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 luxury151 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 no152 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 very153 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.
si floors the wagonmaster. 154
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 been154 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 for155 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, bending156 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, spoke157 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 one158 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.
a loud explosion came from the fireplace, a campkettle full of cider that was being mulled by the fire was spattered over the company, scalding some of them severely; stones from the fireplace and bullets flew about the room. they all rushed out.159 footsteps could be heard running in the distance. they looked in that direction, and recognized sol murphy's broad back and bushy head.
"that blamed wagonmaster dropped a nosebag with a lot o' cartridges in it down the chimbly," said shorty, who had made an inspection of the fireplace. "mad because he wasn't invited. you bet, i'll salivate him well for that little trick."
