Si Klegg, Book 1
Page 4
Later in the service Si learned the inestimable value of coffee tothe soldier on the march. Then he stript the cloth from his canteen,fastened the strand with bits of wire and made a fine coffee-pot ofit. In the morning he would half fill it with the splendid coffee iheGovernment furnished, fill it up with water and hang it from a bushor a stake over the fire, while he went ahead with his other culinarypreparations. By the time these were finished he would have at least aquart of magnificent coffee that the cook of the Fifth Avenue couldnot surpass, and which would last him until the regiment halted in theafternoon.
The bully of the 200th took it into his thick head one day to try to"run over" Si. The latter had just filled his canteen, and the bullyfound that the momentum of three pints of water swung at arm's lengthby an angry boy was about equal to a mule's kick.
Just as he was beginning to properly appreciate his canteen, he learneda sharp lesson, that comes to all of us, as to how much "cussedness"there can be in the simplest things when they happen to go wrong. Hewent out one day and got a canteen of nice sweet milk, which heand "Shorty" Elliott heartily enjoyed. He hung the canteen upon theridge-pole of the tent, and thought no more about it until the next day,when he came in from drill, and found the tent filled with an odor sovile that it made him cough.
"Why in thunder don't the Colonel send out a detail to find and burythat dead mule? It'll pizen the hull camp."
He had been in service just long enough to believe that the Colonelought to look out for and attend to everything.
"'Taint no dead mule," said Shorty, whose nose had come close to thesource of the odor. "It's this blamed canteen. What on earth have youbeen putting in it. Si?"
"Ha'int had nothin' in but that sweet milk yesterday."
"That's just what's the matter," said the Orderly, who, having been inthe three-months' service, knew all about war. He had come in to detailSi and Shorty to help unload Quartermaster's stores. "You must alwaysscald 'out your canteens when you've had milk in 'em. Don't you rememberhow careful your mother is to scald her milk pans?"
After the company wagon had run over and hopelessly ruined the neatlittle frying-pan which Si had brought from Posey County, he was indespair as to how he should fry his meat and cook his "lobscouse."Necessity is the mother of invention. He melted in two a canteen hepicked up, and found its halves made two deep tin pans, very light andvery handy. A split stick made a handle, and he had as good a frying-panas the one he had lost, and much more convenient, for when done usingthe handle was thrown away, and the pan slipt into the haversack, whereit lay snug and close, instead of clattering about as the frying-pan didwhen the regiment moved at the double-quick.
The other half of the canteen was useful to brown coffee, bake hoe-cake,and serve for toilet purposes.
One day on the Atlanta campaign the regiment moved up in line to thetop of a bald hill. As it rose above the crest it was saluted with aterrific volley, and saw that another crest across the narrow valley wasoccupied by at least a brigade of rebels.
"We'll stay right here, boys," said the plucky little Colonel, who hadonly worn Sergeant's stripes when the regiment crossed the Ohio River."We've preempted this bit of real estate, and we'll hold it against thewhole Southern Confederacy. Break for that fence there, boys, and everyfellow come back with a couple of rails."
It seemed as if he hardly ceased speaking when the boys came runningback with the rails which they laid down along the crest, and droppedflat behind them, began throwing the gravelly soil over them with theiruseful half-canteens. In vain the shower of rebel bullets struck andsang about them. Not one could penetrate that little ridge of earth andrails, which in an hour grew into a strong rifle-pit against which thewhole rebel brigade charged, only to sustain a bloody repulse.
The war would have lasted a good deal longer had it not been for thedaily help of the ever-useful half-canteen.