"Well, we've got to go right off. We must ketch that accommodation and git back to Bean Blossom Crick. I want to say good-by to the folks, and then strike out for Jeffersonville. I've reported that I'm able for dooty agin, and there's orders at home for me and Shorty to go to Jeffersonville and git a gang o' recruits that's bin gethered there, and bring 'em to the rijimint."
"But you've got no business to interfere with me," protested Si. "I've got my orders to take this squad o' recruits to my regiment, and I'm doin' it. I'm goin' to put 'em on the cars as soon's I kin git breakfast for 'em, and start for Chattanoogy."Dere Miss Maria Klegg:"Knowin' you was so anxious to see 'em, they've come up the road to meet you," interjected Shorty.
ONE: "Thankee for yore kind inkwiries az to mi helth? Ime glad to
TWO:"Well, I for one am goin' through, and I'm goin' to take Pete and Sandy with me," said Shorty, in a loud, confident tone, to brace up the others. "I've always gone through every one o' them things I've struck yit, and this ain't no worse'n the others. But we ought to jump 'em at once, while they're shiverin' over the shelling' we give 'em. They must be shakin' up there yit like a dog on a January mornin'. Why don't we start, I wonder?"
THREE:"Slavery," Dodd said. "Oh, sure, maybe somebody knows about it, but it's got to be kept quiet. And if anybody got backwell, look."She was rent by the first spasm of womanly jealousy that any other woman should come between her brother and his mother and sisters.
FORE:Of the pandemonium that reigned inside the rebel works for the next few minutes Si only recollected seeing the Orderly-Sergeant, bareheaded, and with bayonet fixed, leap down from the bank and transfix a man who tried to snatch the flag from the Colonel's hand. Si arrived just in time to shoot the rebel officer who was striking at the Orderly with his sword, while Shorty came up, knocking down a winrow of men with his gun swung by the butt as a club, to rescue Si from three rebels who were trying to bayonet him.
WILD SHOOTING WAS ALL THAT SAVED A SURPRISED COLORED MAN."Mackall and Joslyn," called Shorty from the car, "come here and take this box of catridges.""Old Billings, who used to be Lieutenant-Colonel, is Provost-Marshal. He's Lieutenant-Colonel of our regiment. He'll be likely to give you a great song and dance, especially if he finds out that you belonged to the old regiment. But don't let it sink too deep on you. I'll stand by you, if there's anything I can do."But Cadnan, he knew, was only a small name: it was not a great name. He knew now that he had a great name, and it made him proud because he was no longer only small Cadnan: he was a slave.As he handed her the letters and picture he was dismayed to notice that the piece of Maria's dress was mixed in with them. He snatched it away, shoved it back in his pocket, pulled his hat down over his eyes, and, with a melodramatic air, rushed forward into the smoking-car, where he seated himself and at once fell asleep.