"That's him," piped out Pete Skidmore's voice from the engine, with a very noticeable blubber of joy. "He's the same durned old-fool that I kept tellin' all the time he'd lose me if he wasn't careful, and he went and done it all the same."
ONE:Now, maybe here among us today, among you kind people listening to what I've got to say to you, maybe there are one or two who've been out of work during their lifetimes. Am I right? Well, friends, you tell the others here what it felt like.
TWO:Si and Shorty had only partially undressed when they lay down. Their shoes, hats and blouses were with their haversacks under their heads. Instinctively, as their eyes opened, they reached for them and put them on.
The llth of May, 1864, saw all the clouds of battle which had been whirling for days in such apparently diverse directions, gathering about the deep gorge in Rocky Face Ridge through which the railroad passed. "Buzzard Roost," as this was named, was the impregnable citadel behind which the rebel army had taken refuge after its rout at Mission Ridge the previous November, and the rebel engineers had since exhausted every effort to make it still more unassailable. The lofty mountain rose precipitously for hundreds of feet on either side the narrow gorge, and the last hundred feet was a sheer wall of perpendicular rock. The creek which ran through the gorge had been dammed, so that its waters formed a broad, deep moat before the mouth of the gorge. The top of the ridge swarmed with men, and to the rear of the gorge guns were massed in emplacements to sweep every foot of the passage."Say, my friend," said the stranger abruptly, "you got a pass. I couldn't. That old rascal of a Provost-Marshal's down on me because I wouldn't let him into a speculation with me. He's on the make every time, and wants to hog everything. Say, you're a sly one. You worked him fine on that wounded son racket. I think I'd like to tie to you. I'll make it worth your while to turn over that pass to me. It'll fit me just as well as it does you. I'll give you $50 to let me use that pass just two days, and then I'll return it to you.""I'll Major you when I git my boots on and git out there. Don't think to shut my eye up callin' me big titles."Similarly, the Sergeants stood behind their sections, except that one after another they stepped forward to the guns to take the places of men who had fallen and could not be replaced. At the guns the men were working with the swiftness of light flashes, and the unerring certainty of machines. To the watchers at the base of the slope they seemed to weave back and forth like some gigantic, demoniac loom, as they sprang at their guns, loaded them, "broke away" as they fired, leaped back again, caught the gun in its recoil, hurled it forward, again reloaded, "broke away" and fired, all quicker than thought. A shell took off a sponger's head, but the sponge-staff was caught by another before it fell, and the gun fired again without a pause. A shrapnel swept away every man about one gun. The Lieutenant looked inquiringly at the Sergeant, and in an instant another squad seemed to spring up from the ground to continue the firing without missing a note in the battery's rhythm.
$120
$340
$250
$378
$428
