"Come here, Shorty, you dirty little rascal," said the Deacon, assuming a severely maternal tone, at which Si laughed feebly but cheerily, "and let me wash your face and comb your hair."
"A lot o' yellin', gallopin' riff-raff," said Shorty, with the usual contempt of an infantryman for cavalry. "Ain't worth the fodder their bosses eat."
ONE:Shorty had been strictly abstinent since his return from Indiana, The rigid views of the Klegg family as to liquor-drinking had sunk into his heart, and somehow whenever temptation came his way the clear, far-seeing eyes of Maria would intervene with such a reproachful glance that the thought of yielding became repugnant.
TWO:"And I tell you I need it more'n they do, for I'm workin' for the whole army, while they're layin' around, makin' out they're sick. You give me a cupful o' that and I'll go away and make no trouble.
TWO:"Little boys should eat what's set before 'em, and ask no questions," said the father, coloring. "It's bad manners to be pryin' around the kitchen to find out where the vittles come from."
TWO:THE Deacon was repaid seventyfold by Si's and Shorty's enjoyment of the stew he had prepared for them, and the extraordinary good it had seemed to do them as they lay wounded in the hospital at Chattanooga, to which place the Deacon had gone as soon as he learned that Si was hurt in the battle.The sleeping room for the Small Ones was, by comparison with the great Commons Room only the masters inhabited, a tiny place. It had only the smallest of windows, so placed as to allow daylight without any sight of the outside; the windows were plastic-sheeted slits high up on the metal walls, no more. The room was, at best, dim, during the day, but that hardly mattered: during the day the room was empty. Only at night, when the soft artificial lights went on, shedding the glow from their wall-shielded tubes, was the room fit for normal vision. There were no decorations, of course, and no chairs: the Alberts had no use for chairs, and decorations were a refinement no master had yet bothered to think of. The Alberts were hardly taught to appreciate such things in any case: that was not what they had come to learn: it was not useful.
"I'm sorry," Norma said again."Matters," the old woman said, "are a good deal more serious than that. Has anyone but me read the latest reports from the Confederation?"CHAPTER IV. THE DEACON'S PLAN