The boys flung their things off with something like desperation in their looks."Hooray for the old battery! Bully boys! Made o' right stuff," shouted Shorty enthusiastically. "Never ketch me saying nothin' agin' the artillery agin. Men who act like that when they're standin' right in the middle o' hell with the lid off are 18karat fine.""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."
ONE:"Why didn't you shoot him, if you're such a deadshot?" asked Gid Mackall.
TWO:"'Tention! Stack arms; Place rest!" commanded the Orderly."I'll just ask the Captain a few questions for the defense," said Lieut. Bowersox. "How did you know that the prisoner was drunk?"
THREE: do write the best letters of any woman in the whole world."There was a whistle, followed by a rush of men from a line further out, and every man of those around Shorty was either knocked down or rudely punched with a musket-barrel in the hands of Lieut. Bigelow's squad.
TWO:"Of course, you can, you poor, dear woman," said Maria, her mood changing at once from fierceness to loving pity. "You shall be the first one to speak to Pap and Si after me. Why didn't you come over to see us long ago. We'd only bin too glad to see you, and do all we could for you. Yes, I know you.And he raised his foot threateningly.
The father had sought distraction in active work, and was in the cornfield, long corn-knife in hand, shocking up the tall stalks with a desperate energy to bring forgetfulness."All right," assented the Lieutenant quite willingly. "Form the men just back of the edge of the woods. Keep them out of sight, and caution them not to shoot till they get the order. We must wait till we get the rebels just right."Somehow everybody instinctively stopped cheering, and an awed hush followed.While they were at the station getting Sam Elkins to re-examine the dots and dashes on his strip of paper, the Eastern express arrived, bringing the morning papers. The Deacon bought one, and the girls nervously turned to the war news. They gave a scream of exultation when they read the revised returns of the killed and wounded, and found under head of "Wounded, in Hospital at Chattanooga":
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THREE:"If Gen. Grant put on as much style in proportion to what he done as McClellan, you could see him as far as the moon," ventured Shorty.
THREE:"I can't keep up. I can't keep up at all," whimpered little Pete Skidmore. "You are just dead certain to lose me.""Yes, Hi've got enough," answered the English man. "I'm too groggy to go on. Hi've been drink-in' a bit too much to 'andle myself wi' a first-class man like yerself. Y've downed me, and y've downed me fair, for Hi'm not the man to whimper about not being fit. There's my hand. We're friends. We'll try hit again some day, when Hi've got the likker out o' me; won't we?"
