"Well, then," the old woman asked, "has anyone except myself understood them?" The head turned, the eyes raked the table. "Dr. Willis hasn't, or he wouldn't be sounding so hopeful. The rest of you haven't, or you wouldn't be talking about time. Rogier, you haven't, or you'd quit trying to pry and begin trying to prepare."Her glance swept once more round the table, and she sat down. There was a second of silence before Dward, of Research, spoke up. Behind glassy contact lenses his eyes were, as always, unreadable. "Perhaps Dr. Haenlingen has a point," he said. "I know I'd hate to have to lay out my work for the meeting before I had it prepared. I'm sure we can allow a reasonable time for preparation"So, naturally, he was getting ready to go to the Social. Albin would be there, undoubtedly, some of the older men would be thereand a scattering of women would be there, too. (He remembered himself thinking, long ago before such a party: Tonight might be the night.) He shaved very carefully, faithful to memory, dressed in the best he could find in his closet, and went out, heading for the elevator.
ONE:MRS. B.: You mean collecting money? To send them?The chill air of the evening began to revive Si and Shorty. Si's brain responded long before any of his muscles. At first it seemed the vaguest and most shadowy of dreams. There was a dim consciousness of lying somewhere. Where it was, how he came there, what was going on around he had not the slightest idea nor desire to know. There was just the feeling of being there, without any sensation of comfort or discomfort, wish or longing.
TWO:With this philosophical observation the Jew resumed his pleasant work of marking up his prices to better accord with his enlarged views as to the profits he could get off the soldiers."You're from Posey County, Ind., I believe? I used to live there myself. Know Judge Drake?"
THREE:"Makes me feel like a new man, Pap," he said faintly. "Feels better than anything I ever knowed. Do the same to Shorty, Pap.""That's what I come purty nigh doin'," chuckled the Deacon. "But what in the world 'm I goin' to do with that hoss and buckboard? I must hunt around and find that poor beast some corn for tonight. He's bin driven purty sharp, and he needs his supper jest as bad as I did mine, and I won't feel right unless he has it. Then I must try to git him back to his owner termorrer."
FORE:"O, that bog-trottin' old section boss, that hairy-handed artist with the long shovel, is there, is he with his crucifix and his prayers to the Saints. That's all right. He's bin stormin' and swearin' ever since the fight begun; because he's bin obliged to stay inside and shoot, and instid of making a grand rush and settling things, according to Donnybrook Fair rules. I tell you what you do. You work the boys carefully down through the brush toward the race, and git 'em into position in easy range of the rebels, covering 'em behind logs. I'll take a circuit around to the left, and git over to the hill, behind the rebels, and near enough the mill for Hennessey to hear me. Then I'll fire a shot and yell for Hennessey. He knows my voice, and he'll bring his men out like a pack o' hornets. Then you let into the rebels from your side. They can't git across the race at you, and we'll have 'em where we kin whipsaw 'em."MRS. G.: We discussed it all. And we've been writing letters.
Then the velvet silence came down again, but the words rang through it faintly until Gornom broke the spell with speech."I want you to all act like soldiers, now," continued Si, "and be a credit to the company and the rijiment. We're goin' to be all by ourselves, and everybody's eyes 'll be on us."The Surgeon had the boys carried over to the corncrib, and the Deacon went to work to make it as snug as possible. All the old training of his pioneer days when literally with his own hands, and with the rudest materials, he had built a comfortable cabin in the wilderness of the Wabash bottoms for his young wife came back to him. He could not see a brick, a piece of board, a stick, or a bit of iron anywhere without the thought that it might be made useful, and carrying it off. As there were about 40,000 other men around the little village of Chattanooga with similar inclinations, the Deacon had need of all his shrewdness in securing coveted materials, but it was rare that anybody got ahead of him. He rearranged and patched the clapboards on the roof until it was perfectly rain-tight, chinked up the spaces between the poles with stones, corncobs and pieces of wood, and plastered over the outside with clay, until the walls were draft proof. He hung up an old blanket for a door, and hired a teamster to bring in a load of silky-fine beech leaves which, when freshly fallen, make a bed that cannot be surpassed. These, by spreading blankets over them, made very comfort able couches for Si, Shorty and himself.
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