Si Klegg, Book 5

by John McElroy

  CHAPTER XVI. THE TROUBLESOME BOYS

  SI AND SHORTY'S RECRUITS ENTER KENTUCKY.

  THE bright, active minds of the 65 boys that Si and Shorty were put incharge of were aflame with curiosity regarding everything connected withthe war. For two years they had been fed on stories and incidents of themighty conflict then convulsing the land. Every breath they had drawnhad some taste of battle in it. Wherever they went or were they heardincessantly of the storm-swept "front"--of terrific battles, perilousadventures, heroic achievements, death, wounds and marvelous escapes.The older boys were all at the front, or going there, or coming backwith heroic marks of shot and shell. The one burning aspiration in everywell-constructed boy's heart was to get big enough to crowd past therecruiting officer, and go where he could see with his own eyes thethunderous drama. There was concentrated all that fills a healthy boy'simagination and stirs his blood--something greater than Indian-fighting,or hunting lions and tigers. They looked on Si and Shorty with littleshort of reverence. Here were two men who had captured a rebel flag ina hand-to-hand fight, both of whom had been left for dead, and bothpromoted for gallantry. What higher pinnacle of greatness could any boyhope to reach?

  They began at once seriously imitating the walk and manners of theirheroes. The tall, lank boys modeled themselves on Shorty, and the short,chubby ones on Si. And there at once rose contention between them as towhich was the greater hero.

  "I heard," said Henry Joslyn, "that Corpril Elliott was the first toreach the rebel flag, he havin' much the longest legs, but jest as hegrabbed it a big rebel knocked him, and then they all piled on to him,and about had him finished when Serg't Klegg reached there at a chargebayonets, and he bayoneted everybody in sight, until a sharpshooter ina tree shot him with an explosive bullet that tore his breast all topieces, but he kept right on bayonetin' 'em till he dropped from losso' blood. Then they fired a cannon at the sharpshooter and blowed himto pieces just as you'd blow a chippy to pieces with a bullet from abear-gun."

  "'Twan't that way at all," said tall, lathy Gid Mackall. "A whole lotof 'em made for the flag together. A charge o' grapeshot come along andblowed the rest away, but Serg't Klegg and Corpril Elliott kep' righton. Then Corpril Elliott he lit into the crowd o' rebels and laid aswath right around him, while Sergint Klegg grabbed the flag. A rebelColonel shot him, but they couldn't stop Corpril Elliott till they shota brass six-pounder at him."

  The boys stood on the banks of the Ohio River and gazed eagerly at theother side. There was the enemy's country--there the theater inwhich the great drama was being enacted. Everything there had a weirdfascination for them, as a part of, or accessory to, the stupendousplay. It was like peeping under the circus tent, when they were smaller,and catching glimpses of the flying horses' feet.

  And the questions they asked. Si had in a manner repelled them by hiscurt treatment of Harry Joslyn, and his preoccupied air as he went backand forth getting his orders and making preparations for starting. ButShorty was in an affable mood, and by pleasantly answering a few oftheir inquiries brought the whole fire of their questioning upon him.

  "Are any o' them men you see over there guerrillas?" they asked.

  "Mebbe," Shorty answered. "Kentucky's full of 'em. Mebbe they'repeaceable citizens, though."

  "How kin you tell the guerrillas from the citizens?"

  "By the way they shoot at you. The peaceable citizens don't shoot--atleast, in day time and out in the open. They lay for you withsole-leather pies, and chuck-a-luck boards and 40-rod whisky, and aid.and abet the Southern Confedrisy that way. They get away with moreUnion soldiers than the guerrillas do. But you can never tell whatan able-bodied man in Kentucky'll do. He may lay for you all day withwildcat whisky, at $5 a canteenful, to git money to buy ammunitionto shoot at you at night. He's surer o' gittin' you with a canteen o'never-miss whisky, but there's more healthy excitement about shootin' atyou from behind a bank. And his pies is deadlier'n his apple-jack. A mankin git over an apple-jack drunk, but Kentucky pies 's wuss'n nux vomicaon fish."

  "Mustn't we eat none o' their pies?" asked the boys, with longingremembrance of the fragrant products of their mothers' ovens.

  "Nary a pie. If I ketch a boy eatin' a pie after we cross the river I'llbuck-and-gag him. Stick to plain hardtack and pork. You'll git to likeit better'n cake by and by. I eat it right along in preference to thefinest cake ever baked."

  Shorty did not think it necessary to mention that this preference wassomewhat compulsory.

  "Why don't you hunt down the guerrillas and kill 'em off and be donewith 'em?"

  "You can't, very well. You see, guerrilain' is peculiar. There'ssomethin' in the air and water down in Kentucky and Tennessee thatbrings it on a man. You'll see a plain farmer man, jest like them aroundyour home, and he'll be all right, goin' about his place plowin' andgrubbin' sprouts and tendin' to his stock, and tellin' you all the timehow much he loves the Union and how he and his folks always bin forthe Union. Next thing you know he'll be out behind a cedar bush with ashotgun loaded with slugs, waitin' to make a lead mine o' some fellerwearin' blue clothes. You see him before he does you, and he'll swearthat he was out after the crows that's bin pullin' up his corn. He'lltake' the oath of allegiance like it was a dram of old apple-jack, andtears'll come into his eyes at the sight o' the Old Flag, which he andhis'n has always loved. He'll go ahead plowin' and grubbin' sproutsand tendin' his cattle till the fit comes on him agin to go gunnin' forbluecoats, and off he is, to go through the whole performance agin.You kin never tell how long his loosid interval will last, nor when thefit's comin' on him. Mebbe the changes o' the moon's somethin' to dowith it. Mebbe it's somethin' that they eat, like what the cattle eatout West that makes 'em go crazy."

  "Will the guerrillas begin shootin' at us as soon's we cross the river?"

  "Can't tell. Guerrillas's like the nose-bleed--likely to come on you atany time. They're jest where you find 'em--that's when they're jumpin'you.. When they aint jumpin' you, they're lawabiding Union citizens,entitled to the protection o' the laws and to draw rations from theCommissary. To make no mistake, you want to play every man in citizen'sclothes south of the Ohio River for a rebel. And when you don't see him,you want to be surer than ever, for then he's layin' for you."

  Si came up at this moment with orders for them to pick up and go down tothe ferry, and the lively hustle shut off Shorty's stream of informationfor the time being. The boys swarmed on to the bow of the ferry-boat,where they could scrutinize and devour with eager eyes the fateful shoreof Kentucky.

  "Don't look so very different from the Indiana side," said Harry Joslyn,as they neared the wharf. "Same kind o' wharf-boats and same kind o' menon 'em."

  "That's because we've taken 'em and have our own men there," replied GidMackall. "It'll all be different when we git ashore and further into theState."

  "Wasn't expecting nothing else," said Albert Grimes. "I've been watchin'the Sargint and Corpril, and they're acting just as if it was everyday bizniss. I'm not going to expect anything till I see them lookin'serious."

  They landed and walked to the depot through the streets of Louisville,which were also disappointingly like those they had seen elsewhere, withthe stores open and people going about their business, as if no shadowof war brooded over the land. There were some more soldiers on thestreets, and a considerable portion of the vehicles were army wagons,but this was all.

  "When'll we see some rebels?" the boys asked.

  "Don't be impatient," said a soldier on the sidewalk; "you'll see 'emsoon enough, and more'n you want to. You'll have to go a little further,but you'll find the woods full of 'em. You'll be wishin' you was backhome in your little trundle-beds, where they ought've kept you."

  "Shut up, you coffee-boiler," shouted Shorty, striding toward him."These boys 's goin' to the front, where you ought to be, and I won'thave you sayin' a word to discourage 'em."

  "Too bad about discouraging 'em," laughed another, who had a justerappreciation of the situation. "You couldn't discoura
ge that drove ofkids with a hickory club."

  After the train left Louisville it passed between two strong fortsbristling with heavy guns. Here was a reality of war, and the boys' tideof questions became a torrent that for once overslaughed Shorty's finetalent for fiction and misinformation.

  "How many battles had been fought there?"

  "How many Union soldiers had been killed?"

  "How many rebels?"

  "Where were they buried?"

  "How big a ball did the guns shoot?"

  "How far would it carry?"

  "How many men would it kill if they were put one behind another?"

  "How near would the guns come to hitting a man a mile off?"

  "Could the gunner knock a man's head off, or one of his legs, just as hepleased?"

  "Were the guns rifled or smooth-bore?"

  "How much powder did it take to load them?"

  "How hard did they kick when they were fired?"

  "Did they have flint-locks or caps?"

  "Did they ever fire chain-shot, which would cut down trees and sweepaway companies of men?"

  "If all the rest of the men were killed wouldn't the powder-monkey get achance to fire the gun?"

  "Look here, boys," gasped Shorty, when he got a chance to answer, "I'dlike to answer your questions and fill you so plumb full o' informationthat your hides'd crack to hold it. But I aint no complete history o'the war with heavy artillery tactics bound up in one volume. All I knowis that the worst dose them forts ever give was to the fellers that hadto build 'em. After you've dug and shoveled and wheeled on one of 'emfor about a month you'll hate the very sight of 'em and never ask noquestions about 'em. All you'll want'll be to find and kill the fellerthat invented them brick-red eruptions on the face o' the earth."

  This was a prosaic side of the war that had not occurred to the boys.

  'HERE, YOU YOUNG BRATS, WHAT ARE YOU UP TO 225]

  As the train ran out into the country there were plentiful signs of warto rivet the attention of the youngsters--hospitals, with the emaciatedpatients strolling feebly about; corrals of mules and horses, the wasteand wreckage where camps had been, and bridges which had been burned andrebuilt.

  "But we haint seen no guerrillas yit," said Harry Joslyn and GidMackall, whose minds seemed more fascinated with that species of anenemy than any other, and they apparently voiced the minds of the rest."When're we likely to see some guerrillas?"

  "O, the guerrillas are layin' purty low now, betwixt here andNashville," Si carelessly explained. "After we pass Nashville you kinbegin to look out for 'em."

  "Why," Gid Mackall complained to the rest of them, "Corpril Elliott saidthat we could begin to look out for guerrillas jest as soon's we crossedthe Ohio--that the whole o' Kentucky was full of 'em. I believe CorprilElliott knows more about his business than Sargint Klegg. Sargint Kleggseems careless like. I see lots o' fellers along the road in butternutclothes that seemed savage and sneaky like. They looked at us in a waythat made me certain they wuz spying us, and had their guns hid awaysomewhere, ready to jump us whenever there wuz a good chanst."

  "So did I," chorused the others.

  The train made a long stop on a switch and manuvered around a while,taking on some cars found there, and Si and Shorty seeing nothing to dowent forward to another car, where they found some returning veterans,and were soon absorbed in a game of seven-up. Shorty had justsuccessfully turned a jack from the bottom, and was snickering tohimself that his fingers had not lost their cunning by long idleness,when the game was interrupted by a train-hand rushing up with theinformation:

  "Here, you fellers, you want to git out there and 'tend to them kids o'your'n. They've got a couple o' citizens down there in the brush and Ibelieve are goin' to hang 'em."

  Si and Shorty ran down in the direction indicated. They found theboys, stern-eyed and resolute, surrounding two weak-eyed, trembling"crackers," who had apparently come to the train with baskets ofleathery-crusted dried-apple pies for sale. The men were specimens ofthe weak-minded, weak-bodied, lank-haired "po' white trash," but theboys had sized them up on sight as dangerous spies and guerrillas,had laid hands on them and dragged them down into the brush, where GidMackall and Harry Joslyn were doing a fair reproduction of Williams,Paulding and Van Wert searching Maj. Andre's clothes for incriminatingdocuments. They had the prisoners' hands tied behind them and theirankles bound. So far they had discovered a clumsy brass-barreled pistoland an ugly-looking spring dirk, which were sufficient to confirm thedangerous character of the men. Two of the boys had secured ropes fromthe train, which they were trying to fashion into hangman's nooses. Gidand Harry finished a painstaking examination of the men's ragged jeansvests, with a look of disappointment at finding nothing more inculpatingthat some fishhooks, chunks of twist tobacco and cob-pipes.

  "They must have 'em in their boots, boys. Pull 'em off," said Harry."There's where spies usually carry their most important papers."

  "Here, you young brats, what are you up to?" demanded Si, striding inamong them.

  "Why, Sargint," said Harry Joslyn, speaking as if confident of beingengaged in a praisworthy work, which should receive the commendation ofhis superiors, "these're two spies and guerrillas that we ketched rightin the act, and we're searchin' 'em for evidence to hang 'em."

  "Spies nothin'!" said Si. "Why, them fellers hain't brains enough totell a battery from a regiment, nor pluck enough to take a settin' henoffen her nest. Let them go at once."

  "Why, Corpril Elliott told us that every man in Kentucky, particularlythem what sold pies, wuz dangerous, and liable to go guerrillying at anyminute," said Harry in an aggrieved tone. "These fellers seemed to besneakin' down to find that we hadn't no guns and then jump us."

  "Well, what I said wuz true on jineral principles," laughed Shorty. "Butthere's occasionally exceptions to even what I tell you. These fellersare as harmless as garter-snakes. Why didn't you come and speak to us?"

  "Why, you shoved our car out there into the brush and went off andleft us. We thought we had to look out for ourselves," explained Harry."Can't we hang 'em, anyway?" he added in an appealing tone, and the restof the boys looked wistfully at Si for permission to proceed.

  "No, you can't, I tell you. Turn 'em loose this minute, and give 'emback their things, and go yourselves to your car. We're goin' to startnow. Here," he continued to the two men, "is a dollar. Take your piesand dig out. Don't attempt to sell any o' them pies to these boys, orI'll hang you myself, and there won't be no foolishness about it. Gitback to your car, boys."

  "There won't be no hangin', and we won't git none o' the pies,"complained the boys among themselves. "Sargint Klegg's gittin'overbearin'. What'd he interfere for? Them fellers was guerrillas, assure as you're born, just as Corpril Elliott described 'em before wecrossed the river."