Nor did Si like the job. "The artillery made the muss, and now the infantry's got to stay and clean up after it. That don't seem right."Cadnan thought, suddenly, of Dara. He had not spoken to her again, but he was able to think of her. When the time of mating came, it was possible that she would be his mate....WHAT days those were that followed the arrival of the boys home. In Shorty's hard, rough life he had never so much as dreamed of such immaculate housekeeping as Mrs. Klegg's. He had hardly been in speaking distance of such women as Si's mother and sisters. To see these bright, blithe, sweet-speeched women moving about the well-ordered house in busy performance of their duties was a boundless revelation to him. It opened up a world of which he had as little conception as of a fairy realm. For the first time he began to understand things that Si had told him of his home, yet it meant a hundredfold more to him than to Si, for Si had been brought up in that home. Shorty began to regard the Deacon and Si as superior beings, and to stand in such awe of Mrs. Klegg and the girls that he became as tongue-tied as a bashful school-boy in their presence. It amazed him to hear Si, when the girls would teaze him, speak to them as sharply as brothers sometimes will, and just as if they were ordinary mortals.
ONE:"Come, my boy," Si said kindly. "Don't cry. You're a soldier now, and soldiers don't cry. Stop it."The young Aids turned around and glanced angrily at Monty and the laughing crowd.
TWO:All were eager to do something toward the comfort of their departing comrades. They scanned the arrangement of the boughs in the wagon with critical eyes, and picked them over and rearranged them, so as to avoid every chance of uncomfortable knots and lumps. They contributed blankets from their own scanty supply, to make sure that there would be plenty, and so many were eager to help carry Si out and put him in the wagon, that the Orderly-Sergeant of Co. Q had to take charge of the matter and make a detail. The teamster was given strong admonitions as to careful driving, and fearful warning as to what would happen to him in case of an accident.
TWO:Cadnan accepted this without words, and Puna told him the legend. During the entire tale, Cadnan, stock-still, didn't even think of interrupting. At first his attention wandered to the leaves, but as Puna's voice went on he listened more and more closely, and even his fright began to leave him under the legend's fascination.Albin stood in the doorway of his room, slouching against the metal lintel and looking even more like a gnome. Dodd sighed softly and got up from the single chair. "I'm not anxious for a party," he said. "All I want to do is go to sleep."
TWO:"Aisy, now, aisy," said Jim. "We're to blame for that, so we are. Ye say, we wint over by Rossville last night and had a bit av a shindy and cleaned out a sutler's shop. We brought away some av the most illegant whisky that iver wet a man's lips, and hid it down there in the gulch, where we had jist come back for it. We sane you comin' and thought yez was the provo-guard after us. Ye say ye stopped there and talked to that peacock at the Provo-Marshal's quarters, and we thought yez was gittin' instructions. We sint these rookies out, who we thought nobody'd know, to give you a little fairy story about the rijimint being gone, to throw you off the scint, until we could finish the liquor."One by one, and very slowly, other nerves awoke. He became conscious that there was a sharp stone or knot under his head, which hurt, and he tried to move it, but queerly his head would not move, and then he found that neither would his hands. This was faintly puzzling, as things are in dreams. Then his throat became on fire with thirst, and somehow there came a dream of the deliciously cool well on the farm at home, the bucket covered with green moss swinging over it, the splash of cool water when it was lowered, the trough by the side, where they used to pour water for the fowls to drink, the muddy spot around, where water plants grew on the splashings and drippings. Then were visions of the eternal, parching thirst of the damned, which he had often heard preachers describe, and he was conscious of a faint curiosity as to whether he had died and waked up in the home of the lost.
TWO:A crowd of teamsters, sutlers' men and other camp followers gathered around. A tall, sandybearded man with keen, gray eyes and a rugged, stony face rode up. He wore a shabby slouch hat, his coat was old and weather-stained, but he rode a spirited horse."I plan," Dr. Haenlingen said, "nothing whatever. Not just at present. I want to think about what I saw, about the people I saw. At present, nothing more."
"Shut up!" roared Shorty. "If you wasn't Orderly-Sergeant I'd punch your head. I won't have nobody sayin' that about little Pete. He's the best boy that ever lived. If I could only git hold of him I'd shake the plaguey life out o' him. Drat him!"After awakening him, Shorty had calmed down the excited little Pete, found his shoes and other clothes for him, and seen that he put them on properly.
荣誉榜
THREE:And while the men were washing and mending their clothes, it was decided to put the discipline of the brigade, which had suffered similarly by the rough campaign, through a somewhat like process of furnishing and renovation.
THREE:
