Si Klegg

"Here, Uncle, give me your kittle. I'll git it filled for you."

Without a thought the Deacon surrendered the kettle to him, and he took his place in line. The Deacon watched him edging up toward the spring for a minute or two, and then his attention was called to a brigade manuvering in a field across the river. After awhile he thought again about his kettle, and looked for the kindly young man who had volunteered to fill it. There were several in the line who looked like him, but none whom he could positively identify as him.

"Which o' you boys got my kittle?" he inquired, walking along the line.

"Got your kittle, you blamed teamster," they an swered crossly. "Go away from here. We won't{209} allow teamsters at this spring. It's only for soldiers. Go to your own spring."

His kettle was gone, too. That was clear. As the Deacon walked back to the cabin he was very hot in the region of his collar. He felt quite shame faced, too, as to the way the boys would look on his management, in the face of the injunctions they had given him at parting. His temper was not improved by discovering that while he was gone someone had carried off the bigger part of the wood he had laboriously chopped and piled up in front of the cabin. He sat down in the doorway and meditated angrily:

"I'll be dumbed (there, I'm glad that Mariar didn't hear me say that.

I'm afeared I'm gittin' to swear just like these other fellers). I'll be dumbed if I ever imagined there wuz sich a pa.s.sel o' condemned thieves on the face o' the airth. And they all seem sich nice, gentlemanly fellers, too. What'll we do with them when they git back home?"

Presently he roused himself up to carry out his idea of getting a good meal ready for the boys by the time they returned, tired and hungry. He rummaged through the cabin, and came across an old tin bucket partially filled with sc.r.a.ps of paper. There did not seem to be anything of value in it, and he tossed the contents on the smoldering fire. Instantly there was an explosion which took the barrel off the top of the chimney, sent the stones rattling down, filled the room full of smoke, singed the Deacon's hair and whiskers, and sped him out of the cabin in great alarm. A crowd quickly gathered to see what was the matter. Just then Si appeared at the head of his squad. He and Shorty hurried to the scene of the disturbance.{210}

"What is the matter, Pap?" Si asked anxiously. "Why," explained his father, "I was lookin' round for something to git water in, and I found an old tin bucket with sc.r.a.ps o' paper in. I throwed them in the fire, and I'm feared I busted your fireplace all to pieces, But I'll help you to fix it up agin," he added deprecatingly.

"But you ain't hurt any, are you, Pap?" asked Si,{211} anxiously examining his father, and ignoring all thought as to the damage to the dwelling.

"No," said his father cheerfully. "I guess I lost a little hair, but I could spare that. It was about time to git it cut, anyway. I think we kin fix up the fireplace, Si."

"Cuss the fireplace, so long's you're all right," answered Si. "A little mud 'll straighten that out. You got hold o' the bucket where me and Shorty 've bin savin' up our broken cartridges for a little private Fourth o' July some night."

"But, Si," said the Deacon sorrowfully, determined to have it out at once. "They're bigger thieves than you said there wuz. They stole your ax but I'll buy you a better one for 10 or 12 bits; they took your pan and beans, an' took your camp-kittle, and finally all the wood that I'd cut."

He looked so doleful that the boys could not help laughing.

"Don't worry about them, Pap," said Si cheer fully. "We'll fix them all right. Let's go inside and straighten things up, and then we'll

"But you can't git nothin' to eat," persisted the Deacon, "because there's nothin' to cook in."

"We'll have something, all the same," said Shorty, with a wink of enjoyable antic.i.p.ation at Si.

The two boys carefully stowed away their overcoats, which were rolled up in bundles in a way that would be suspicious to a soldier. They got the interior of the cabin in more presentable shape, and then Shorty went out and produced a camp-kettle from somewhere, in which they made their coffee.{212}

When this was ready, they shut the door and care fully unrolled their overcoats. A small sugar-cured ham, a box of sardines, a can of peaches, and a couple of loaves of fresh, soft bread developed.

"Yum-yum!" murmured Shorty, gloating over the viands.

"Where in the world did you git them, boys?" asked the Deacon in wonderment.{213}

"Eat what is set before you, and ask no questions, for conscience's sake, Pap," said Si, slicing off a piece of the ham and starting to broil it for his father. "That's what you used to tell me."

"Si," said the father sternly, as an awful suspicion moved in his mind, "I hope you didn't steal 'em."

"Of course, not, Pap. How kin you think so?"

"Josiah Klegg," thundered the father, "tell me how you came by them things."

"Well, Pap," said Si, considerably abashed, "it was something like this: Our squad was set to work to unload a car o' Christian Commission things. Me and Shorty pulled off our overcoats and laid them in a corner. When we got through our work and picked up our coats we found these things in them. Some bad men had hid them there, thinkin' they wuz their overcoats. We thought the best way wuz to punish the thieves by takin' the things away with us. Now, here's a piece o' ham briled almost as nice as mother could do. Take it, and cut you off a slice of that soft bread."

"Si, the receiver's as bad as the thief. I won't touch it."

"Pap, the harm's been done. No matter who done it, the owner'll never see his victuals agin. Jest as like he cribbed 'em from somebody else.

These Christian Commission things wuz sent down for us soljers, anyhow.

We'd better have 'em than the b.u.mmers around the rear. They'll spile and be wasted if you don't eat 'em, and that'd be a sin."

[Ill.u.s.tration: TRYING TO CONQUER THE DEACON'S SCRUPLES. 212]

The savory ham was very appetizing, the Deacon was very hungry, and the argument was sophistical.

"I'll take it, Si," said he with a sigh. "I don't{214} wonder that the people down here are rebels and all that sort o' thing. It's in the air.

I've felt my principles steadily weakenin' from the time I crossed the Ohio River."

CHAPTER XVIII. THE DEACON IS SHOCKED HE IS CAUGHT WITH THE GOODS ON HIM AND IS RESCUED JUST IN TIME.

WITH the Deacon's a.s.sistance, the chimney was soon rebuilt, better than ever, and several homelike improvements were added. The lost utensils were also replaced, one by one. The Deacon was sometimes troubled in his mind as to where the pan, the camp-kettle, etc., came from. Si or Shorty would simply bring in one of them, with a sigh of satisfaction, and add it to the house hold stock. The Deacon was afraid to ask any questions.

One day, however, Shorty came in in a glow of excitement, with a new ax in his hand.

"There; isn't she a daisy," he said, holding it up and testing the edge with his thumb. "None o' your old sledges with no more edge than a maul, that you have to n.i.g.g.e.r the wood off with. Brand new, and got an edge like a razor. You kin chop wood with that, I tell you."

"It's a tolerable good ax. Wuth about 10 bits," said the Deacon, examining the ax critically. "Last ax I bought from Ol Taylor cost 12 bits. It was a better one. How much'd you give for this? I'll pay it myself."

[Ill.u.s.tration: 'HOW MUCH'D YOU GIVE FOR THIS?' 216]

"Do you know Jed Baskins thinks himself the{216} best eucher player in the 200th Ind.," said Shorty, forgetting himself in the exultation of his victory. "Jed Baskins the Rev. Jared Baskins's son a eucher player,"

gasped the Deacon. "Why, his father'd no more tech a card than he would a coal o' fire. Not so much, for I've often heard him say that a coal o'

fire kin only burn the hands, while cards scorch the soul."

"Well, Jed," continued Shorty, "bantered me to play three games out o'

five for this here ax agin my galvanized bra.s.s watch. We wuz boss and hoss on the first two games; on the saw-off we had four pints apiece.

I dealt and turned up the seven o' spades. Jed ordered me up, and then tried to ring in on me a right bower from another deck, but I knowed he hadn't it, because I'd tried to ketch it in the deal, but missed it an'

slung it under the table. I made Jed play fair, and euchered him, with only two trumps in my hand. Jed's a mighty slick hand with the pasteboards, but he meets his boss in your Uncle Ephraim. I didn't learn to play eucher in the hay lofts o' Bean Blossom Crick for nothin', I kin tell you."

An expression of horror came into Deacon Klegg's face, and he looked at Shorty with severe disapproval, which was entirely lost on that worthy, who continued to prattle on:

"Jed Baskins kin slip in more cold decks on green horns than any boy I ever see. You'd think he'd spent his life on a Mississippi steamboat or follerin' a circus. You remember how he cleaned out them Maumee Muskrats at chuck-a-luck last pay-day? Why, there wuzn't money enough left in one company to buy postage stamps for their letters home. You know how he done it? Why, that galoot of a citizen gambler that we tossed in a blanket down there by Nashville, and then rid out o' camp on a rail, learned him how to finger the dice. I was sure some o' them Maumee smart Alecks'd git on to Jed, but they didn't. I declare they wouldn't see a six-mule team if it druv right across the board afore 'em. But I'm onto him every minit. I told him when he tried to ring in that jack on me that he{218} didn't know enough about cards to play with our Sunday school cla.s.s on Bean Blossom Crick."

"Josiah Klegg," said the Deacon sternly, "do you play cards?"

"I learned to play jest a little," said Si deprecatingly, and getting very red in the face. "I jest know the names o' the cards, and a few o'

the rules o' the game."

"I'm surprised at you," said the Deacon, "after the careful way you wuz brung up. Cards are the devil's own picture-books. They drag a man down to h.e.l.l jest as sure as strong drink. Do you own a deck o' cards?"

"No, sir," replied Si. "I did have one, but I throwed it away when we wuz goin' into the battle o' Stone River."