They had seen enough of Murfreesboro' for that day.

CHAPTER XIII. "HOOSIER'S REST"

SI AND SHORTY CHRISTEN THEIR PLACE AND GIVE A HOUSE-WARMING

WITH a tin roof, a real door, a glazed window and a plank floor, Si and Shorty's house was by far the most aristocratic in the cantonment of the 200th Ind., if not the entire Winter quarters of the Army of the Cumberland. A marble mansion, with all the modern improvements, could not more proudly overshadow all its neighbors than it did.

Even the Colonel's was no comparison to it. A tent-fly had been made to do duty for a roof at the Colonel's. It could not be stretched evenly and tight. It would persistently sag down in spots, and each of these spots became a reservoir from which would descend an icy stream. A blanket had to serve as a door, and the best substitute for window glass were Commissary blanks greased with fat from headquarters' frying-pan. The floor, instead of being of clean, new plank, as Si's and Shorty's, was made of the warped and weather-beaten boards of a stable, which had been torn down by a fatigue detail.

Si and Shorty took as much pride and pleasure in their architecture as any nabob over his million-dollar villa. They were constantly on the alert for anything that would add to the comfort and luxury of their home. In their wanderings they chanced to come across an old-fashioned bedstead in an out house. It was of the kind in which the rails screw together, and the bed is held up by a strong cord crossing and recrossing from one rail to another. This looked like real luxury, and they at once appropriated it without any consultation with the owner, whoever he may have been.

"It'd be a waste o' time, anyhow," remarked Shorty. "He's a rebel, and probably over there in Bragg's army."

They made a tick out of the piece of wagon-cover, filled it with beech leaves, and had a bed which surpassed their most extravagant ideas of comfort in the army.

"Shorty," said Si, as they snugged themselves in the first night, "this seems almost too much. Do you ever remember settin' the whole night on a rail, with nothin' over us but clouds leakin' ice-water?"

"Shut up," said Shorty, giving him a kick under the blankets. "Do you want me to have a night mare?"

They got a number of flat stones, and laid down a little pavement in front of their door, and drove an old bayonet into the logs to serve as a scraper. They rigorously insisted on every visitor using this before entering.

"For common Wabash-bottom fly-up-the-cricks and private soljers, you're puttin' on entirely too many frills," said Sol Murphy, the Wagonmaster, angrily, as it was firmly insisted upon that he stay outside until he carefully cleaned his shoes on the bayonet. "A man that's afraid o' mud hain't no business in the army. He orter stay at home an' wear Congress gaiters an' pantalets. You're puttin' on too many scollops, I tell you. You knowed all 'bout mud in the Wabash bottoms. You had 'nuff of it there, the Lord knows."

"Yes, we had," replied Shorty; "but we was too well raised to track it into anybody's parlor."

"Parlor," echoed Sol, with a horse-laugh. "Lord, how fine we are, just becaze one o' us happens to be a measly little Corporal. In some armies the Wagonmasters have Corporals to wait on 'em an' black their boots. Now, I'll tell yo' what I've come for. I've lost my scoop-shovel, an' I've bin told that you fellers stole it, an' are usin' it to bake hoe-cakes on. I've come up here to see if you've got it, an' I'm goin' right in there to see for myself, mud or no mud."

"We hain't got your blamed old scoop-shovel; you can't git it; you ain't goin' in there until you clean your feet, an' not then onless we conclude to allow you," Shorty replied.

"I'm goin' in there, or break some Wabash loon's neck," said the Wagonmaster wrathfully.

"I always did like to get a chance to lick a mule-whacker," said Si, pulling off his overcoat. "And the bigger and the more consequential he is, the better. I've never licked a Wagonmaster yit, an' I'm just achin' for a chance."

The Wagonmaster was the bully of the regiment, as Wagonmasters generally are. When Si came into the regiment, a green cub, just getting his growth, and afraid of everybody who assumed a little authority and had more knowledge of the world than he, the Wagonmaster had been very overbearing, and at times abusive. That is the way of Wagonmasters and their ilk. The remembrance of this rankled in Si's mind.

On the other hand, the Wagonmaster failed to comprehend the change that a few months of such service as the 200th Ind.'s wrought in verdant, bashful boys like Si. He thought he could cow him as easily as he did when Si had timidly ventured to ask His Greatness a modest question or two as they were crossing the Ohio River. Wagonmasters were always making just that kind of mistakes.

The other boys ran up to see the fun. The Wagonmaster made a rush for Si with doubled fists, but Si quickly stepped to one side, and gave the hulking fellow a tap on the butt of his ear that laid him over in the mud. The other boys yelled with delight. Next to a Sutler, or a conceited, fresh young Aid, the soldiers always delighted to see a Wagonmaster get into trouble.

The Wagonmaster sprang up, ready for another round; but the boys raised the cry that the Officer of the Day was coming, and both Si and the Wagonmaster remembered that they had business in other parts of the camp.

The next day Shorty said: "It's all right, Si; we could've kept that scoop-shovel as long as we wanted to, but I thought that for many reasons it'd better be got out of the regiment, so I've traded it to them Maumee Muskrats for a Dutch oven they'd borrowed from their Major."

"Bully," answered Si. "I'd much rather have the Dutch oven, anyway."

Si produced a piece of board, which had been painted white, and evidently done duty as part of the door of a house in Murfreesboro', looked at it critically, and then selected a piece of charcoal from the fire, and sat down with an air of studious purpose. "What are you up to now, Si?" asked Shorty curiously.

"Why," explained Si, "I've noticed, whenever we've bin in any big place, that all the fine houses have signs or numbers, or something else onto 'em, to name 'em. I've bin thinkin' o' something for our house. How does 'Hoosier's Rest' strike you for a name?"

"Splendid," said Shorty. "Couldn't be better."

"And," continued Si, "I've got this board to make a sign to nail up over the door. Do you know how to spell Hoosier, Shorty?"

"Blest if I do," answered Shorty. "It wasn't in our book. At least, we never got to it, if it was. You see our spellin'-school broke up just as we got to 'incompatible.' The teacher got too fond o' Nancy Billings, that I was castin' sheep's eyes at myself. He got to givin' her easy words, to keep her at the head o' the class, and pickin' hard ones for me, to send me to the foot, where I'd be fur away from her. I wouldn't stand it always, so me an' him had it out one night before all the scholars; I got away with him, and he left the country, and busted up the school."

"Hoosier," repeated Si to himself. "I never saw it spelled. But there must be some way to spell it. Let me see: 'W-h-o spells who.'"

"That's so," assented Shorty.

"I-s spells 'is,'" continued Si. "Who-is that's right so far. H-e-r-e spells 'here.' 'Who-is-here?' That seems almost right, don't it, Shorty?"

"It certainly does," replied Shorty, scratching his head to accelerate his mental action. "Or it might be, Si, w-h-o, who; i-s, is; and y-e-r, yer. You know some ignorant folks say yer for you. And they say the name came from the people who first settled in Injianny sayin' 'Who's yer?' to any new comer."

"I believe you're right, Shorty," said Si, bending over the board with the charcoal to begin the work. "We'll make it that way, anyway."

The next day passers-by saw a white board nailed up over the door, which contained a charcoal sketch of a soldier seated on a chunk of wood, with a pipe in his mouth, taking as much ease as Si could throw into the outlines of his face and body, and with it was this legend:

"WHO IS YER'S REST."

The next idea that came into the partners' minds was that the requirements of society demanded that they give a housewarming in their sumptuous abode. They at once set about making it a memorable social event.

While out with a wagon after forage they found an Indiana man who had settled in that country. He had a good orchard. They bought from him a barrel of pretty hard cider and several bushels of apples. His wife knew how to make fried dough nuts of real Indiana digestibility. They would be luxuries for the boys, and a half-bushel were contracted for. The farmer was to bring them all in his wagon, and Si and Shorty were to meet him at the pickets and guard the treasures to their abode.

They bought a little bale of fragrant Kinnikinnick tobacco from the sutler, made a sufficiency of corncob pipes, swept off the ground in front of their house, which, as there had been no rain for several days, was in good condition, with brooms of brush, that it might serve for a dancing-floor, gathered in a stock of pitch-pine knots for their fire, spoke to Bunty Jim to bring his fiddle along, and to Uncle Sassafras, the Colonel's cook, to come down with his banjo, and their preparations were completed.

It was a crisp, delightful Winter evening, with the moon at full, the fire burning brightly, and every body in the best of spirits. The awful week of marching, enduring and suffering; of terrific fighting, limitless bloodshed; of wounds and death to one out of every four men in the ranks; of nerve-racking anxieties to all might as well have been centuries ago for any sign that appeared on the bright, animated faces of the young men who gathered in front of the cabin. They smoked, danced old-fashioned country dances to the music of the fiddle and the banjo, and sang songs which lamented the death of "Lily Dale," mourned that "My Nelly was sleeping in the Hazel Dell," adjured the "Silver Moon" to "roll on," and so on through the whole repertoire of the sentimental ballads of that day.

Then they were invited into the house to inspect its complete, luxurious appointments, and feast themselves to bursting on apples, hard cider, and doughnuts that would have tried any stomach but a young soldier's.

Billy Gurney, who had been back to Nashville as one of the guard to a train-load of wounded, was induced to favor the company with the newest song, which had just reached that city. He cleared his throat with another tincupful of cider, and started off with:

     "When this cruel war is over."

Rapturous applause followed the first verse, and Billy started in to teach them the chorus, so they could all join.