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 were230 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.231
"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 find232 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?"
hit my jug a welt with his sword 231
"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 and283 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. i234 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."
'pulled out a fat roll of greenbacks. 235
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 like235 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."236
"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."237
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."238
"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 with239 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.
"great country, pap," said si suggestively.
"yes; it'd be a great country," said his father disdainfully, "if you could put a wagonload o' manure on every foot and import some injianny men to take care of it. the water and the sunshine down here seem all right, but the land and the people and the pigs and stock seem to be cullin's throwed out when they made injianny."
at length the train halted by a double log house of much more pretentious character than any they had so far seen. there were a couple of well-filled corn-cribs, a large stack of fodder, and other evidences of plenty. the deacon's practiced eye noticed that there was no stock in the fields, but si explained this by saying that everything on hoofs had been driven off to supply the rebel army. "they're now trying to git a corn-crib and a fodder-stack with four legs, but hain't succeeded so far."
the captain ordered the fence thrown down and the wagons driven in to be filled. the surrounding horizon was scanned for signs of rebels, but none appeared anywhere. the landscape was as tranquil, as peace-breathing as a spring morning on the wabash, and the deacon's mind reverted to the condition of things on his farm. it was too wet to plow, but he would like to take a walk over the fields and see how his wheat had come out, and look over the240 peach-buds and ascertain how they had stood the winter. he noticed how some service-trees had already unfolded their white petals, like flags of truce breaking the long array of green cedars and rusty-brown oaks.
the company stacked arms in the road, the captain went to direct the filling of the wagons, and si and shorty started on a private reconnoissance for something for their larder.
the deacon strolled around the yard for awhile inspecting the buildings and farm implements with an eye of professional curiosity, and arrived at very unfavorable opinions. he then walked up on the porch of the house, where a woman of about his own age sat in a split-bottom rocking-chair knitting and viewing the proceedings with frowning eyes.
"good day, ma'am," said he. "warm day, ma'am."
"'tain't as warm as it orter to be for sich fellers as yo'uns," she snapped. "you'd better be in the brimstone pit if you had your just deserts."
the deacon always tried to be good-humored with an angry woman, and he thought he would try the effect of a little pleasantry. "i'm a baptist, ma'am, and they say us baptists are tryin' to put out that fire with cold water."
"you a babtist?" she answered scornfully. "the hot place is full o' jest sich babtists as yo'uns air, and they're making room for more. we'uns air babtists ourselves, but, thank the lord, not o' your kind. babtists air honest people. babtists don't go about the country robbin' and murderin' and stealin' folks' corn. don't tell me you air a babtist,241 for i know you air a-lyin', and that's the next thing to killin' and stealin'."
"but i am a baptist," persisted the deacon, "and have bin for 30 year regular, free-will, close-communion, total-immersion baptist. we have some campbellites, a few six principle baptists, and some hard shells, but the heft of us air jest plain, straight-out baptists. but, speakin' o' cold water, kin you give me a drink? i'm powerful dry."
"thar's water down in the crick, thar," she said, with a motion of her knitting in that direction. "it's as fur for me as it is for you. go down thar and drink all you like. lucky you can't carry the crick away with yo'uns. yo'uns 'd steal it if yo'uns could."
"you don't seem to be in a good humor, ma'am," said the deacon, maintaining his pleasant demeanor and tone.
"well, if you think that a passel o' nasty yankees is kalkerlated to put a lady in a good humor you're even a bigger fool than you look. but i hain't no time to waste jawin' you. if you want a drink thar's the crick. go and drink your fill of it. i only wish it was a's'nic, to pizen you and your whole army."
she suddenly stopped knitting, and bent her eyes eagerly on an opening in the woods on a hill-top whence the road wound down to the house. the deacon's eyes followed hers, and he saw unmistakable signs of men in butternut clothes. the woman saw that he noticed them, and her manner changed.
"come inside the house," she said pleasantly, "and i'll git you a gourdful of water fresh from the spring."242
"thankee, ma'am; i don't feel a bit dry," answered the deacon, with his eyes fastened on the hill top. "si, shorty, capt. mcgillicuddy," he yelled.
"shet your head, and come into the house this minit, you nasty yankee, or i'll slash your fool head off," ordered the woman, picking up a corn-cutter the advantage of his position and ran up to him.
the deacon was inside the railing around the porch, and he had not jumped a fence for 20 years. but he cleared the railing as neatly as si could have done it, and ran bareheaded down the road, yelling at the top of his voice.
he was not a minute too soon not soon enough. a full company of rebel cavalry came dashing out of the woods, yelling like demons.
without waiting to form, the men of co. q ran to their guns and began firing from fence-corners and behind trees. capt. mcgillicuddy took the first squad that he came to, and, running forward a little way, made a hasty line and opened fire. others saw the advantage of his position and ran up to him.
the deacon snatched up a gun and joined the captain.
"i never wuz subject to the 'buck fever,'" he muttered to himself, "and i won't allow myself to be now. i remember jest how gineral jackson told his men to shoot down to new orleans. i'm going to salt one o' them fellers as sure as my name's josiah klegg."
he took a long breath, to steady himself, as he joined the captain, picked out a man on a bay horse that seemed to be the rebels' captain, and caught his breast fully through the hindsight before he243 pulled the trigger. through the smoke he saw his man tumble from his horse.
"got him, anyway," he muttered; "now, how in the world kin i load this plaguey gun agin?"
at that instant a rebel bullet bit out a piece of his ear, but he paid no attention to it.
"gi' me that cartridge," he said to the man next to him, who had just bitten off the end of one; "i can't do it."
the man handed him the cartridge, which the deacon rammed home, but before he could find a cap the fight was over, and the rebels were seek ing the shelter of the woods.
the deacon managed to get a cap on his gun in time to take a long-distance, ineffective shot at the rebels as they disappeared in the woods.
they hastily buried one rebel who had been killed, and picked up those who had been wounded and carried them into the house, where they were made as comfortable as possible. among them was the man whom the deacon had aimed at. he was found to have a wound through the fleshy part of his hip, and proved to be the son of the woman of the house.
as soon as the fight was over, si, full of solicitude, sought his father. he found him wiping the blood from his ear with his bandanna.
"it's nothin', son; absolutely nothin'," said the old gentleman with as much pride as any recruit. "don't hurt as much as a scratch from a briar. some feller what couldn't write put his mark on me so's he'd know me agin. but i fetched that feller on the bay hoss. i'm glad i didn't kill him, but he'll keep out o' devilment for sometime.
