"It mayn't be as bad as we expect," the Orderly-Sergeant tried to console them. "The bite of most of them regulations and charges and specifications ain't never near as bad as their bark. If they were, a good many of us would have been shot long ago. My experience in the army's been that the regulations are like the switches the teachers used to have in schoola willow for the good scholars, and a stout hickory for the bad ones. Still, I'm afraid that Shorty won't get off with less than hard labor for life on the fortifications."She seemed harder now, somehow, more decided. Dodd saw that the one attack had changed a lotin Norma, in everyone. Albin, for instance, wasn't involved with fun any more: he had turned into a fanatical drill-sergeant, with a squad of Alberts under him, and it was even rumored that he slept in their quarters."I'm sorry if I'm bothering you," she said.
TWO:The boys' hearts sickened with the thought that the whole army was in utter rout. For a minute or two they surveyed the appalling sight in speech less despair. Then a gleam of hope shot into Si's mind.
"Given enough temptation," Dr. Haenlingen said, "there is no such thing as a responsible man. If there were, none of us would be here, on Fruyling's World. None of us would be masters, and none of the Alberts slaves.""If Si and Shorty's able to be moved," he consoled them with, "I'm going to bring them straight back home with me, and then you kin nuss and coddle them all you want to."Wilson's first instructions were as to Shorty's personal appearance. He must get a clean shave and a hair-cut, a necktie, box of paper collars, a pair of white gloves, have blouse neatly brushed and buttoned to his throat and his shoes polished.
荣誉榜
THREE:"The door opens," she said when he had reached her, in a small and frightened voice. "The masters are not here.""Stop that," he called. "Put your minds to learnin' to load and shoot first. It'll be some time before you git a chance to prod a rebel with a bayonet. Rebels are as wild as crows. You'll be lucky to git as close to 'em as the other side of a 40-acre field."
THREE:"I was hurt bad enough, the Lord knows," answered the boy with a wan smile. "I hain't been hurt so bad since I stubbed by sore toe last Summer. But I'm getting over it pretty fast. Just as I started up the bank a rebel threw a stone as big as my fist at me, and it took me square where I live. I thought at first that whole battery over there in the fort had shot at me all at once. Goodness, but it hurt! My, but that fellow could throw a stone! Seemed to me that it went clear into me, and bent my back-bone. I've been feeling to see if it wasn't bent. But we got the works all right, didn't we?"
