<000005>It was an appalling scene that the eyes of the boys rested upon. Every horrid form of mutilation and death which could be inflicted by the jagged shards and fiendish shells, or the even more demon-like shrapnel-balls, was visible.
"Confound it," said Si' wrathfully, as he looked into one after another. "Didn't none o' you have sense enough to fasten down the covers carefully, so's to keep the water out? Here it issalt and sugar and coffee, bread and greasy pork all in one nasty mess. I declare, you don't seem to have the sense you wuz born with. You've bin breakin' yourselves down luggin' around 10 or 15 pounds o' water, besides spilin' your rations."
ONE:as the hymn says. Here, take these chickens in one hand and this pistol in the other, and guard 'em while I go down to the branch and wash and git some water. Then I'll cook your breakfast."
TWO:"None in the world," answered the Deacon, surprised at the unexpected turn of events. "I'll be only too glad. I was gittin' very scared about my pass.""I tell you I'm not goin' back to the regiment under guard," said Shorty resolutely. "I've no business to go back at all, now. My furlough ain't up for two weeks more. I'm goin' back now of my own free will, and in my own way. Go along with your old guard, and pick up them deadbeats and sneaks, that don't want to go back at all. You'll have plenty o' work with them, without pesterin' me."
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ONE:"Tie straw around their left feet, and hay around their right ones, so's they'll know 'em."
TWO:"What do you mean by a right smart parcel?""Open out, there, for us."
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ONE:The poor man looked as miserable as if put in a strait-jacket, but tried to literally obey instructions."That's because we've taken 'em and have our own men there," replied Gid Mackall. "It'll all be different when we git ashore and further into the State."
TWO:Then the velvet silence came down again, but the words rang through it faintly until Gornom broke the spell with speech.The groups about each gun thinned out, as the shrieking fragments of shell mowed down man after man, but the rapidity of the fire did not slacken in the least. One of the Lieutenants turned and motioned with his saber to the riders seated on their horses in the line of limbers under the cover of the slope. One rider sprang from each team and ran up to take the place of men who had fallen.
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FORE:"Well, in the first place, they got that Joslyn and Mackall to mark a big number 79 on their tents, and then put the same, with their names, on a sheet of paper, and take it up to the Captain's tent.
FORE:The Deacon took out his long calf-skin wallet from his breast, put the precious pass in it, carefully strapped it up again and replaced it, and walked out of the office toward the depot.
FORE:The wheels of the Sheriff's buggy rattled over the graveled road, and a minute later there was a knock at the outside door. Si opened it and saw there a young man with a smoothly-shaven face, a shock of rumpled hair and wearing a silk hat, a black frockcoat and seedy vest and pantaloons. Si at once recognized him as a lawyer of the place."Thankee, sir," said the Deacon. "But I must go back and 'tend to my boys. We've got a long ways to go yet to-day."
FORE:"Give me something as near as possible the color of that."
FORE:After a long time Albin said. "Damn it, what you need is education. A cure. Fun. What I've been saying." He paused and took a breath. "How about it, Dodd?"
FORE:"Great outfit," remarked Shorty, walking down the line, gun in hand, and surveying it critically. "Looks like a mourners' bench froze stiff. Here, you red-headed man there, take in that corporation. You won't have so much bay window after you've lived on army rations awhile.""I promise you that we shall both go as soon as there's any prospect of something worth going for," said the General, smiling. "Report there to Wilson. He will instruct you as to your duties."
FORE:
FORE:The Deacon looked pityingly at him. His wan face was fair and delicate as a girl's, and even be fore disease had wasted him he had been very tall and slender. Now his uniform flapped around his shrunken body and limbs.
TWO:It was at that moment that the alarm-bell rang. It was heard only faintly in Building One, but that didn't matter. Dodd knew the direction, and the sound. He turned to go, for a second no more than a machine.
"No," answered Si, as the cheers of a newly-arrived regiment rang out, "the back townships are still comin' in.""The rest o' you chase yourselves around him," said a humorist among the cooks, while the others laughed uproariously."Now, give us your speech. But no politics," the rebels shouted."Seems so," answered Shorty, "but I don't know that they've growed any faster'n we have. Walt Slusser, who's bin Orderly at Headquarters, says that he heard Capt. McGillicuddy tell Col. McBiddle that he'd never seen men come out as me and you had, and he thought we'd make very effective noncommish."In every camp the cheering men were making bonfires of the furnishings of their Winter camps. Chairs, benches, tables, checker-boards, cupboards, what-nots, etc., which had cost them considerable pains to procure, and upon which they had lavished no little mechanical skill, and sometimes artistic ornamentation, were ruthlessly thrown to feed the joyful fires which blazed in each camp which had been lucky enough to receive orders. The bands were playing, to emphasize and give utterance to the rejoicings of the men.