Si Klegg

"Somethin' like that," answered Si.

"I think there are about three o' these cricks to every mile. Do you really suppose we'll be able to git there before our three years is up?"

"All depends on the mules," answered Si cheerily. "If this sudden spell o' goodness holds out we may get there before evening."

CHAPTER III. THIRD DAY OF THE DELUGE

TOILSOME PLODDING, AND "SHELBYVILLE ONLY 15 MILES AWAY."

IT SEEMS impossible, but the third day's rain was even worse than that of the two preceding. The drops seemed much larger, to follow each other faster, and with less interval between the downpours.

"Does it always rain this way in June down here?" Si asked a patriarch, who was sitting on his porch by the roadside in a split-bottomed rocking-chair, resting his bony hands on a cane, the head of which was a ram's horn, smoking a corn-cob pipe and watching the pa.s.sing column with lack-l.u.s.ter eyes.

"Sah," said the sage, poking down the ashes in his pipe with his little finger, "I've done lived in the Duck River Valley ever sence Capting Jimmy Madison wuz elected President the fust time, and I never seed sich a wet spell as this afore. I reckon hit's all along o' the wah. We allers have a powerful sight o' rain in wah times. Hit rained powerful when Jinerul Jackson wuz foutin' the Injuns down at Hoss Shoe Bend, and the Summers durin' the Mexican war wuz mouty wet, but they didn't hold a candle to what we're havin' this yeah. Hit's the shootin' and bangin', I reckon, that jostles the clouds so's they can't hold in."

"How far is it to Shelbyville, Gran'pap?" asked Shorty.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 'DON'T CALL ME YOUR GRAN'PAP.' 35]

"Don't call me yer gran-pap," piped out the old man in angry falsetto, and shaking his cane. "I won't stand hit. I won't stand everything. I've had enough ter stand from you Yankees already. You've stole my chickens an' robbed my smoke-house, an' run off my stock, an' I've done stood hit, but I won't stan' bein' called gran'pap by ye. I've some mouty mean grandsons, some that orter be in the penitentiary, but I hain't none mean enough t' be in the Yankee army."

"We didn't mean no offense, sir," said Si placatingly. "We really don't want you for a gran'father. We've got gran'fathers o' our own, and they're very nice old men, that we wouldn't trade off for anything ever raised in Tennessee. Have you anything to eat that you'll sell us? We'll pay you for it."

"No, I haint got nothin' nary mite," quavered the old man. "Your men an' our men have stole everything I have stock, cattle, sheep, hogs, poultry, meat an' meal everything, except my bare land an' my hope o'

heaven. Thank G.o.d, none on ye kin steal them from me."

"Don't be too blamed sure about that, old feller," said Shorty. "Better hide 'em. The Maumee Muskrats are jest behind us. They're the worst thieves in the whole army. Don't let 'em know anything about your land or your hope o' salvation, or they'll have it in their haversacks before you kin wink."

"You haint told us yit how far it is to

"Young man," said the sage oracularly, "that altogether depends.

Sometimes Shelbyville is mouty fur off, an' sometimes she is right here.

On bright, cl'ar days, when the roads is good, hit's only a few steps over thar jest two sees an' a holler."

"What's that?" said Si. "Two sees an' a holler? How far is that?"

"He means," explained Shorty, "that you go as far as you kin see from the highest hilltop to the next highest hill-top twice, and then it's only about as much farther as your voice will reach."

"Jest so," a.s.serted the patriarch. "I kin saddle my ole nag arter dinner, rack over an' do some tradin', an' rack back agin in time for supper. But 'when we have sich sorry weather as this, Shelbyville seems on t' other side o' nowhar. You've got t' pull through the mud an' swim every branch and crick, an' you're mouty lucky if you git thar in a week."

"Why don't you build bridges over the creeks?" asked Si.

"Can't do hit when hit's rainin' an they're runnin' over thar banks."

"But why don't you do it when the weather's good?"

"What's the use? You kin git over all right then."

"Sir," said the Brigadier-General, riding up and addressing the old man, "where does the Shakerag road come into the Bellbuckle road?"

Instantly the old man felt that he was being asked to give "aid and information to the enemy," and his old eyes grew hard and his wrinkled face set. "I don't know, sah."

"Yes, you do," said the Brigadier-General impatiently, "and I want you to tell me."

"I don't know, sah," repeated the old man.

"Are there any works thrown up and any men out there on the Shakerag road?" asked the Brigadier.

"I don't know, sah."

"Did a large body of rebels go past your house yesterday, and which road did they take at the forks?" inquired the Brigadier.

"I don't know, sah."

The Brigadier-General was not in the best of humor, and he chafed visibly at the old man's answers.

"Does not Goober Creek run down there about a mile in that direction?"

he again inquired, pointing with his field-gla.s.ses.

"I don't know, sah."

"How long have you lived here?" asked the Brigadier savagely.

"Nigh on to 55 year, sah."

"And you don't know where Goober Creek is, and which way it runs?" asked the Brigadier, losing all patience.

"No, sah," responded the imperturbable old man.

"Well," said the Brigadier-General grimly, "it is high time that you discovered that interesting stream. You might die without seeing it. Men (to Si and Shorty) take him down that road about a mile, where you will find a considerable body of water which I'm given to understand is called Goober Creek. You'll show it to him in all its magnificence and beauty. Geography is a very interesting study, old man, and it is not too late for you to begin getting acquainted with your own country."

The bitter humor of taking a man through the mud and pouring rain to see a creek that he had seen nearly every day of his life for a half-century was such that all the men were in a mood to appreciate. Si and Shorty entered into the affair with zest. They put a blanket on the old man's shoulders, to shelter him from the rain. Such a thing as an umbrella had never been in his house. Even the women would have looked upon it as a piece of luxurious effeminacy.

The old fellow grumbled, expostulated, and protested, but if Si and Shorty had had no other motive, orders direct from the Brigadier-General would have been executed at any cost. It was the first time that they had ever received orders from anybody higher than the Colonel, and the effect upon them was extraordinary.

"What in the everlastin' kingdom," grumbled he, "kin your n.i.g.g.ah-lovin'

Yankees expect t' gain by draggin' me out when hit's a-rainin' cats and dogs?"

"Don't know nothin' about it," answered Si, catching him by the shoulder to hurry him up. "'Tain't our business to know. We ain't paid for knowin' anything more than orders, and hardly enough for that. A man can't know much for $13 a month."

"'Twon't help yer niggeh-stealin' army a mite t' pi'nt out Goober Crick t' me. I ain't gwine t' tote ye over nor show ye the fords."

"Don't care nothin' about that neither," replied Shorty, as they pushed the old man along through the blinding 'rain. "Our orders is merely to show you Goober Crick. 'Tain't none o' our business what the General wants you to see it for. Mebbe he thinks it 'll improve your mind to gaze on the beauties o' nature. Mebbe he thinks you need exercise. Mebbe he thinks a shower-bath'd do you good."

The column had been checked by some difficulty in front, and as the boys conveyed their charge through the ranks of waiting men it seemed that everybody understood what they were doing, and volleys of sarcasm were flung at their prisoner. There were inquiries as to how he liked the study of geography as far as he had gotten; whether he would continue it in more favorable weather, and whether this primary lesson would be followed by others on the road to the mill, the path to the stable, and the way to the spring. If the old man had not already been as angry as he could be, his temper would have risen.