"No more'n the dead leaves on the banks.""A citizen and a stranger," echoed the voice. "What are you doing in here, anyway? Orderly, bring that man in here till I see him.""Corporal, discipline must be enforced in the army, but don't you think you were a little too summary and condign with that man?"
ONE:"I appreciate that," said the General. "But it's not just to you or your men to make you do so much of this work. I'm expecting every minute notice of a regiment being sent to relieve yours, and therefore you will be ready to start as soon as it arrives. Good morning, sir."While they were at the station getting Sam Elkins to re-examine the dots and dashes on his strip of paper, the Eastern express arrived, bringing the morning papers. The Deacon bought one, and the girls nervously turned to the war news. They gave a scream of exultation when they read the revised returns of the killed and wounded, and found under head of "Wounded, in Hospital at Chattanooga":
TWO:
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ONE:Therefore he cut a young, thick-branched cedar and held it in front of him as he crouched and made his way to the gully and down it.
TWO:
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ONE:"Well?" The word was not unfriendly.
TWO:"Yes; they're awful foragers and thieves," assented Shorty. "All Ohio boys is. I'm glad I'm from Injianny. Still, I've generally bin able to find something, even after the Ohio boys had bin there."
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TWO:Si and Shorty gathered the boys together on the bank above the railroad cut, had fires built, posted a few guards, and ordered the rest of the boys to lie down and go to sleep. They set the example by unrolling their own blankets at the foot of a little jack-oat, whose thickly-growing branches, still bearing a full burden of rusty-brown leaves, made an excellent substitute for a tent.The boys huddled together, as if to gain courage by closer contact.
FORE:"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.""Of course, you can, you poor, dear woman," said Maria, her mood changing at once from fierceness to loving pity. "You shall be the first one to speak to Pap and Si after me. Why didn't you come over to see us long ago. We'd only bin too glad to see you, and do all we could for you. Yes, I know you.
FORE:"No more'n the dead leaves on the banks.""Now, le's form agin and march to breakfast. Great Scott, how hungry I am," said Si. "'Tention. Fall in 'cordin' to size. Single rank."
FORE:"About 25 mile away, I think," answered his father. "I disremember just how fur that last stop is from the Crick, but I think it's betwixt 25 and 30 mile."
FORE:"About as well as the monkey and the parrot did," answered Shorty, and he described the interview, ending with:
FORE:"Albin Cendar?"
FORE:"Shshsh!" whispered the other. "Don't speak so loud. You'll wake up that old galoot inside. Keep quiet till I fill my cup, and then I'll let you have a chance. There'll be plenty for you."
FORE:"We aint no drummer-boys," said a bright-faced five-footer, who overhead the question. "Nary drum for us. We haint got no ear for music. We're regular soldiers, we are, and don't you forget it.""I don't care if you kill me," whimpered little Pete, as they tied his hands together, "if you'll only let Corp'l Elliott off. He wasn't to blame. It was me.
FORE:The train made a long stop on a switch and manuvered around a while, taking on some cars found there, and Si and Shorty seeing nothing to do went forward to another car, where they found some returning veterans, and were soon absorbed in a game of seven-up. Shorty had just successfully turned a jack from the bottom, and was snickering to himself that his fingers had not lost their cunning by long idleness, when the game was interrupted by a train-hand rushing up with the information:
TWO:"Where may I learn the others?" But Gornom didn't answer, and Cadnan's breathing-space was over. He had to be back at the board, pushing buttons, watching carefully. Gornom stood behind him, peering over his shoulder with a cloudy eye. Neither said a word until the new spell of work was over. Then Cadnan repeated his question.
TWO:He found himself rising, dressing, shaving off the stubble of beard. His head hurt, his eyes ached, his mouth was hardly improved by a gargle, but all that was far away, as distant as his own body and his own motions.Shorty shoved the bill into his hand, and rushed down in front of Billings.
$ 0$ 600
TWO:
TWO:"Yet I do not know," Marvor said. "This training is a hard thing, and the work is also hard when it comes."
"Keep near me, Pete, and you won't git lost," said Shorty, as he stepped off into the brush."Corporal, discipline must be enforced in the army, but don't you think you were a little too summary and condign with that man?""I don't know," Dodd said. His hands went back into his lap, and his eyes closed. He spoke, now, like a man in a dream. "There used to be all kinds of jobs. I guess there still are, in the Confederation. On Earth. Back home where none of us have ever been." He repeated the words like an echo: "Back home." In the silence nothing interrupted him: behind his head light poured in from the giant window. "A man could choose his own job," he went on, in the same tone. "He could be a factory-worker or a professor or a truck-driver or a musician ora lot of jobs. A man didn't have to work at one, whether he wanted to or not.""I know," Norma said. "Greta, who was he, anyhow?"Johnny blinked and came back to her. "Oh, Albin?" he said. "We'reacquaintances.""Sergeant," said the Major to the Sergeant of the Provost Guard, "fetch that little rascal down and buck-an-gag him, until I can decide what further punishment he deserves for eavesdropping, and interrupting the court."