Chapter 72
"Le'me see your best paper and envelopes," he said to the pirate who had license to fleece the volunteers.
"Awfully common trash," said Shorty, looking over the a.s.sortment disdainfully, for he wanted something superlatively fine for his letter.
"Why don't you git something fit for a gentleman to write to a lady on?
Something with gold edges on the paper and envelopes, and perfumed? I never write to a lady except on gilt-edged paper, smellin' o' bergamot, and musk, and citronella, and them things. I don't think it's good taste."
"Well, think what you please," said the Sutler. "That's all the kind I have, and that's all the kind you'll git. Take it or leave it."
Shorty finally selected a quire of heavy letter paper and a bunch of envelopes, both emblazoned with patriotic and warlike designs in brilliant red and blue.
"Better take enough," he said to himself. "I've been handlin' a pick and shovel and gun so much that I'm afeared my hand isn't as light as it used to be, and I'll have to spile several sheets before I git it just right."
On his way back he decided to go by the camp of{131} one of the Wisconsin regiments and learn what he could of Bad Ax and its people.
"Is there a town in your State called Bad Ax?" he asked of the first man he met with "Wis." on his cap.
"Cert'," was the answer. "And another one called Milwaukee, one called Madison, and another called Green Bay. Are you studying primary geography, or just getting up a postoffice directory?"
"Don't be funny, Skeezics," said Shorty severely. "Know anything about it? Mighty nice place, ain't it?"
"Know anything about it? I should say so. My folks live in Bad Ax County. It's the toughest, ornerist little hole in the State. Run by lead-miners. More whisky-shanties than dwellings. It's tough, I tell you."
"I believe you're an infernal liar," said Shorty, turning away in wrath.
Not being fit for duty, he could devote all his time to the composition of the letter. He was so wrought up over it that he could not eat much dinner, which alarmed Si.
"What's the matter with your appet.i.te. Shorty?" he asked. "Haint bin eatin' nothin' that disagreed with you, have you?
"Naw," answered Shorty impatiently; "nothin' wuss'n army rations. They always disagree with me when I'm layin' around doin' nothin'. Why, in the name of goodness, don't the army move? I've got sick o' the sight o'
every cedar and rocky k.n.o.b in Middle Tennessee. We ought to go down and take a look at things around Tullahoma, where Mr. Bragg{132} is."
It was Si's turn to clean up after dinner, and, making an excuse of going over into another camp to see a man who had arrived there, Shorty, with his paper and envelopes concealed under his blouse, and Si's pen and wooden ink-stand furtively conveyed to his pocket, picked up the checkerboard when Si's back was turned, and made his way to the pawpaw thicket, where he could be unseen and unmolested in the greatest literary undertaking of his life.
He took a comfortable seat on a rock, spread the paper on the checkerboard, and then began vigorously chewing the end of the penholder to stimulate his thoughts.
It had been easy to form the determination to write; the desire to do so was irresistible, but never before had he been confronted with a task which
But when Shorty set that somewhat thick head of his upon the doing of a thing, the thing was tolerably certain to be done in some shape or another.
"I believe, if I knowed wh.o.r.e Bad Ax was, I'd git a furlough, and walk clean there, rather than write a line," he said, as he wiped from his brow the sweat{133} forced out by the labor of his mind. "I always did hate writin'. I'd rather maul rails out of a twisted elm log any day than fill up a copy book. But it's got to be done, and the sooner I do it the sooner the agony 'll be over. Here goes."
He began laboriously forming each letter with his lips, and still more laboriously with his stiff fingers, adding one to another, until he had traced out:
"Headquarters Co. Q, 200th Injianny Volunteer Infantry, Murfreesboro, Aprile the 16th eighteen hundred & sixty three."
The sweat stood out in beads upon his forehead after this effort, but it was as nothing compared to the strain of deciding how he should address his correspondent. He wanted to use some term of fervent admiration, but fear deterred him. He debated the question with himself until his head fairly ached, when he settled upon the inoffensive phrase:
"Respected Lady."
The effort was so exhausting that he had to go down to the spring, take a deep drink of cold water, and bathe his forehead. But his determination was unabated, and before the sun went down he had produced the following:
"i talk mi pen in hand 2 inform U that ive reseeved the SOX U so kindly cent, & i thank U 1,000 times 4 them. They are boss sox & no mistake. They are the bossest sox that ever wuz nit. The man is a lire who sez they aint. He da.s.sent tel Me so. U are a boss nitter. Even Misses Linkun can't hold a candle 2 U.
"The sox fit me 2 a t, but that is becaws they are nit so wel, & stretch."{134}
"I wish I knowed some more real strong words to praise her knitting,"
said Shorty, reading over the laboriously-written lines. "But after I have said they're boss what more is there to say? I spose I ought to say something about her health next. That's polite." And he wrote:
"ime in fair helth, except my feet are" locoed, & i weigh 156 pounds, & hope U are injoying the saim blessing."
"I expect I ought to praise her socks a little more," said he, and wrote:
"The SOX are jest boss. They outrank anything in the Army of the c.u.mberland."
After this effort he was compelled to take a long rest. Then he communed with himself:
"When a man's writin' to a lady, and especially an educated lady, he should always throw in a little poetry. It touches her."
There was another period of intense thought, and then he wrote:
"Dan Elliott is my name, & single is my station, Injianny is mi dwelling place, & Christ is mi salvation."
"Now," he said triumphantly, "that's neat and effective. It tells her a whole lot about me, and makes her think I know Shakspere by heart.
Wonder if I can't think o' some more? Hum--hum. Yes, here goes:
"The rose is red, the vilet's blue; ime 4 the Union, so are U."
Shorty was so tickled over this happy conceit that he fairly hugged himself, and had to read it over{135} several times to admire its beauty. But it left him too exhausted for any further mental labor than to close up with:
"No moar at present, from yours til death.
"Dan Elliott,
"Co. Q, 200th injianny Volunteer Infantry."
He folded up the missive, put it into an envelope, carefully directed to Miss Jerusha Ellen Briggs, Bad Ax, Wis., and after depositing it in the box at the Chaplain's tent, plodded homeward, feeling more tired than after a day's digging on the fortifications. Yet his fatigue was illuminated by the s.h.i.+mmering light of a fascinating hope.
CHAPTER X. TRADING WITH THE REBS
THE BOYS HAVE SOME FRIENDLY COMMERCE WITH THE REBEL PICKETS.
THE 200th Ind. Volunteer Infantry had been pushed out to watch the crossings of Duck River and the movements of the rebels on the south bank of that narrow stream. The rebels, who had fallen into the incurable habit of objecting to everything that the "Yankees" did, seemed to have especial and vindictive repugnance to being watched.
Probably no man, except he be an actor or a politician, likes to be watched, but few ever showed themselves as spitefully resentful of observation as the rebels.
Co. Q was advanced to picket the north bank of the river, but the moment it reached the top of the hill overlooking the stream it had to deploy as skirmishers, and Enfield bullets began to sing viciously about its ears.
"Looks as if them fellers think we want to steal their old river and send it North," said Shorty, as he reloaded his gun after firing at a puff of smoke that had come out of the sumach bushes along the fence at the foot of the hill. "They needn't be so grouchy. We don't want their river--only to use it awhile. They kin have it back agin after we're through with it."