THREE:The wearied boys had nearly all fallen asleep on their blankets. Even the noisy artillery duel had not kept Jim Humphreys awake, and Monty Scruggs and Alf Russell followed his example soon after the firing ceased. Then Harry Joslyn and Gid Mackall, spreading their blankets apart for the first time since they had been in the service, sought rest from their fatigue and forgetfulness of their mutual anger. Si and Shorty kept sternly apart. Shorty occupied himself in fixing the blankets comfortably for a nest for little Pete Skidmore, while Si, brooding over the way that Shorty "had flared up about nothin' at all," and the Orderly-Sergeant's and Capt. McGillicuddy's unjust heat to him, had kept his eyes fixed on the skyline beyond, and had listened to the conversation of the rebel officers. It occurred to him that by watching the two rebels come down he might get an idea of a passage through the abatis, which would be useful in the morning. He strained his eyes to catch sight of their movements."Don't know but I'd ruther go to the front and dig rifle-pits than to wear paper collars and white gloves every day in the week," soliloquized Shorty, as he walked out on the street. "Don't mind 'em on Sunday, when you kin take 'em off agin when the company's dismissed from parade; but to put 'em on in the mornin' when you git up, and wear 'em till you go to bed at nightO, Jehosephat! Don't think I've got the constitution to stand that sort o' thing. But it's orders, and I'll do it, even if it gives me softenin' o' the brain. Here, you(beckoning to a bootblack), put a 250-pounder Monitor coat o' polish on them Tennessee River gunboats. Fall in promptly, now."
We like seeing designers experimenting with the gradations between two extremes. Take wristwatches, for instance.