"That's right. They're a'most to the crick now," assented Gid. "I'm going to shoot."
ONE:"No," he said, in response to the innumerable suggestions made by the mother and daughters. "You kin jest set all them things back. I've bin down there once, and learned something. I'm goin' to take nothin with me but my Bible, a couple o' clean shirts, and my razor. A wise man learns by experience.""I shouldn't wonder but he's tellin' the truth," Shorty whispered to Si. "Le's take him back there and see."
ONE:"I don't hardly know," hesitated Harry. "It seems awful strange just to blaze away at men and then pay no more attention to 'em. They mayn't be knocked out at allonly 'possumin'."
TWO:Shorty had been in hopes that Si would dally for a day or so in these pleasant pastures, but then he reflected that where Annabel was was likely to be much more attractive to Si than where she was not.
TWO:Shorty was undone and helped to his feet, when he respectfully saluted. His weakness was so apparent that the General ordered him to sit down, and then asked him questions which brought out his story. "You were promoted Corporal, if I recollect," said he, "for gallantry in capturing one of the rebel flags taken by my brigade."
THREE:"Reglar clay-knob whiteoak," whispered Shorty; "couldn't split it with a maul and wedge. Don't mind that a mite, since we got that flag. But how's my pardner over there?"Onward they rushed full into the smoke that drifted backward down the hill. As they gained the crest the air became clearer, and they saw the sadly-shrunken remnant of their regiment strung in an irregular line along the forward edge. Some were binding up wounds more or less severe, some were searching the boxes of the dead and wounded for cartridges, some were leaning on their hot guns, looking curiously into the woods at the foot of the slope into which the rebels had fled.
THREE:"But I thought," persisted Harry, "that when a man's killed something had to be donecoroner's inquest, corpse got ready, funeral, preacher, neighbors gather in, and so on."
