<000005>"I s'pose I've got to obey orders, and buck-and-gag you," said the Sergeant ruefully, as they were alone together in the room. "It goes against my grain, like the toothache. I'd rather you'd buck-and-gag me. But you are to blame for it yourself. You ought to have more sense than lay it into a Lieutenant-Colonel and Provost-Marshal that way. But you did give it to him fine, the old blow-hard and whisky-sucker. He's no more fit for shoulderstraps than a hog is for a paper-collar. Haven't heard anything for a long time that tickled me so, even while I was mad enough to pound you for having no more sense. I've bin aching to talk that way to him myself."
They slowly made their way back toward the mill. As they came on the crest of the last rise, they saw Shorty and the rest eagerly watching for them. Shorty and the others ran forward and helped them bring the men in. Shorty was particularly helpful to the man he had shot. He almost carried him in to the mill, handling him as tenderly as if a child, fixed a comfortable place for him on the floor with his own blankets, and took the last grains of his coffee to make him a cup. This done, he said:
ONE:"What's excitin' Shorty so, to make him yell that way? wondered Si, stopping in his shoveling down the embankment upon the rebel dead, and wiping his hot face."Here he is!" someone shouted. "I told you he'd be here ... I told you...." Dodd turned but the words weren't meant for him. Down the corridor a knot of men and women was surrounding a new arrival from somewhere else, laughing and talking. As he stepped forward, his eyes still on that celebration, a pathway opened up for him; he was in sober black and he went through the corridor like a pencil-mark down paper, leaving an open trail as he passed.
"You shall have 'em. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll send you a catridge and cap for every word you write about Maria."It was a warm, bright March day, with the North Georgia mountains rapidly robing themselves in fresh green, to welcome the coming Spring. The effervescent boys had entirely forgotten the worries of the previous night, and were frolicking in the bright sunshine as if "out-at-recess" from school.
路见不平Eason吼
