FORE:
FORE:The sun had gone down and the night was at hand. The train had stopped to take on a supply of wood from a pile by the roadside. Some of the boys were helping pitch the heavy sticks onto the engine, the rest ware skylarking along the tops of the cars in the irrepressible exuberance of animal spirits of boys who had had plenty to eat and were without a care in the world. Harry Joslyn had been giving exhibitions of standing on his head on the runningboard. Gid Mackall had converted a piece of rope he had picked up into a lasso, and was trying to imitate the feats he had seen performed at the last circus. Monty Scruggs, the incipient lawyer, who was proud of his elocutionary talents, had vociferated at the woods they were passing, "Rienzi's Address to the Romans," "The Last Sigh of the Moor," "Absalom," "The Battle of Waterloo," and similar staples of Friday afternoon recitations. Alf Russell, the embryonic doctor, who sang a fine tenor, was rendering "Lily Dale" with much impressment, and little Pete Skidmore was "skipping" the flat hill-stones over an adjacent pond.
FORE:The rebels on the crest, 100 feet above, had been trying to assist their comrades below, by firing with their muskets, and occasionally sending a shell, where they could get their howitzers sufficiently depressed. Now they had bethought themselves to roll rocks and heavy stones off the crest, which fell with a crash on the treetops below.
THREE:"I s'pose that's all right and satisfactory," said Shorty, saluting. "It's got to be, anyway. In the army a man with a star on his shoulder's got the last say, and kin move the previous question whenever he wants to. I never had no hankerin' for a job around Headquarters, and now that I'm a Korpril I ought to be with my company. But they need you worse'n they do me, and I've noticed that you was always as near the front as anybody, so I don't think I'll lose no chances by stayin' with you."
THREE:"Mother'd done much better, at home in her own kitchen, or anywhere you could've put her, than me with my clumsy ways," he continued, "but she never cooked anything that'll taste better to them boys.""What's your name? Where are you from? What are you doing down here? What do you want?" inquired the Provost, scanning him critically.
