In the contact between any barbarian people and any civilized people, some species of slavery is necessary. The barbarian does not know that he is a barbarian, and the only way to convey to him the fact that he stands at the bottom of a long laddera ladder so long that we have by no means reached its end, and have perhaps not yet seen its midpointis to force him to make contact with elements of civilization, and to utilize continuous force to keep this contact alive and viable.
"What's that?" said the Deacon, rousing to interest, but carefully putting his thumb down to mark the place where he left off. him."I was hurt bad enough, the Lord knows," answered the boy with a wan smile. "I hain't been hurt so bad since I stubbed by sore toe last Summer. But I'm getting over it pretty fast. Just as I started up the bank a rebel threw a stone as big as my fist at me, and it took me square where I live. I thought at first that whole battery over there in the fort had shot at me all at once. Goodness, but it hurt! My, but that fellow could throw a stone! Seemed to me that it went clear into me, and bent my back-bone. I've been feeling to see if it wasn't bent. But we got the works all right, didn't we?"
FORE:Jim Humphreys waked up stolidly, and without a word began preparing to fall in. Alf Russell's and Monty Scruggs's faces turned ashy after they had fairly awakened, and they picked up their guns with nerveless fingers.Billings's face clouded.
ONE:"Nope," answered Pete. "But we both got awfully scratched runnin' through that brush. Say, wasn't the way the boys jumped the works and waded into them sardines just grand?"
TWO:"Yes," echoed Shorty, speaking for the first time since he had come into the house; "I feel as if I'd like to begin all over agin."
THREE:THE YOUNGSTERS KEEP THEM BUSY WHILE THE TRAIN MOVES SOUTH.
FORE:"We ain't goin' to hurt you," said Shorty. "Sit down there by the fire and git the goose-flesh offen you." Then turning to the boys he remarked sarcastically:
"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.""The drapes give you away," Albin said."But even if he does send them at once, they can't git here till evenin', and I hate powerfully to let him and the rest know that we didn't have sense enough to take care o' our victuals after we'd drawed 'em," said Si."It's a hog all the same," Shorty assured them. "A genuine razor-back hog. But he's got the secession devil in him like the people, and you want to be careful of him. He ain't fit to eat or I'd kill him. Let's git back to the mill.""No," they said, "there is no 200th Ind. here now. It was here yesterday, and was camped right over there, where you see that old camp, but before noon came an order to march with three days' rations and 40 rounds. It went out the Lafayette Road, and the boys seemed to think they wuz goin' out to Pigeon Mountain to begin the general advance o' the army, and wuz mightily tickled over it."