THREE:While Sammy was gone for the things Shorty laboriously wrote out a note to Si upon a sheet of brown paper. It read:"I'll put up a bill agin one o' the guns, play you two out o' three for it, learn you the tricks, and give you back the money if I win," said Shorty desperately.
THREE:
THREE:"Why, the smallpox, you dumby," said the Surgeon irritably. "Don't you know that we are terribly afraid of a visitation of smallpox to the army? They've been having it very bad in some places up North, and we've been watching every squad of recruits from up there like hawks. A man came down to Hospital Headquarters just now and reported that a dozen of your boys had dropped right on the platform. He said that he knew you, and you came from a place in Indiana that's being swept by the smallpox." the Gunn I waz going 2 git, & I didn't git none.
THREE:"Naah, they'll never come no closter," said Shorty, contemptuously. "They couldn't hit even the side o' the mountain if it wasn't in their way and no place else for the ball to go."
THREE:"Here, Maria," called out Si, as he resumed his place at the table with Shorty, while the girls grouped together and whispered anxiously, "bring us in some more o' them slapjacks. We may have to be up all night, and want somethin' that'll stay by us.""I'll bet there wasn't much sleepin' around here while that shell'n' was goin' on," broke in Shorty again. "Except the sleep that has the sod for a coverlet and Gabriel's trumpet for a breakfast bell."