"I tell you, hit's no use to wait for they'uns no longer," said one strong voice. "Them Yankees is runnin' back to their camps as fast as they'uns's legs 'll carry they'uns. If yo'uns 'd had any sand, and stood yer ground, you'd 'a seed 'em. But yo' yaller hammers allers git the ager when ever a cap's busted, and run yer rabbit-gizzards out."
"That's all right," they shouted. "We're glad we're in the 200th Injianny, but we want to be in Co. Q.""Nobody's allowed to leave," Dodd said, more quietly. "We'rethey're taking every precaution they can. But some daymaybe some day, Albinthe people are going to find out in spite of every precaution." He sat straighter. "And then it'll all be over. Then they'll be wiped out, Albin. Wiped out."I've sold out my shares as of this morning, Fred. I'm through. I think you are, toowhether you know it or not just yet.
ONE:Well, friends, some of them went right back and asked to be servants againthey did so. It's a historical fact. But that was no good: the machines had taken over and there was no room for them.
THREE:"I don't want to shoot nobody," he communed with himself, "and it won't 'be necessary if the other fellow is only sensible and sees, that I've got the drop on him, which I will have before I say a word. Anyway, I want that grub for a work of necessity and mercy, which justifies many things, and as a loyal man I ought to keep it from goin' to rebels. If I've got to put a bullet into another feller, why, the Lord'll hold me guiltless and blame the other feller. I ain't no Free Will Baptist. I believe things 've bin foreordained. Wisht I knowed that it was foreordained that I was to git that grub back to Si and Shorty.""Attention, 200th Indiana," shouted Capt. McGillicuddy. "Dress on the colors. Fix bayonets."
THREE:"Fall in here, boys, I tell you," said Si so sternly that Pete Skidmore stopped in his handspring, but seeing the bigger boys making no move to obey, decided that it would be improper for him to show any signs of weakness, and he executed his flip-flap."He'll have plenty to say all the same," returned the Sergeant. "He's got one o' these self-acting mouths, with a perpetual-motion attachment. He don't do anything but talk, and mostly bad. Blame him, it's his fault that we're kept here, instead of being sent to the front, as we ought to be. Wish somebody'd shoot him."
