Si Klegg, Book 3

by John McElroy

  CHAPTER XII. THE BAN ON WET GOODS

  SI HAS A HARD TIME TRYING TO KEEP WHISKY OUT OF CAMP.

  "DETAIL for guard to-morrow," sang out the Orderly-Sergeant, after he hadfinished the evening roll-call: "Bailey, Belcher, Doolittle, Elliott,Fracker, Gleason, Hendricks, Hummerson. Long, Mansur, Nolan, Thompson."

  "Corp'l Klegg, you will act as Sergeant of the Guard.

  "Dan Elliott will act as Corporal of the Guard." It is one of thepeculiarities of men that the less they have to do the less they want todo. The boys of Co. Q were no different from the rest. When they were inactive service a more lively, energetic crowd could not be found in thearmy. They would march from daybreak till midnight, and build roads, digditches, and chop trees on the way. They were ready and willing for anyservice, and none were louder than they in their condemnation when theythought that the officers did not order done what should be. But whenlying around camp, with absolutely nothing to do but ordinary routine,they developed into the laziest mortals that breathed. To do a turn ofguard duty was a heart-breaking affliction, and the Orderly-Sergeant'sannouncement of those who were detailed for the morrow brought forth ayell of protest from every man whose name was called.{165}

  "I only come off guard day before yesterday," shouted Bailey.

  "I'm sick, and can't walk a step," complained Belcher, who had walked 15miles the day before, hunting "pies-an'-milk."

  "That blamed Orderly's got a spite at me; he'd keep me on guard everyday in the week," grumbled Doolittle.

  "I was on fatigue dooty only yesterday," protested Fracker, who had tohelp carry the company rations from the Commissary's tent.

  "I'm goin' to the Surgeon an' git an excuse," said Gleason, who hadsprained his wrist a trifle in turning a handspring.

  So it went through the whole list.

  "I want to see every gun spick-and-span, every blouse brushed andbuttoned, and every shoe neatly blacked, when I march you up to theAdjutant," said the Orderly, entirely oblivious to the howls. "If any ofyou don't, he'll have a spell of digging up roots on the parade. I won'thave such a gang of scarecrows as I have had to march out the lastfew days. You fellows make a note of that, and govern yourselvesaccordingly."

  "Right face--Break ranks--March!"

  "Corp'l Klegg," said the Officer of the Day the next morning, as Si waspreparing to relieve the old guard, "the Colonel is very much worked upover the amount of whisky that finds its way into camp. Now that we areout here by ourselves we certainly ought to be able to control this. Yetthere was a disgusting number of drunken men in camp yesterday, anda lot of trouble that should not be. The Colonel has{166} talked verystrongly on this subject, and he expects us to-day to put a stop tothis. I want you to make an extra effort to keep whisky out. I think youcan do it if you try real hard."

  "I'll do my best, sir," said Si, saluting.

  "Shorty," Si communed with his next in rank before they started on theirrounds with the first relief, "we must see that there's no whisky brunginto camp this day."

  "You jest bet your sweet life there won't be, either," returnedShorty. He felt not a little elated over his brevet rank and theresponsibilities of his position as Corporal of the Guard. "This herecamp'll be as dry as the State o' Maine to-day."

  It was a hot, dull day, with little to occupy the time of those offguard. As usual, Satan was finding "some mischief for idle hands to do."

  After he put on the first relief, Si went back to the guard tent andbusied himself awhile over the details of work to be found there. Therewere men under sentence of hard labor that he had to find employmentfor, digging roots, cleaning up the camp, chopping wood and makingtrenches. He got the usual chin-music from those whom he set to enforcedtoil, about the injustice of their sentences and "the airs that somefolks put on when they wear a couple of stripes," but he tookthis composedly, and after awhile went the rounds to look over hisguard-line, taking Shorty with him.

  Everything seemed straight and soldierly, and they sat down by a coolspring in a little shady hollow.

  "Did you ever notice, Shorty," said Si, speculatively, as he looked overthe tin cup of cool water he{167} was sipping, "how long and straightand string-like the cat-brier grows down here in this country? You see25 or 30 feet of it at times no thicker'n wooltwine. Now, there's apiece layin' right over there, on t'other side o' the branch, more'n arod long, and no thicker'n a rye straw."

  "I see it, an' I never saw a piece o' cat-brier move endwise before,"said Shorty, fixing his eyes on the string-like green.

  "As sure's you're alive, it is movin'," said Si, starting to rise.

  "Set still, keep quiet an' watch," admonished Shorty. "You'll find outmore."

  Si sat still and looked. The direction the brier was moving was towardthe guard-line, some 100 feet away to the left. About the same distanceto the right was a thicket of alders, where Si thought he heard voices.There were indications in the weeds that the cat-brier extended tothere.

  The brier maintained its outward motion. Presently a clump of rags wasseen carried along by it.

  "They're sending out their money for whisky," whispered Shorty. "Keepquiet, and we'll confiscate the stuff when it comes in."

  They saw the rag move straight toward the guardline, and pass under thelog on which the sentry walked when he paced his beat across the branch.It finally disappeared in a bunch of willows.

  Presently a bigger rag came out from the willows, in response to thebackward movement of the long cat-brier, and crawled slowly back underthe log and into camp. As it came opposite Si jumped out, put hisfoot on the cat-brier and lifted up the rag. He{168} found, as he hadexpected, that it wrapped up a pint flask of whisky.

  "O, come off, Si; come off, Shorty!" appealed some of Co. Q from thealders. "Drop that. You ain't goin' to be mean, boy's. You don't need toknow nothin' about that, an' why go makin' yourselves fresh when there'sno necessity? We want that awful bad, and we've paid good money for it."

  "No, sir," said Shorty sternly, as he twisted the bottle off, andsmashed it on the stones. "No whisky goes into this camp. I'm astonishedat you. Whisky's a cuss. It's the bane of the army. It's the worm thatnever dies. Its feet lead down to hell. Who hath vain babblings? Whohath redness of eyes? The feller that drinks likker, and especiallyTennessee rotgut."

  "O, come off; stop that dinged preaching, Shorty," said one impatiently."There's nobody in this camp that likes whisky better'n you do; there'snobody that'll go further to get it, an' there's nobody up to moretricks to beat the guard."

  "What I do as a private soldier, Mr. Blakesley," said Shorty withdignity, "haint nothing to do with my conduct when I'm chargedwith responsible dooty. It's my dooty to stop the awful practice o'likker-drinkin' in this camp, an' I'm goin' to do it, no matter what thecost. You jest shet up that clam-shell o' your'n an' stop interferingwith your officers."

  Si and Shorty went outside the lines to the clump of willows, but theywere not quick enough to catch Groundhog, the teamster, and the civilianwhom our readers will remember as having his head shaved in the camp atMurfreesboro some weeks before. They{169} found, however, a jug ofnew and particularly rasping apple-jack. There was just an instant ofwavering in Shorty's firmness when he uncorked the jug and smelled itscontents. He lifted it to his lips, to further confirm its character,and Si trembled, for he saw the longing in his partner's eyes. Thelatter's hand shook a little as the first few drops touched his tongue,but with the look of a hero he turned and smashed the jug on a stone.

  "You're solid. Shorty," said Si.

  "Yes, but it was an awful wrench. Le's git away from the smell o' thestuff," answered Shorty. "I'm afraid it'll be too much for me yit."

  "Corporal of the Guard, Post No. 1."

  "Sergeant of the Guard, Post No. 1," came down the line of sentries asthe two boys were sauntering back to camp.

  "Somethin's happening over there at the gate," said Si, and theyquickened their steps in the direction of the main entrance to the camp.

  They found there a lank,
long-haired, ragged Tennesseean, with atattered hat of white wool on his head. His scanty whiskers wereweather-beaten, he had lost most of his front teeth, and as he talkedhe spattered everything around with tobacco-juice. He rode on a blind,raw-bone horse, which, with a dejected, broken-down mule, was attachedby ropes, fragments of straps, withes, and pawpaw bark to a shacklywagon.

  In the latter were some strings of dried apples, a pile of crescentsof dried pumpkins, a sack of meal, a few hands of tobacco, and a jug ofbuttermilk.

  "I want t' go inter the camps an' sell a leetle jag{170} o' truck,"the native explained, as he drenched the surrounding weeds withtobacco-juice. "My ole woman's powerful sick an' ailin', an' I need somemoney awfully t' git her some quinine. Yarbs don't seem t' do her nosort o' good. She must have some Yankee quinine, and she's nigh deadfer some Yankee coffee. This war's mouty hard on po' people. Hit's jestkillin' 'em by inches, by takin' away their coffee an' quinine. I'm aUnion man, an' allers have bin."

  "You haint got any whisky in that wagon, have you?" asked Si.

  "O, Lord, no! nary mite. You don't think I'd try t' take whisky intocamp, do you? I'm not sich a bad man as that. Besides, whar'd I gitwhisky? The war's broke up all the 'stilleries in the country. What theConfedrits didn't burn yo'uns did. I've bin sufferin' for months fur adram o' whisky, an' as fur my ole woman, she's nearly died. That's thereason the yarbs don't do her no good. She can't get no whisky to soak'em in."

  "He's entirely too talkative about the wickedness o' bringin' whiskyinto camp," whispered Shorty. "He's bin there before. He's an old handat the business."

  "Sure you've got no whisky?" said Si.

  "Sartin, gentlemen; sarch my wagon, if you don't take my word. I onlywish I knowed whar thar wuz some whisky. I'd walk 20 miles in the raint' git one little flask fur my ole woman and myself. I tell you, tharhaint a drap t' be found in the hull Duck River Valley. 'Stilleriesall burnt, I tell you." And in the earnestness of his protestations hesprayed his team,{171} himself, and the neighboring weeds with liquidtobacco.

  Si stepped back and carefully searched the wagon, opening the mealsack, uncorking the buttermilk jug, and turning over the dried apples,pumpkins and tobacco. There certainly was no whisky there.

  Shorty stood leaning on his musket and looking at the man. He was prettysure that the fellow had had previous experience in running whisky intocamp, and was up to the tricks of the trade. Instead of a saddle theman had under him an old calico quilt, whose original gaudy colors weresadly dimmed by the sun, rain, and dirt. Shorty stepped forward andlifted one corner. His suspicions were right. It had an under pocket,in which was a flat, half-pint flask with a cob stopper, and filled withapple-jack so new that it was as colorless as water.

  "I wuz jest bringin' that 'ere in fur you, Capting," said theTennesseean, with a profound wink and an unabashed countenance. "Stickhit in your pocket, quick. None o' the rest 's seed you."

  Shorty flung the bottle down and ordered the man off his horse. Thequilt was examined. It contained a half-dozen more flasks, each holdinga "half-pint of throat-scorch and at least two fights," as Shortyexpressed it. A clumsy leather contrivance lay on the hames of the mule.Flasks were found underneath this, and the man himself was searched.More flasks were pulled out from the tail pockets of his ragged coat;from his breast; from the crown of his ragged hat.

  "Well," said Shorty, as he got through, "you're a regler grogshop onwheels. All you need is a lot{172} o' loafers talkin' politics, afew picturs o' racin' hosses and some customers buried in the villagegraveyard to be a first-class bar-room. Turn around and git back to thatole woman o' your'n, or we'll make you sicker'n she is."

  Si and Shorty marched around with the second relief, and then sat downto talk over the events of the morning.

  "I guess we've purty well settled the whisky business for to-day, atleast," said Si. "The Colonel can't complain of us. I don't think we'llhave any more trouble. Seems to me that there can't be no more whisky inthis part o' Tennessee, from the quantity we've destroyed."

  "Don't be too dinged sure o' that," said Shorty. "Whisky seems to brewas naturally in this country as the rosin to run out o' the pinetrees. I never saw sich a country fur likker. They have more stills inTennessee than blacksmith shops, and they work stiddier."

  Si looked down the road and saw returning a wagon which had been sentout in the morning for forage. It was well loaded, and the guards whowere marching behind had a few chickens and other supplies that they hadgathered up.

  "Boys seem to be purty fresh, after their tramp," said he, with thefirst thought of a soldier looking at marching men. "They've all gottheir guns at carry arms. I noticed that as they came over the hill."

  "Yes," answered Shorty, after a glance, "and they're holdin' 'em up verystiff an' straight. That gives mo an idee. Lo's go over there an' take alook at 'em."{173}

  Shorty had sniffed at a trick that he had more than once played ingetting the forbidden beverage past the lynx-eyed sentry.

  "Don't you find it hard work to march at routstep with your guns at acarry?" he said insinuatingly. "No need o' doin' that except on paradeor drill. Right-shoulder-shift or arms-at-will is the thing when you'reon the road."

  "H-s-sh," said the leading file, with a profound wink and a sidelongglance at Si. "Keep quiet, Shorty," he added in a stage whisper. "We'llgive you some. It's all right. We'll whack up fair."

  "No, it ain't all right," said Shorty, with properly offended officialdignity. "Don't you dare offer to bribe me, Buck Harper, when I'm onduty. Hand me that gun this minute."

  Harper shamefacedly handed over the musket, still holding it carefullyupright. Shorty at once reversed it and a stream of whisky ran out uponthe thirsty soil.

  Si grasped the situation, and disarmed the others with like result.

  "I ought to put every one o' you in' the guardhouse for this. It's luckythat the Officer of the Guard wasn't here. He'd have done it. There hecomes now. Skip out after the wagon, quick, before he gits on to you."

  "What next?" sighed Si. "Is the whole world bent on bringin' whisky intothis camp? Haint they got none for the others?"

  "Sergeant of the Guard, Post No. 1," rang out upon the hot air. Siwalked over again to the entrance, and saw seeking admission a tall,bony{174} woman, wearing a dirty and limp sunbonnet and smoking acorn-cob pipe. She was mounted on a slab-sided horse, with ribs like awashboard, and carried a basket on her arm covered with a coarse clothnone too clean.

  "Looks as if she'd bin picked before she was ripe and got awfully warpedin the dryin'. All the same she's loaded with whisky," commented Shortyas the woman descended from her saddle and approached the sentry with anair of resolute demand.

  "You haint got no right to stop me, young feller," she said. "I come inhyar every day an' bring pies. Your Jinerul said I could, an' he wantedme to. His men want my pies, an' they do 'em good. Hit's homecookin',an' takes the taste o' the nasty camp vittles out o' their mouths, an'makes 'em healthy. You jest raise yer gun, an' let me go right in, orI'll tell yer Jinerul, an' he'll make it warm fur yer. I've got a passfrom him."

  "Let me see your pass," said Si, stepping forward. The woman unhookedher linsey dress, fumbled around in the recesses, and finally produced asoiled and crumpled paper, which, when straightened out, read:

  "Mrs. Sarah Bolster has permission to pass in and out of the camp of the 200th Indiana Volunteer Infantry.

  "By order of Col. Quackenbush.

  "D. L. Blakemore, Lieut. & Adj't."

  "What've you got in that basket?" asked Si, still hesitating.

  "Pies," she answered confidently. "The best pies you ever seed. Some of'em pumpkin; but the rest{175} of 'em dried apple, with lots o' 'lassesin fur sweetenin'. Your mother never baked better pies 'n 'em."

  "To my mind," muttered Shorty, as he stepped forward to investigate thebasket, "she's the kind o' a woman I'd like to have bake pies for a gango' State's prison birds that I wanted to kill off without the trouble o'hangin'. Say, ma'am, are your
pies pegged or sewed? What'd you use forshortenen'--injy rubber or Aunt Jemimy's plaster?" he continued as heturned back the cloth and surveyed the well-known specimens of mountainbaking which were as harmful to Uncle Sam's boys as the bullets of theirenemies.

  "Young feller, none o' yer sass," she said severely. "Them's better piesthan ye're used ter. Folks that's never had nothin' air allers the mostpartickeler, an' turnin' up thar noses at rayly good things. Don'tfool with me no more, but let me go on inter camp, fur the soljers airexpectin' me."

  "Sure you haint got no whisky down in the bottom o' that basket?" saidSi, pushing the pies about a little, to get a better look.

  The indignation of the woman at this insinuation was stunning. She tookher pipe out of her mouth to better express her contempt for men whowould insult a Southern lady by such a hint--one, too, that had been ofso much benefit to the soldiers by toiling over the hot oven to preparefor them food more acceptable than the coarse rations their stingyGovernment furnished them. She had never been so insulted in her life,and she would bring down on them dire punishment from the Colonel.

  Several experiences with the tongue-lashings of{176} Southern viragoeshad made Si and Shorty less impressed by them than they had beenearlier in their service. Still, they had the healthy young man's awe ofanything that wore skirts, and the tirade produced its effect, but notstrong enough to eradicate the belief that she was a whisky-bringer.While she stormed Si kept his eyes fixed upon the scant linsey dresswhich draped her tall form. Presently he said to Shorty:

  "What do you think? Shall we let her go in?" Shorty whispered back withgreat deliberation: "Si, what I know about the female form don't amountto shucks. Least of all the Tennessee female form. But I've been lookin'that 'ere woman over carefully while she's been jawin', an' while she'snaturally covered with knots and knobs in places where it seems to methat women generally don't have 'em, I can't help believin' that she'sgot some knots and knobs that naturally don't belong to her. In otherwords, she's got a whole lot o' flasks of whisky under her skirts."

  "Jest what I've been suspicionin'," said Si. "I've heard that that's theway lots o' whisky is brung into camp. Shorty, as Corporal o' the Guard,it's your duty to search her."

  "What!" yelled Shorty, horror-struck at the immodest thought. "Si Klegg,are you gone plum crazy?"

  "Shorty," said Si firmly, "it's got to be done. She's got a pass, andthe right to go into camp. We're both o' the opinion that she's carryin'in whisky. If she was a man there'd be no doubt that she'd have to besearched. I don't understand that the law{177} knows any differencein persons. No matter what you may think about it, it is your duty, asCorporal o' the Guard, to make the search."

  "No, sir-ree," insisted Shorty. "You're Sergeant o' the Guard, and it'syour dooty to make all searches."

  "Shorty," expostulated Si, "I'm much younger and modester'n you are, an'haint seen nearly so much o' the world. You ought to do this. Besides,you're under my orders, as Actin' Corporal. I order you to make thesearch."

  "Si Klegg," said Shorty firmly, "I'll see you and all the Corporals andSergeants betwixt here and Washington in the middle o' next week beforeI'll do it. You may buck-and-gag me, and tie me up by the thumbs, andthen I won't. I resign my position as Corporal right here, and'll takeby gun and go on post."

  "What in the world are we goin' to do?" said Si desperately. "If we lether in, she'll fill the camp full o' whisky, and she'll have to go in,unless we kin show some reason for keepin' her out. Hold on; I've got anidee."

  He went up to the woman and said:

  "You say you want to go into camp to sell your pies?"

  "Yes, sir, an' I want to go in right off--no more foolin' around," sheanswered tartly.

  "How many pies've you got?"

  She went through a laborious counting, and finally announced: "Eightaltogether."

  "How much are they worth?"

  "Fifty cents apiece."{178}

  "Very good," announced Si taking some money from his pocket. "That comesto $4. I'll take the lot and treat the boys. Here's your money. Nowyou've got no more business in camp, jest turn around and mosey forhome. You've made a good day's business, and ought to be satisfied."

  The woman scowled with disappointment. But she wisely concluded thatshe h'd better be content with the compromise, remounted her horse anddisappeared down the road.

  "That was a sneak out of a difficulty," Si confessed to Shorty; "but youwere as big a coward as I was."

  "No, I wasn't," insisted Shorty, still watchful. "You'd no right toorder me do something that you was afraid to do yourself. That's no kindo' officering."

  {179}