ONE:"Well, the cow was here. He brung her here last night, and owned up to it. He milked her, and you drunk some of the milk. The Provost-Guard's now walkin' the cow and him up to Headquarters. These are early mornin' facts. You kin believe what you dumbed please."THE bright, active minds of the 65 boys that Si and Shorty were put in charge of were aflame with curiosity regarding everything connected with the war. For two years they had been fed on stories and incidents of the mighty conflict then convulsing the land. Every breath they had drawn had some taste of battle in it. Wherever they went or were they heard incessantly of the storm-swept "front"of terrific battles, perilous adventures, heroic achievements, death, wounds and marvelous escapes. The older boys were all at the front, or going there, or coming back with heroic marks of shot and shell. The one burning aspiration in every well-constructed boy's heart was to get big enough to crowd past the recruiting officer, and go where he could see with his own eyes the thunderous drama. There was concentrated all that fills a healthy boy's imagination and stirs his bloodsomething greater than Indian-fighting, or hunting lions and tigers. They looked on Si and Shorty with little short of reverence. Here were two men who had captured a rebel flag in a hand-to-hand fight, both of whom had been left for dead, and both promoted for gallantry. What higher pinnacle of greatness could any boy hope to reach?
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.
Aenean commodo.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.
Aenean commodo.
THREE:
THREE:"All o' you are always imposin' on me 'cause I'm little," whimpered Pete. "And that stuck-up Alf Russell's the worst of all. Just because he's goin' to be a doctor, and leads in singin' at church, he thinks he knows more'n the man what writ the arithmetic, and he's down on me because I won't take all he says for law and gospel, in spite of his airs. Jim Humphreys is down on me, because I writ home that I'd shot a man back there at the burnt bridge, and Jim got skeered at a coon-huntin' nigger.""Certainly; I didn't think o' that before," echoed the father.
THREE:"Si," said Shorty, "didn't you say that it was a squad o' the Maumee Muskrats in the mill, and that we wuz goin' to relieve 'em.""I don't like the looks of that hill to the left," said Gid Mackall, nervously. "An awful lot o' them went behind it, and I didn't see any come out."
