"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."
But regret is part of a subjunctive vocabulary. At least one writer has noted that the subjunctive is the mark of civilization. This may be true: it seems true: in Cadnan's case, at any rate, it certainly was true. Uncivilized, he spent little time in subjunctive moods. All that he had done, all that Marvor had done, was open to him, and he remembered it oftenbut, once the bad first minutes were past, he remembered everything with less and less regret. The mixture, as it stood, was heady enough for Cadnan's untrained emotions.
FORE:"Why, I never writ so much in all my life," protested the boy. "It'd take me a year."It meant nothing. Dodd no longer knew he had a name: he was only an extension of his beam, firing with hypnotized savagery into the limitless dark.
ONE:"Hello, there; where are you goin', you chuckle-headed clodhoppers?" yelled the men on another train rushing down from a different direction. "This ain't no hayfield. Go back home and drive cows, and git out o' the way o' men who're at work."
TWO:"I hain't never lost no children yit, and I hain't goin' to begin with you."
FROM: Fredk. Ramsbotham"No. We only moved in here this afternoon, and did not know how long we were going to stay. I was ordered to stay here till further orders, to protect the road beyond."The man stopped, raised his hands, and looked at Shorty with his mouth wide open."Well, you can't all be in Co. Q. Only six and one-half of you. The rest's got to go to other companies."