and he finally gets a letter from her.
after the flush of excitement of returning to his old regiment and meeting his comrades—after the process of readjusting himself to the changed relations made by death, wounds, discharges, resignations and promotions—after the days had brought a settling back into the old routine of camp-life, there developed in shorty's heart growing homesickness for maria klegg.
at least that was what it seemed to him. he did not exactly know what homesickness was from personal experience, as he had never really had a home. but he had seen thousands of boys more or less affected by that obscure but stubborn and dangerous malady, and had noted their symptoms, which strongly resembled his own.
somehow, the sun only shone with real brightness and warmth over the pleasant homes and fertile fields of posey county, ind. somehow, women had a fairness and sweetness there denied to their sex elsewhere, and somehow the flower of them all was a buxom maiden of 20 dwelling under the roof of deacon klegg.
shorty appreciated very properly the dignity and responsibilities of his two stripes. he was going to be the model corporal of the regiment, and give all the rest a copy which they could follow to advantage. of all the corporals he had ever known, si klegg had come nearest his ideas as to what a corporal should be, but even si had his limitations. he would show him some improvements. so shorty bent his mind upon the performance of everything pertaining to the corporalcy with promptness and zeal. he even set to studying the regulations and tactics—at least those paragraphs relating to corporals and their duties—where heretofore he had despised "book-soldiering," and relied on quick observation and "horse sense" to teach him all that was worth knowing. but his stay in the deacon's home showed him that they esteemed "book-knowledge" even in common things as of much value, and he began to have a new respect for that source of instruction.
even through the pressure of official duties and responsibilities there would steal, like the wafting of a sweet song to the ears of the reapers in a hot field, thoughts of the coolness, the beauty and the peace of that quiet home on the wabash, with one flower-faced girl, with white, soft arms, going about her daily tasks, singing with such blithe cheeriness that even the birds stopped to listen to a sweeter note than theirs. some subtle fragrance from her seemed to be with him wherever he was, and whatever he might be doing. when, as the tallest corporal in co. q, he stood on the right of the company, on drill and dress parade, and made the others "dress" on him, he wished that maria klegg could only see how straight the line was, and how soldierly the boys looked. when the colonel personally selected him to command the squad which was to escort the paymaster through a dangerous part of the country, he would have given much had maria known of the trust reposed in him. and when, as corporal of the guard, he suppressed in his usual summary way a noisy row among the teamsters and cooks, he was very glad that maria did not hear the remarks that a corporal always thinks necessary to make on such occasions. shorty did not swear with the fluent ease of before his visit to the klegg homestead, but a little excitement gave the old looseness to his tongue. and when he sat around the guard-fire, he would refuse to be drawn into any "little games," but turn his back upon the chattering crowd, and furtively draw from his breast-pocket the remnant of maria's dress, and feel it, and muse over it, until aroused by the call:
"corporal of the guard, post no. 14. i want a drink o' water."
shorty began to watch for si's mail a good deal more anxiously than that worthy did. he managed to go by the chaplain's tent whenever duty took him in that part of the camp, and sometimes when it did not, and inquire if there was any mail there for si. one day he was rewarded by the chaplain handing him two letters. his heart beat a little quicker by seeing that they were both postmarked bean blossom creek. the smaller—a white envelope, superscribed in annabel's cramped little hand—he thrust indifferently into his pocket, and the larger—a fat, yellow envelope, covered with the good deacon's massive crow-tracks, and securely fastened by a dab of sealing wax, pressed down with a cent—he studied with tender interest. it had come directly from her home—from her father. it probably told something about her.
it seemed as if there was something of the perfume of her presence about it. possibly she had carried it to the station and mailed it. he turned it over gently, studied every detail, and fixed his eyes upon it, as if he would make them pierce the thick, strong paper and devour the contents. then it occurred to him that the better and quicker way to get at the inside would be to deliver the letters to si. so he hunted up his partner, whom he found about to take his squad out for a turn at wagon guarding.
si looked pleased as he recognized his father's letter, but his face flushed to the roots of his sandy hair at the sight of annabel's. he put the latter carefully in his pocket. it was too sweet and sacred a thing to be opened and read under the gaze of any one else's eyes. he broke open his father's and as his eyes traveled slowly down the large foolscap pages, covered with the deacon's full-grown characters, for the deacon made his letters as he liked his stock—big and full—he said:
"they're all well at home, but mother's had a tech of her old rheumatiz. pap's sold his wheat at a dollar and four bits. peaches about half killed. had good luck with his lambs. wheat's lookin' unusually well. beck spangler's married josh wilson, whose wife died last fall, leavin' him two little children. brindle cow's come in fresh, with a nice calf, quarter jersey. copperhead's gittin' sassy agin. holdin' night meetin's and wearin' butternut badges, and talkin' about resistin' draft. hogs wintered well, and looks as if pap'd have a nice drove to sell in the fall. pap'll put in 'bout 90 acres o' corn, and'll have to hustle his plowin' ez soon's the ground's fit. little sammy woggles had a fight with beecham's boy, who's six months older, and licked him. sammy likes school better now than he did. pap's bought abraham lincoln a new suit o' store clothes and the girls have made him some white shirts. he goes to church every sunday now, and carries a cane. pap sends his regards to you, shorty, and mother and the girls want to be kindly remembered. there, take the letter, shorty, and read it for yourself. i've got to skip out with my squad."
shorty took the letter with eagerness, and retired to a nook to read it all over carefully, and see if he could not mayhap glean out of it something more relating to her. but the main satisfaction was in reading again and again "mother and the girls want to be kindly remembered to shorty."
"not uncomfortably warm, and purty general, like the gal who promised to be a sister to the hull rijimint," mused shorty, as he refolded the letter and replaced it in the envelope. "but, then, it is better to be kindly remembered by sich people as them than to be slobbered over by anybody else in the world. wisht i knowed jest how much o' the kind remembrance was maria's, and if it differed in any way from her mother's and sister's?"
the next evening the orderly-sergeant handed shorty a badly-thumb-marked and blotted yellow envelope, on which was scrawled in a very schoolish hand:
"to mister corpril elliott,
"co. q, two hundred injianny
volintears,
"chattynoogy, 10-s-e."
opening it he read:
mister shortee
u ar a frawd!!! that's what u ar!!!
whairz mi gunn??????
u ar a long-shanked, brick-topt frawd & a promisbraker!!!
whairz mi gunn???
u hav now bin away a hole month, & i haint seen no gunn!
awl the boiz is makin fun ov me, bekaws i blowed around bout
the gunn i waz going 2 git, & i didn't git none.
whairz mi gunn???
i likked ans. beechum till he hollered nuff, for teezin me
bout mi gunn. that's quiled the other boiz.
but i want mi gunn!
i have just lots & gobs 2 tell u, bout what maria's bin
sayin bout yore saffron head, but i shant write a word till
i git mi gunn!
i wont tell u how the girls is pleggin her bout her big
sunflower till i git mi gunn!
if u doant send mi gunn rite off he tel maria everything i
no.
i tel u now. he spile yore fun
onless at once u send mi gunn.
yores til deth,
samuel woggles.
the reception of this perturbed shorty to his depths. he had not forgotten his promise to sammy—merely postponed its execution under the pressure of other engrossments. he reproached himself for not remembering how eagerly the boy had been looking forward to a possession which would make him the envy of the other boys—really hated by them for his towering and undeserved fortune.
"and maria and the girls is talkin' about me," he communed with himself. "i knowed that my left ear hadn't bin burnin' ever since we crossed the ohio river for nothin'. i thought it was because it'd got so tender layin' on pillers that the blankets chafed it. now i understand it. and i can't hear nothin' of what they've bin sayin' till i git that gun to sammy. i'll start it to him this day, if it takes a leg. i'd intended to go over to the camp o' the maumee muskrats today, on a missionary, tower with them new tricks i brung back with me, but i'll put in the time gittin' sammy's gun and shippin' it to him. wonder where i kin pick up a rebel musket and trimmins'?" shorty did not find this so easy as he had anticipated. generally, rebel guns had been a drug in the market. they could be found lying around camp almost anywhere, and were used for any purpose to which they could be applied—poles to hang kettles on over the fire, tent-sticks, revetments to hold the dirt back, or any other use. but under the rigid system now prevailing in sherman's camps everything had to be accounted for, and every gun sufficiently serviceable to be worth sending to sammy had been gathered up and stored away in a large shed. shorty went down there and scrutinized the armory. there were plenty of guns in there, any one of which would make sammy's heart leap for joy, and render him the object of the burning envy of all the boys for miles around. but there were guards pacing around, and they looked watchful. still, if the night were dark he might slip in and steal one. but somehow since he had known maria there had risen in his mind a repugnance to that way of procuring things. it was not in accordance with klegg ideas. he sat down and pondered on other methods. he went over and talked to the sergeant in charge, an old acquaintance, but the sergeant was obdurate.
"no, sir. can't let one of 'em go on no account," said the sergeant firmly. "my captain's in charge of 'em, and he's put me in charge. he knows he can trust me, and i know that he can. he don't know how many guns and bayonets and cartridge-boxes there are, but i do, for i counted them first thing when i come on. i don't propose that he shall have to have any shortage charged against him when he comes to settle his accounts. i don't know whether they've got an account of the things at headquarters, but they're likely to have, and i'm not taking any risks. i'm looking out for my captain."
"but suppose i pay you the value of the blamed old blunderbuss," said shorty, as a desperate resort, for it was the first time that he had ever thought of a rebel gun having a money value.
"i wouldn't take it," replied the sergeant. "first place, i haint no idea what they're worth. next place, if i had, i wouldn't take it, for i don't want any shortage in cap's accounts. thirdly, if i took the money i'd like as not set into a game o' poker tonight and lose it, and then where'd i be, and where'd cap be? i've been having monstrous hard luck at poker lately."
"that's because you ain't up to the latest kinks," said shorty, hopefully. "i've been back to the rear—just come from jeffersonville—and i've got on to a lot of new dodges. i'll show 'em all to you for one o' them guns."
the waver in the sergeant's face showed the temptation was a trying one, but he answered firmly:
"no; i won't do it."
"i'll put up a $10 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.
again the sergeant's face showed great irresolution, but again his fidelity triumphed, and he answered firmly, "no i won't." then he softened his refusal by saying:
"come, shorty, walk over a little way with me. i know where we can get something good."
after they had shared a tincupful of applejack that a teamster supplied them the sergeant's heart thawed out a little.
"i tell you. shorty, there's a gun in there that'd just tickle your boy to death. it's an enfield, new one, and has a yankee bullet sticking in the butt. must've knocked the johnny a double somersault when it struck. i've been thinkin' sending it home myself. but i'll let you have it, and i'll tell you how you can get it. see that camp over there? well, that's a regiment being organized out o' tennessee refugees. they and their officers are the carelessest lot of galoots that ever lived. their quartermaster stores and their commissary stores, and everything they have is allowed to lie around loose, just wherever they get the notion to drop them. i've had my eye on 'em for several days, and've helped several of my friends to straighten up their company accounts, and replace things that they'd lost. you just waltz over there, careless like, as if you belonged to the regiment, pick up a gun and traps, put 'em on, and sail back here, and i'll turn your things in, and give you that gun with the bullet in the stock in exchange."
shorty lost no time in acting on the advice. that afternoon the express from chattanooga carried a gun to sammy woggles, the contemplation of which deprived that youth of sleep the night after he received it, and won him the cordial hatred of every boy in his neighborhood for his overweening pride.
but after the gun was gone, and after shorty had written a laborious letter, informing sammy of the shipment of the gun and its history, which letter inclosed a crisp greenback, and was almost as urgent in injunctions to sammy to write as sammy had been about his piece of ordnance, shorty sat down in sadness of heart. he was famishing for information from maria, and at the lowest calculation he could not hope for a letter from sammy for two weeks.
"it'll take at least a week for that little rat to git over his fever about that gun," he mused, "until he'll be able to set up and think about anything else. then it'll take him at least another week to build a letter. great jehosephat, how'm i goin' to stand it till then? where'll i be two weeks from now? what kin i do? i a'most wish that something'd happen to si that'd give me an excuse for writin'."
he racked his fertile brain with expedients and devices for getting up communication, but for once he had to reject them all. there was a halo of unapproachableness about maria klegg that paralyzed him.
he awoke the next morning with the same anxiety gnawing at his heart, and it haunted him so that he went through the morning's routine mechanically. when he came back from taking a squad up to headquarters to report for fatigue duty, the orderly-sergeant called out:
"here's a letter for you, corporal elliott." shorty took the small white envelope from the orderly's hand, and looked at it curiously. who could it be from? it resembled somewhat the letters that once came from bad ax, wis., but then again it was very different. he studied the handwriting, which was entirely strange to him. then he was electrified by seeing that the postmark seemed to be something the same as on si's letters, but was blurred. he gave a little gasp, and said:
"orderly, i'd like to git off a little while today." "why, shorty," remonstrated the busy sergeant, "you were off yesterday. but go. i'll try to get along without you. don't stay long."
a letter from maria. 81
shorty would not trust himself to more than look at the outside, until he had gained a safe screen behind a clump of bushes. then he took out his knife, carefully slit the envelope, and read:
dear mr. elliot—
i take my pen in hand to inform you that we are all in good
health and hope you are enjoyin' the same blessing fur which
we should all be thankful to god. i am over on a visit to
prairie hen and mrs. skidmore a widow woman called to see me
today in the course of conversation she said her little boy
peter had run off and shed hurd hed joined the 200th indiana
volunteer infantry. she heard that we had folks in that
regiment and so had come over to see me to see if i knowed
anybody that would give her any news about her boy so as she
could ask them to look out for him. i told her i knowed a
gentleman in the 200th indiana who would look out for peter
and be a second father to him and as soon as she had went i
started this epistle. i thot id answer my letters because
its all he can do to write answer my letter because its all
he can do to write to mother and annabel and dont write to
mother haf often enuf besides id like to hear from you
myself. sincerely yore friend
maria klegg.
"m-a-r-i-a-r k-l-e-g-g," gasped shorty, spelling over the letters, one at a time, to make sure that his eyes were not making a fool of him. "and she'd like to hear from me."
and he took off his hat, and fanned his burning face.
