Chapter 17"Sich ignorance," groaned Si. "Can't they read? Don't they git the papers?"
ONE:He was interrupted by a volley, apparently from every gun on the roofs of the cars. Then a chorus of shrill, treble, boyish yells, and next instant another volley. The two sprang to the door and looked out. Not a sign of a rebel anywhere. Si went up one side of the car, Shorty the other. They ran along the tops of the cars, storming at the boys, kicking them and bumping their heads against the boards to make them stop. When they succeeded Si sternly ordered every one of them to leave the roofs and come down into the cars. When he had gathered them there he demanded:
TWO:"That's because you ain't up to the latest kinks," said Shorty, hopefully. "I've been back to the rearjust come from Jeffersonvilleand I've got on to a lot of new dodges. I'll show 'em all to you for one o' them guns."
TWO:It was very near train time, and the Deacon was desperately anxious to not miss the train. He had already wasted more words on this man than he usually did on those he didn't like, and he simply ended the colloquy with a shove that sent the impertinent stranger into the gutter as if a mule had kicked him there, hurried on to the depot, and managed to get on just as the train was moving out.
TWO:The last of them filed in, and the masterstwo of them, carrying long metal tubesshut the door. The Alberts were alone. The door's clang was followed by other sounds as the lock was thrown. The new noises, and the strangeness of bare metal walls and artificial light, still novel after only a single day's training, gave rise to something very like a panic, and a confused babble of voices arose from the crowd."Do? Do as you please," laughed the Captain. "You are as well off here as anywhere. When a man's away from home one place's the same's another to him. Here, I'll tell you what you can do. See that cow back there? The boys have been trailing her along, in hopes to get her into Chattanooga and make beef of her. We've got to leave her now, for we are going on the jump. We'll make you a present of her and this broken-down horse. That'll start you in business. A horse and a cow's a big start for any man. Good-by. Attention, company! Forward, head of column rightMarch!"
"Certainly," said the Surgeon, stopping on his way. "I guess I can spare a minute. Take off that bandage, my boy.""Jerusalem crickets," he exclaimed, wiping his mouth, "but that's good stuff. Wonder if bein' in cedar makes it taste so bang-up? If I though so I'd never drink out o' anything but cedar as long's I lived. Guess I'll keep this canteen to carry water in. I kin send Maria"These servants, friends, they liked being servants. I know that's hard to believe because everybody's been telling you different all your lives, but you just do a little independent thinking, the way I have, and you'll see. It was a good job, being a servant. It was steady and dependable and you knew where you stood."Hooray! Hooray! They're gittin' some o' their own medicine now," yelled the excited regiment. "Sock it to 'em. How do you like that, you ill-begotten imps of rebels?"
荣誉榜
THREE:The regiment moved off at the head of the brigade, and after a march of a mile or so came out upon a hill from which they could see one of our batteries having an unequal fight with several of the rebel batteries in a fort far to its front. Our cannoneers were standing up bravely to their work, but the rebel shells were bursting about them in a wild storm of crashing, deafening explosions, and hurtling, shrieking masses of iron. The sharp crack of their own rifles was at times drowned by the ear-splitting din of the bursting shells."Mebbe," Shorty answered. "Kentucky's full of 'em. Mebbe they're peaceable citizens, though."
THREE:"Now, wait a minute," Dodd said. Norma had been brain-washed into some silly set of slogans: it was his job to break them down. "The clan can elect leaders"
