For the very first time in his whole life Shorty had run away from a crisis. With his genuine love of fighting, he rather welcomed any awkward situation in which men were concerned. It was a challenge to him, and he would carry himself through with a mixture of brass, bravado and downright hard fighting. But he would have much more willingly faced the concentrated fire of all the batteries in Bragg's army than Maria's eyes as she raised them from that letter; and as for the comments of her sharp tonguewell, far rather give him Longstreet's demons charging out of the woods onto Snodgrass Hill. He walked out into the barn, and leaned against the fanning-mill to think it all over. His ears burned with the imagination of what Maria was saying. He was very uncomfortable over what the rest of the family were thinking and saying, particularly the view that dear old Mrs. Klegg might take. With the Deacon and Si it was wholly different. He knew that, manlike, they averaged him up, one day with another, and gave him the proper balance to his credit. But Mariathere everything turned to gall, and he hated the very name of Bad Ax, the whole State of Wisconsin and everybody in it. He would never dare go back into the house and face the family. What could he do? There was only one thingget back to his own home, the army, as soon as possible.
"If it was only one, or even two days, I'd let the boys starve it out, as a good lesson to 'em," said Shorty. "But three seems like cruelty to dumb beasts."
The boys' hearts sickened with the thought that the whole army was in utter rout. For a minute or two they surveyed the appalling sight in speech less despair. Then a gleam of hope shot into Si's mind.Si caught the man roughly by the shoulder with his left hand, and raised his right threateningly. It still had the bottle in it. "You're not goin' a step, except with us," he said. "Go back there, and 'tend to your business as I told you, or I'll break you in two.""The punch," she announced, "is authentic. It is totally authentic. One glass and you forget everything. Two, and you remember. ThreeI don't know what happens with the third glass yet. But I'm going to find out.""Great Jehosephat! Maria!" said Shorty to himself. But he dared not take his eyes a moment from the squad to look toward her."Gracious, I never supposed they'd pull off a fight at night, when everybody was tired to death and soaked to a gruel," said Alf Russell in a shivery whisper.
