Shorty pulled some papers out of his pocket to search for his money, and fumbled them over. There were two pieces among them resembling the scraps on which Billings had written his notes. They contained some army doggerel which the poet of Co. Q had written and Shorty was carrying about as literary treasures.The removal of the soil and grime of the march and battle had a remarkably vivifying effect upon Si. New life seemed to pulse through his veins and brightness return to his eyes. U ar a Frawd!!! That's what U ar!!!
ONE:"That Major I spoke to," said Lieut. Bowersox, as Si and Shorty looked anxiously in his face, "is on the corps staff, and he says the whole infernal Southern Confederacy is out there for blood. They jumped us yesterday like a pack of famished wolves. But Rosecrans had just got his army together in time, though some of the divisions had to march till their tongues were hanging out. All the boys were dead game, though, and they stood the rebels off everywhere in great shape. He hasn't the faintest idea where the 200th Ind. is. The divisions and brigades have been jumped around from one end of the line to the other till he has but little more idea where any regiment is than if it was in the moon. The only way for us is to make our way as fast as we can to the front, where they need every man, and trust to luck to find the regiment. We'll probably not find it, but we'll find a place where they need us badly."
ONE:"Look here, boys," gasped Shorty, when he got a chance to answer, "I'd like to answer your questions and fill you so plumb full o' information that your hides'd crack to hold it. But I aint no complete history o' the war with heavy artillery tactics bound up in one volume. All I know is that the worst dose them forts ever give was to the fellers that had to build 'em. After you've dug and shoveled and wheeled on one of 'em for about a month you'll hate the very sight of 'em and never ask no questions about 'em. All you'll want'll be to find and kill the feller that invented them brick-red eruptions on the face o' the earth.""I'll tell you what you might do," he said at length, "if you care to take the risk. We're goin' back with some teams to Bridgeport to-morrow mornin'. You might git in one of the wagons and ride back 10 or 15 miles to a little valley that I remember that's there, and which I think looks like it hain't bin foraged. I was thinkin' as we come through the other day that I might git something goo'd to eat up there, and I'd try it some day. No body seems to 've noticed it yit. But it may be chock full o' rebels, for all I know, and a feller git jumped the moment he sets foot in it."
TWO:"Sure you do," Dodd said, and his voice began to rise. He went to the bed, walked along its length to the window, as he talked, never facing Albin. "You know how to make me feel just fine, no worries at all, no complications, just a nice, simple life. With nothing at all in it, Albin. Nothing at all."Late in the afternoon the tired-out herd was halted in a creek bottom near Chattanooga. The patient animals lay down, and the weary, footsore Deacon, his clothes covered with burs, his hands and face seamed with bloody scratches, leaned on his frayed gad and looked around over the wilderness of tents, cabins, trains and interminable lines of breastworks and forts.
TWO:He blamed himself for his neglect, and resolved to write at once, to tell her where he was, what had happened to him, and that he was going to try to visit her before returning to the field. But difficult as writing had always been, it was incomparably more so now. He found that where he thought of Jerusha once, he was thinking of Maria a hundred times. Not that he would admit to himself there was any likeness in his thoughts about the two girls. He did not recognize that there was anything sentimental in those about Maria. She was simply some infinitely bright, superior sort of a being, whose voice was sweeter than a bird's, and whose presence seemed to brighten the room. He found himself uncomfortable when she was out of sight. The company of Si or his father was not as all-sufficient and interesting as it used to be. When Maria went out of the room they became strangely dull and almost tiresome, unless they talked of her.
THREE:"The train'll stop for water in the middle of a big beech woods. We'll get off there and take a path that leads right to the lodge."
THREE:... Dara is dead in the returning, when new masters come to us and say the fighting is over. It is an accident which kills her, a stumble, they say, against a plant which is dangerous to animal life and to our kind. The accident is over and Dara is dead, and we return.
