Kitabı oku: «Si Klegg, Book 4», sayfa 6

Si snatched up a piece of rail, and they sprang up together, shouting:

"Halt! Surrender! Don't move a hand or we'll blow your heads off."

"All right, Yank. We surrender. Don't shoot. We'uns 've bin a-huntin' yo'uns to gin ourselves up. We'uns is tired o' the wah."

"The thunder you do," said Si in amazement.

"Yes," said the leader, walking forward; "we'uns is plumb sick o' the wah, and want t' take the oath and go home. 'Deed we'uns do."

"Well, you liked to 've scared two fine young soldiers to death," murmured Si under his breath.

"Halt, there," called out the suspicious Shorty.

"Don't come any nearer, or I'll fire. Stand still, and hold your guns over your heads, till I send a man out to git 'em."

The rebels obediently held their guns in the air.

"Sergeant," commanded Shorty, "go forward and relieve the men of their arms, while the rest of us keep 'em kivvered to prevent treachery and gittin' the drop on us."

Si went out and took the guns, one by one, from the hands of the men, and made as good an examination as he could, hastily, to see that they carried nothing else.

"Lordy, Yank, if you only knowed how powerful glad we'uns is to git to yo'uns, you wouldn't 'spicion us. We'uns 's nigh on to starved t' death. Hain't had nothin' to eat but blackberries for days. And hit's bin march, march, all the time, right away from we'uns's homes. Goramighty only knows whar ole Bragg's a-gwine tuh. Mebbe t' Cuby. We'uns wuz willin' t' fout fur ole Tennessee, but for nary other State. When he started out o' Tennessee we'uns jest concluded t' strike out and leave him. Lordy, Mister, hain't you got something t' eat? We'uns is jest starvin' t' death. 'Deed we'uns is."

"Awful sorry," replied Shorty, as he and Si gathered up the guns and placed themselves behind the group. "But we hain't nothin' to eat ourselves but blackberries, and won't have till our wagons git up, which 'll be the Lord and Gen. Rosecrans only knows when. You shall have it when we kin git it. Hello, the boys are cheerin'. That means a wagon's got in. Skip out, now, at a quarter-hoss gait. They may gobble it all up before we git there."

Inspired by this, they all started for camp in quick-time. Shorty was right in interpreting the cheering to mean the arrival of a ration-wagon.

When they reached Co. Q they found the Orderly-Sergeant standing over a half-box of crackers.

Around him was gathered the company in a petulant state of mind.

"Cuss and swear, boys, all you've a mind to," he was saying, "if you think that'll swell your grub. You know it won't. Only one wagon's come up, and it had only a half-load. Our share in it is what you see here. I figure that there's just about one cracker apiece for you, and as I call your names you'll step up and get it. Don't swear at me. I've done the best I could. Cuss the Tennessee mud and freshets in the cricks all you want to, if you think that'll fill your crops, but let me alone, or I'll bust somebody."

"I've my opinion o' the glorious Fourth o' July," said Shorty, as he nibbled moodily at his solitary cracker. "I'll change my politics and vote for Thanksgiving Day and Christmas after this."

"Well, I think that we've had a pretty fine Fourth," said the more cheerful Si. "For once in my life I've had all the blackberries I could eat, and otherwise it's a pleasant day. Them deserters gave me a cold chill at first, but I'm glad we got 'em. There'll certainly be more wagons up to-night, and to-morrow we'll have all we kin eat."

And that night, for the first in 10 days, they slept under dry blankets.

CHAPTER IX. A LITTLE EPISODE OVER LOVE LETTERS

HOW exuberantly bright, restful, and happy were those long July days on the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains, after the fatigues and hardships, the endless rains, the fathom less mud, the angry, swollen streams, the exhaust ing marches, and the feverish anxieties of the Tullahoma campaign.

The insolent, threatening enemy had retreated far across the mountain barrier. For the while he was out of reach of striking or being struck. The long-delayed commissary-wagons had come up, and there was an abundance to eat. The weather was delightful, the forests green, shady and inviting, the scenery picturesque and inspiring, and every day brought news of glorious Union victories, over which the cannon boomed in joyful salutes and the men cheered themselves hoarse. Grant had taken Vicksburg, with 25,000 prisoners, and chased Joe Johnston out of sight and knowledge. Prentiss had bloodily repulsed Sterling Price at Helena. Banks had captured Port Hudson, with 6,000 prisoners. The Mississippi River at last "flowed unvexed to the sea." Meade had won a great victory at Gettysburg, and Lee's beaten army was in rapid retreat to Virginia. "The blasted old Southern Confederacy is certainly havin' its underpinnin' knocked out, its j'ints cracked, and its roof caved in," remarked Si, as the two boys lay under the kindly shade of a low-growing jackoak, lazily smoked their pipes, and gazed contentedly out over the far-spreading camps, in which no man was doing anything more laborious than gathering a little wood to boil his evening coffee with. "'Tain't fit to store brick-bats in now. By-and-by we'll go out and hunt up old Bragg and give him a good punch, and the whole crazy shebang 'll come down with a crash."

"I only wish old Bragg wasn't of sich a retirin' nature," lazily commented Shorty. "The shade o' this tree is good enough for me. I don't want to ever leave it. Why couldn't he've waited for me, and we could've had it out here, coolly and pleasantly, and settled which was the best man! The thing' d bin over, and each feller could've gone about his business."

Both relapsed into silence as each fell into day dreams the one about a buxom, rosy-cheeked little maiden in the Valley of the Wabash; the other of one in far-off Wisconsin, whom he had never seen, but whom he mentally endowed with all the virtues and charms that his warmest imagination could invest a woman. Neither could see a woman without thinking how inferior she was in looks, words or acts to those whose images they carried in their hearts, and she was sure to suffer greatly by the comparison.

Such is the divinely transforming quality of love.

Each of the boys had taken the first opportunity, after getting enough to eat, a shelter prepared, and his clothes in shape and a tolerable rest, to write a long letter to the object of his affections. Shorty's letter was not long on paper, but in the time it took him to write it. He felt that he was making some progress with the fair maid of Bad Ax, and this made him the more deeply anxious that no misstep should thwart the progress of love's young dream.

Letter-writing presented unusual difficulties to Shorty. His training in the noble art of penmanship had stopped short long before his sinewy fingers had acquired much knack at forming the letters. Spelling and he had a permanent disagreement early in life, and he was scarcely on speaking terms with grammar. He had never any trouble conveying his thoughts by means of speech. People had very little difficulty in understanding what he meant when he talked, but this was quite different from getting his thoughts down in plain black and white for the reading of a strange young woman whom he was desperately anxious to please, and desperately afraid of offending. He labored over many sheets of paper before he got a letter that seemed only fairly satisfactory. One he had rejected because of a big blot on it; second, because he thought he had expressed himself too strongly; a third, because of an erasure and unseemly correction; a fourth, because of some newborn suspicions about the grammar and spelling, and so on. He thought, after he had carefully gathered up all his failures and burned them, together with a number of envelopes he had wrecked in his labor to direct one to Miss Lucinda Briggs, Bad Ax, Wis., sufficiently neatly to satisfy his fastidious taste.

He carefully folded his letter, creasing it with a very stalwart thumb-nail, sealed it, gave it a long inspection, as he thought how much it was carrying, and how far, and took it up to the Chaplain's tent to be mailed.

Later in the afternoon a hilarious group was gathered under a large cottonwood. It was made up of teamsters, Quartermaster's men, and other bobtail of the camp, with the officers' servants forming the dark fringe of an outer circle. Groundhog was the presiding spirit. By means best known to himself he had become possessed of a jug of Commissary whisky, and was dispensing it to his auditors in guarded drams to highten their appreciation of his wit and humor. He had come across one of the nearly-completed letters which Shorty had thrown aside and failed to find when he burned the rest. Groundhog was now reading this aloud, accompanied by running comments, to the great amusement of his auditors, who felt that, drinking his whisky, and expecting more, they were bound to laugh uproariously at anything he said was funny.

"Shorty, that lanky, two-fisted chump of Co. Q, who thinks hisself a bigger man than Gineral Rosecrans," Groundhog explained, "has writ a letter to a gal away off somewhere up North. How in the kingdom he ever come to git acquainted with her or any respectable woman 's more'n I kin tell. But he's got cheek enough for anything. It's sartin, though, that she's never saw him, and don't know nothin' about him, or she'd never let him write to her. Of course, he's as ignorant as a mule. He skeercely got beyant pot-hooks when he wuz tryin' to larn writin', an' he spells like a man with a wooden leg. Look here:

"'Mi Dere Frend.' Now, everybody knows that the way to spell dear is d-e-e-r. Then he goes on:

"'I taik mi pen in hand to inform u that Ime well, tho I've lost about 15 pounds, and hoap that u air injoyin' the same blessin."

"Think o' the vulgarity o' a man writin' to a young lady 'bout his losin' flesh. If a man should write sich a thing to my sister I'd hunt him up and wollop the life outen him. Then he goes on:

"'I aint built to spare much meat, and the loss of 15 pounds leaves fallow lots in mi cloze. But it will grow it all back on me agin mitey quick, as soon as we kin hav another protracted meetin' with the Commissary Department.'

"Did you ever hear sich vulgarity?" Groundhog groaned. "Now hear him brag and use langwidge unfit for any lady to see:

"'We've jest went throo the gosh-almightiest campane that enny army ever done. It wuz rane and mud 48 ours outen the 24, with thunder and litenin' on the side. We got wettern Faro's hosts done chasin' the Jews throo 50 foot of Red See. But we diddent stop for that till we'd hussled old Bragg outen his works, and started him on the keen jump for Chattynoogy, to put the Cumberland Mountings betwixt us and him.'

"Think o' the conceit o' the feller. Wants to make that gal believe that he druv off Bragg a'most single-handed, and intends to foller him up and kick him some more. Sich gall. Sich fellers hurts us in the opinion o' the people at home. They make 'em think we're all a set o' blowhards. But this aint nothin' to what comes next. He tries to honeyfugle the gal, and he's as clumsy 'bout it as a brown b'ar robbin' a bee-hive. Listen:

"'mi dere frend, I can't tell you how happy yore letters maik me. I've got so I look for the male a good dele more angshioussly than for the grub wagon.'

"Think o' a man sayin' grub to a lady," said Groundhog, in a tone of deep disgust. "Awful coarse. A gentleman allers says 'peck,' or 'hash,' or Vittels,' when he's speakin' to a lady, or before ladies. I licked a man onct for sayin' 'gizzard-linen' before my mother, and gizzard-linin' aint half as coarse as grub. But he gits softer'n mush as he goes on. Listen:

"'I rede every wun of 'em over till they're cleane wore out, and then I save the pieces, bekaze they cum from u. I rede them whenever Ime alone, and it seems to me that its yeres before another one comes. If I cood make anybody feel as good by ritin' to 'em as u kin me Ide rite 'em every day.'

"Thar's some more of his ignorant spellin'," said Groundhog. "Everybody but a blamed fool knows the way to spell write is w-r-i-g-h-t. I learnt that much before I wuz knee-high to a grasshopper. But let me continner:

"'I think Bad Ax, Wisconsin, must be the nicest plais in the world, bekaze u live there. I woodent want to live anywhair else, and Ime cummin up thar just as soon as the war is over to settle. I think of u every our in the day, and—'

"He thinks of her every hour. The idee," said Groundhog, with deep scorn, "that sich a galoot as Shorty thinks of anything more'n a minute, except triple-X, all-wool, indigo-dyed cussedness that he kin work off on some other feller and hurt him, that he don't think's as smart as he is. Think o' him gushin' out all this soft-solder to fool some poor girl."

"You infernal liar, you, give me that letter," shouted Si, bolting into the circle and making a clutch at the sheet. "I'll pound your onery head off en you."

Si had come up unnoticed, and listened for a few minutes to Groundhog's tirade before he discovered that his partner was its object. Then he sprang at the teamster, struck him with one hand, and snatched at the letter with the other. The bystanders instinctively sided with the teamster, and Si became the center of a maelstrom of kicks and blows, when Shorty, seeing his partner's predicament, bolted down the hill and began knocking down every body in reach until he cleared a way to Si's side. By this time the attention of the Sergeant of the Guard was attracted, and he brought an energetic gun-barrel to the task of restoring the reign of law and order.

"How in thunder'd you come to git into a fracas with that herd o' mavericks, Si?" asked Shorty, in a tone of rebuke, as the Sergeant was rounding up the crowd and trying to get at who was to blame. "Couldn't you find somebody on your own level to fight, without startin' a fuss with a passel o' low-down, rust-eaten roustabouts? What's got into you? Bin livin' so high lately that you had to have a fight to work off your fractiousness? I'm surprised at you."

"Groundhog' d got hold of a letter o' your'n to your girl up in Wisconsin," gasped Si, "and was readin' it to the crowd. Here's a piece of it."

Shorty glanced at the fragment of torn paper in Si's hand, and a deep blush suffused his sun-browned cheek. Then he gave a howl and made a rush for Groundhog.

"Here, let that man alone, or I'll make you," shouted the Sergeant of the Guard.

"Sergeant," said Si, "that rat-faced teamster had got hold of a letter to his girl, and was reading it to this gang o' camp offal."

"O," said the Sergeant, in a changed tone; "hope he'll baste the life out of him." And he jumped in before a crowd that was showing some disposition to go to Groundhog's assistance, sharply ordered them to about-face, and drove them off before him.

"Here, Sergeant," shouted the Officer of the Guard, who came running up; "what are you fooling around with these fellows for? They're not doing any thing. Don't you see that man's killing that team ster?"

"Teamster had got hold of a letter to his girl," explained the Sergeant, "and was reading it to these whelps."

"O," said the Officer of the Guard in a different tone. "Run these rascals down there in front of the Quartermaster's and set them to work digging those stumps out. Keep them at it till midnight, without anything to eat. I'll teach them to raise disturbances in camp."

CHAPTER X. AFTER BRAGG AGAIN

RESTFUL SUMMER DAYS END—THE UNION PEOPLE OF EAST TENNESSEE

THOUGH every man in the Army of the Cumberland felt completely worn out at the end of the Tullahoma campaign, it needed but a few days' rest in pleasant camps on the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains, with plenty of rations and supplies of clothing, to beget a restlessness for another advance.

They felt envious of their comrades of the Army of the Tennessee, who had cornered their enemy in Vicksburg and forced him to complete surrender.

On the other hand, their enemy had evaded battle when they offered it to him on the place he had himself chosen, had eluded their vigorous pursuit, and now had his army in full possession of the great objective upon which the eyes of the Army of the Cumberland had been fixed for two years Chattanooga.

It was to Chattanooga that Gen. Scott ultimately looked when he began the organization of forces north of the Ohio River. It was to Chattanooga that Gens. Anderson, Sherman and Buell looked when they were building up the Army of the Ohio. It was nearly to Chattanooga that Gen. Mitchel made his memorable dash after the fall of Nashville, when he took Huntsville, Bridgeport, Stevenson and other outlying places. It was for Chattanooga that the "Engine Thieves" made their thrilling venture, that cost eight of their lives. It was to Chattanooga that Buell was ordered with the Army of the Ohio, after the "siege of Corinth," and from which he was run back by Bragg's flank movement into Kentucky. It was again toward Chattanooga that Rosecrans had started the Army of the Cumberland from Nashville, in December, 1862, and the battle of Stone River and the Tullahoma campaign were but stages in the journey.

President Lincoln wanted Chattanooga to relieve the sorely persecuted Unionists of East Tennessee. Military men wanted Chattanooga for its immense strategic importance, second only to that of Vicksburg.

The men of the Army of the Cumberland wanted Chattanooga, as those of the Army of the Potomac wanted Richmond, and those of the Army of the Tennessee had wanted Vicksburg, as the victor's guerdon which would crown all their marches, skirmishes and battles.

But between them and Chattanooga still lay three great ranges of mountains and a broad, navigable river. Where amid all these fortifications of appalling strength would Bragg offer them battle for the Confederacy's vitals?

"I don't care what Bragg's got over there," said Si, looking up at the lofty mountain peaks, as he and Shorty discussed the probabilities. "He can't git nothing worse than the works at War Trace and Shelbyville, that he took six months to build, and was just goin' to slaughter us with. And if we go ahead now he won't have the rain on his side. It looks as if it has set in for a long dry spell; the country 'll be so we kin git around in it without trouble. If the walkin' only stays good we'll find a way to make Mr. Bragg hump out of Chattanooga, or stay in there and git captured."

"Yes," assented Shorty, knocking the ashes out of his brierwood pipe, and beginning to shave down a plug of bright navy to refill it, "and I'll put old Rosey's brains and git-there agin all the mountains and rivers and forts, and breastworks and thingama-jigs that Bragg kin git up. Old Rosecrans is smarter any day in the week than Bragg is on Sunday. He kin give the rebels cards and spades and run 'em out before the fourth round is played. Only I hope he won't study about it as long as he did after Stone River. I want to finish up the job in warm, dry weather, and git home."

And his eyes took on a far-away look, which Si had no difficulty interpreting that "home" meant a place with a queer name in distant Wisconsin.

"Well," said Si reflectively, "old Rosecrans didn't study long after he took command of us at Nashville, before plunking us squarely at the Johnnies on Stone River. I think he's out for a fight now, and bound to git it in short meter."

But the impatient boys had to wait a long Summer month, until the railroads to the rear could be repaired to bring up supplies, and for the corn to ripen so as to furnish forage for the cavalry.

But when, on the 16th of August, 1863, Rosecrans began his campaign of magnificant strategy for the possession of Chattanooga, the 200th Ind. had the supreme satisfaction of leading the advance up into the mountains of living green to find the enemy and bring him to bay.

A few days' march brought them up onto the Cumberland Plateau. They had now left the country of big plantations with cottonfields, and come upon one of small farms and poor people. Si, with a squad, had been marching far ahead all day as an advance-guard. They had seen no rebels, but all the same kept a constant and vigilant outlook for the enemy. They were approaching a log house of rather better class than any they had seen since ascending the mountain. As they raised the crest of a hill they heard a horn at the house give a signal, which set them keenly alert, and they pushed forward rapidly, with their guns ready. Then they saw a tall, slender young woman, scarcely more than a girl, dart out of the house and attempt to cross the road and open ground to the dense woods. Si sprang forward in pursuit. She ran like a young deer, but Si was swift of foot, and had taken the correct angle to cut her off. He caught her flying skirts and then grasped her wrist.

"Where are you goin', and what for?" he asked sternly, as he held her fast and looked into her frightened eyes, while her breast heaved with exertion and fear.

"I ain't goin' nowhar, an' for nothin'," she an swered sullenly.

"Yes you was, you young rebel," said Si. "You were goin' to tell some sneakin' rebels about us. Where are they?"

"Wa'n't gwine to do nothin' o' the kind," she answered between gasps for breath. "I don't know whar thar's no rebels. Thought they'uns had all done gone away down the mounting till I seed yo'uns."

"Come, girl, talk sense," said Si roughly. "Tell me where those rebels are that you was goin' to, and do it quick. Boys, look sharp."

A tall, very venerable man, with long, snowy-white hair and whiskers came hobbling up, assisting his steps with a long staff with a handle of a curled and twisted ram's horn.

"Gentlemen," he said, with a quavering voice, "I beg yo'uns won't harm my granddaughter. She hain't done nothin' wrong, I'll sw'ar it, t' yo'uns. We'uns 's for the Union, but that hain't no reason why we'uns should be molested. We'uns 's peaceable, law-abidin' folks, an' ain't never done nothin' agin the Southern Confederacy. All our neighbors knows that. Ax any o' they'uns. If yo'uns must punish someone, take me. I'm the one that's responsible for their Unionism. I've learned 'em nothin' else sense they'uns wuz born. I'm a very old man, an' hain't long t' live, nohow. Yo'uns kin do with me what yo'uns please, but for my sake spare my innocent granddaughter, who hain't done nothin'."

Si looked at him in amazement. It was no uncommon thing for people to protest Unionism, but sincerity was written in every line of the old man's face.

"You say you're Union," he said. "If that's so, you've nothin' to fear from us. We're Union soldiers. But what was that signal with the horn, and where was this girl goin'?"

"She blowed the horn at my orders, to inform my neighbors, and she wuz gwine on an arrant for me. Whatever she done I ordered her to do. Yo'uns kin visit hit all on my head. But hit wa'n't nothin' agin yo'uns or the Southern Confederacy."

"I tell you we're Union soldiers," repeated Si. "Can't you tell that by our clothes?"

The old man's face brightened a little, but then a reminder of sorrowful experience clouded it again.

"I've never seed no Union soldiers," said he. "The rebels come around here dressed all sorts o' ways, and sometimes they pretend to be Union, jest to lay a snare for we'uns. They'uns all know I'm Union, but I'm too old t' do 'em harm. Hit's my neighbors they'uns is arter. But, thank God, they'uns 's never kotched any o' them through me."

"I tell you we're genuine, true-blue Union soldiers from Injianny, belong to Rosecrans's army, and are down here to drive the rebels out o' the country. There, you kin see our flag comin' up the mountain."

The old man shaded his eyes with his hand, and looked earnestly at the long line of men winding up the mountain-side.

"I kin see nothin' but a blue flag," said he, "much the same as some o' Bragg's rijimints tote."

Si looked again, and noticed that only the blue regimental flag was displayed.

"Wait a minnit, I'll convince him," said Shorty, and running down the mountain he took the marker from the right guide of the regiment, and presently came back waving it proudly in the sunshine.

The old man's face brightened like a May day, and then his faded eyes filled with joyful tears as he exclaimed:

"Yes, thank Almighty God, that's hit. That's the real flag o' my country. That's the flag I fit under with ole Jackson at New Orleans. I bless God that I've lived to see the day that hit's come back."

He took the flag in his hands, fondly surveyed its bright folds, and then fervently kissed it. Then he said to his granddaughter:

"Nance, call the boys in, that they'uns's may see thar friends 've come at last."

Nance seemed to need no second bidding. She sped back to the porch, seized the long tin horn and sent mellow, joyful notes floating far over the billowy hills, until they were caught up by the cliffs and echoed back in subdued melody.

"Don't be surprised, gentlemen, at what yo'uns 'll see," said the old man.

Even while the bugle-like notes were still ringing on the warm air, men began appearing from the most unexpected places. They were all of the same type, differing only in age from mere boys to middle-aged men. They were tall, raw-boned and stoop-shouldered, with long, black hair, and tired, sad eyes, which lighted up as they saw the flag and the men around it. They were attired in rude, home spun clothes, mostly ragged and soiled, and each man carried a gun of some description.

They came in such numbers that Si was startled. He drew his men together, and looked anxiously back to see how near the regiment had come.

"I done tole yo'uns not t' be surprised," said the old man reassuringly; "they'uns 's all right every one of 'em a true Union man, ready and willin' t' die for his country. The half o' they'uns hain't got in yit, but they'll all come in."

"Yes, indeed," said one of the first of them to come in, a pleasant-faced, shapely youth, with the soft down of his first beard scantily fringing his face, and to whom Nancy had sidled up in an unmistakable way. "We'uns 've bin a-layin' out in the woods for weeks, dodgin' ole Bragg's conscripters and a-waitin' for yo'uns. We'uns 've bin watchin' yo'uns all day yisterday, an' all this mornin', tryin' t' make out who yo'uns rayly wuz. Sometimes we'uns thought yo'uns wuz Yankees, an' then agin that yo'uns wuz the tail-end o' Bragg's army. All we'uns 's a-gwine t' jine all yo'uns, an' fout for the Union."

"Bully boys right sentiments," said Shorty enthusiastically. "There's room for a lot o' you in this very regiment, and it's the best regiment in the army. Co. Q's the best company in the regiment, and it needs 15 or 20 fine young fellers like you to fill up the holes made by Stone River and Tennessee rain and mud."

"I'll go 'long with you, Mister Ossifer, if you'll take me," said the youth, very shyly and softly to Si, whose appearance seemed to attract him.

"Certainly we'll take you," said Si, "if the Surgeon 'll accept you, and I'll see that you're sworn in on the spot."

"Nancy," said the youth diffidently to the girl, who had stood by his side holding his hand during the whole conversation, "yo' done promised yo'd marry me as soon's the Yankee soldiers done come for sure, and they'uns 've done come, millions of 'em. Looky thar millions of 'em."

He pointed to the distant hills, every road over which was swarming with legions of blue.

"Yes, Nate," said the girl, reddening, chewing her bonnet-strings to hide her confusion, and stir ring up the ground with the toe of her shoe, "I reckon I did promise yo' I'd marry yo' when the Yankee soldiers done come for sure, and thar does seem t' be a right smart passel of 'em done come already, with a heapin' more on the way. But yo' ain't gwine t' insist on me keepin' my promise right off, air yo'?"

And she took a bigger bite at her bonnet-strings and dug a deeper hole with the toe of her shoe.

"Yes, indeedy right off jest the minnit I kin find a preacher," replied Nate, growing bolder and more insistent as he felt his happiness approaching. "I'm a-gwine off t' the war with this gentleman's company (indicating Si with a wave of his disengaged hand), and we must be spliced before I start. Say, Mister Ossifer (to Si), kin yo' tell me whar I kin find a preacher?"

Si and Shorty and the rest were taking a deep interest in the affair. It was so fresh, so genuine, so unconventional that it went straight to all their hearts, and, besides, made a novel incident in their campaign. They were all on the side of the would-be bridegroom at once, and anxious for his success. The Adjutant had come up with the order that they should stop where they were, for the regiment would go into camp just below for the day. So they had full leisure to attend to the matter. The Tennesseeans took only a modified interest, for the presence of the Union army was a much more engrossing subject, and they preferred to stand and gaze open-eyed and open-mouthed at the astonishing swarms of blue-clad men rather than to pay attention to a commonplace mountain wooing.

"We have a preacher he's the Chaplain of the regiment," suggested Si.

"Any sort of a preacher'll do for me," said Nate sanguinely, "so long 's he's a preacher Hard Shell, Free Will, Campbellite, Winebrennarian, Methodist, Cumberland Presbyterian and kind, so long 's he's a regularly-ordained preacher, 'll do for me. Won't hit for you, honey?"

"Granddad's a Presbyterian," she said, blushing, "and I'd rather he'd be a Presbyterian. Better ax granddad."

Nate hurried over to the grandfather, who was so deeply engrossed in talking politics, the war, and the persecutions the East Tennesseeans had endured at the hands of the rebels with the officers and soldiers gathered around that he did not want to be bothered with such a comparatively unimportant matter as the marriage of a granddaughter.

"Yes, marry her any way you like, so long as you marry her honest and straight," said he impatiently to Nate. Then, as Nate turned away, he explained to those about him: "That's the 45th grandchild that I've had married, and I'm kind o' gittin used t' hit, so t' speak. Nate and her 've bin keepin' company and courtin' ever sense they wuz weaned, an' bin pesterin' the life out o' me for years t' let 'em git jined. Sooner hit's done the better. As I wuz sayin', we'uns give 80,000 majority in Tennessee agin Secession, but ole Isham Harris" etc.