Si Klegg, Book 1

by John McElroy

  CHAPTER IX. SI GETS A LETTER

  AND WRITES ONE TO PRETTY ANNABEL, UNDER DIFFICULTIES.

  "COMPANY Q, tumble up here and git yer mail!" shouted the Orderly oneafternoon, soon after the 200th Ind. turned into a tobacco patch tobivouac for the night. It had been two weeks since the regiment leftLouisville, and this was the first mail that had caught up with it.

  It seemed to the boys as if they had been away from home a year. For awhole fortnight they hadn't heard a word from their mothers, or sisters,or their "girls." Si Klegg couldn't have felt more lonesome and forsakenif he had been Robinson Crusoe.

  In the excitement of distributing the mail everything else wasforgotten.. The boys were all getting their suppers, but at the thoughtof letters from home even hunger had to take a back seat.

  Si left his coffee-pot to tip over into the fire, and his bacon sizzlingin the frying-pan, as he elbowed his way into the crowd that huddledaround the Orderly.

  "If there ain't more'n one letter for me," said Si softly to himself, "Ihope it'll be from Annabel; but, of course, I'd like to hear from Ma andsister Marier, too!"

  The Orderly, with a big package of letters in his hand, was callingout the names, and as the boys received their letters they distributedthemselves through the camp, squatting about on rails or on the ground,devouring with the greatest avidity the welcome messages from home. Thecamp looked as if there had been a snowstorm.

  Si waited anxiously to hear his name called as the pile letters rapidlygrew smaller, and he began to think he was going to get left.

  "Josiah Klegg!" at length shouted the Orderly, as he held out twoletters. Si snatched them from his hand, went off by himself, and satdown on a log.

  Si looked at his letters and saw that one of them was addressed in apretty hand. He had never received a letter from Annabel before, but he"felt it in his bones" that this one was from her. He glanced around tobe certain nobody was looking at him, and gently broke the seal, whilea ruddy glow overspread his beardless cheeks. But he was secure fromobservation, as everybody else was similarly intent.

  "Dear Si," the letter began. He didn't have to turn over to the bottomof the last page to know what name he would find there. He read thosewords over and over a dozen times, and they set his nerves tinglingclear down to his toe-nails. Si forgot his aches and blisters as he readon through those delicious lines.

  IT'S FROM ANNABEL 081 ]

  She wrote how anxious she was to hear from him and how cruel it was ofhim not to write to her real often; how she lay awake nights thinkingabout him down among those awful rebels; how she supposed that bythis time he must be full of bullet-holes; and didn't he ge' hungrysometimes, and wasn't it about time for him to get a furlough? how itwas just too mean for anything that those men down South had to get up awar; how proud she was of Si because he had 'listed, and how she watchedthe newspapers every day to find some thing about him; how she wonderedhow many rebels he had killed, and if he had captured any batteriesyet--she said she didn't quite know what batteries were, but she read agood deal about capturing 'em, and she supposed it was something all thesoldiers did; how she hoped he wouldn't forget her, and she'd like tosee how he looked, now that he was a real soldier, and her father hadsold the old "mooley" cow, and Sally Perkins was engage to Jim Johnson,who had stayed at home, and as for herself she wouldn't have anybody buta soldier about the size of Si, and 'Squire Jones's son had been tryingto shine up to her and cut Si out, but she sent him off with a flea inhis ear.

  "Yours till deth, Annabel."

  The fact that there was a word misspelt now and then did not detract inthe least from the letter, so pleasing to Si. In fact, he was a littlelame in orthography himself, so that he had neither the ability nor thedisposition to scan Annabel's pages with a critic's eye. Si was happy,and as he began to cast about for his supper he even viewed withcomplacence his bacon burned to a crisp and his capsized coffee-pothelplessly melting away in the fire.

  "Well, Si, what does she say?" said his friend Shorty.

  "What does who say?" replied Si, getting red in the face, and bristlingup and trying to assume an air of indifference.

  "Just look here now. Si," said Shorty, "you can't play that on me. Howabout that rosy-cheeked girl up in Posey County?"

  It was Si's tender spot. He hadn't got used to that sort of thing yet,and he felt that the emotions that made his heart throb like a sawmillwere too sacred to be fooled with. Impelled by a sudden impulse he smoteShorty fairly between the eyes, felling him to the ground.

  The Orderly, who happened to be near, took Si by the ear and marched himup to the Captain's quarters.

  "Have him carry a rail in front of my tent for an hour!" thundered theCaptain. "Don't let it be a splinter, either; pick out a good, heavyone. And, Orderly, detail a guard to keep Mr. Klegg moving."

  SI CARRIES A RAIL 083 ]

  Of course, it was very mortifying to Si, and he would have been almostheartbroken had he not been comforted by the thought that it was all forher! At first he felt as if he would like to take that rail and chargearound and destroy the whole regiment; but, on thinking it over, he madeup his mind that discretion was the better part of valor.

  As soon as Si's hour was up, and he had eaten supper and "made up" withShorty, he set about answering his letter. When, on his first march, Sicleaned out all the surplusage from his knapsack, he had hung on to apretty portfolio that his sister gave him. This was stocked with postagestamps and writing materials, including an assortment of the envelopesof the period, bearing in gaudy colors National emblems, stirringlegends, and harrowing scenes of slaughter, all intended to stimulatethe patriotic impulses and make the breast of the soldier a very volcanoof martial ardor.

  When Si got out his nice portfolio he found it to be an utter wreck. Ithad been jammed into a shapeless mass, and, besides this, it had beensoaked with rain; paper and envelopes were a pulpy ruin, and the postagestamps were stuck around here and there in the chaos. It was plain thatthis memento of home had fallen an early victim to the hardships ofcampaign life, and that its days of usefulness were over.

  "It's no use; 'tain't any good," said Si sorrowfully, as he tossed thedebris into the fire, after vainly endeavoring to save from the wreckenough to carry, out his epistolary scheme.

  Then he went to the sutler--or "skinner," as he was better known--andpaid 10 cents for a sheet of paper and an envelope, on which were thecheerful words, "It is sweet to die for one's country!" and 10 centsmore for a 3-cent postage stamp. He borrowed a leadpencil, hunted up apiece of crackerbox, and sat down to his work by the flickering light ofthe fire. Si wrote:

  "Deer Annie."

  There he stopped, and while he was scratching his head and thinkingwhat he would say next the Orderly came around detailing guards for thenight, and directed Klegg to get his traps and report at once for duty.

  SI WRITES TO "DEER ANNIE." 085 ]

  "It hain't my turn," said Si. "There's Bill Brown, and Jake Schneider,and Pat Dooley, and a dozen more--I've been since they have!"

  But the Orderly did not even deign to reply. Si remembered theguard-house, and his shoulder still ached from the rail he had carriedthat evening; so he quietly folded up his paper and took his place withthe detail.

  The next morning the army moved early, and Si had no chance to resumehis letter. As soon as the regiment halted, after an 18-mile march,he tackled it again. This time nothing better offered in the way of awriting-desk than a tin plate, which he placed face downward upon hisknee. Thus provided, Si plunged briskly into the job before him, withthe following result:

  "I now take my pen in hand to let you know that I am well, except thedoggoned blisters on my feet, and I hope these few lines may find youenjoying the same blessings."

  Si thought this was neat and a good start for his letter. Just as he hadcaught an idea for the next sentence a few scattering shots were heardon the picket-line, and in an instance the camp was in commotion. "Tallin!" "Be lively, men!" were heard on every hand.

>   Si sprang as if he had received a galvanic shock, cramming the letterinto his pocket. Of course, there wasn't any fight. It was only one ofthe scares that formed so large a part of that campaign. But it spoiledSi's letter-writing for the time.

  It was nearly a week before he got his letter done. He wrote part ofit using for a desk the back of a comrade who was sitting asleep by thefire. He worked at it whenever he could catch a few minutes between themarches and the numerous details for guard, picket, fatigue and otherduty. He said to Annie:

  AN ARMY WRITING-DESK 087 ]

  "Bein' a soljer aint quite what they crack it up to be when they're gittin' a fellow to enlist. It's mity rough, and you'd better believe it. You ought to be glad you're a gurl and don't haf to go. I wish't I was a gurl sometimes. I haven't kild enny rebbles yet. I hain't even seen one except a fiew raskils that was tuk in by the critter soljers, they calls em cavilry. Me and all the rest of the boys wants to hav a fite, but it looks like Ginral Buil was afeared, and we don't git no chance. I axed the Ordly couldn't he get me a furlow. The Ordly jest laft and says to me, Si, says he, yer don't know as much as a mule. The Capt'n made me walk up and down for an hour with a big rail on my sholder.

  "You tell Squire Joneses boy that he haint got sand enuff to jine the army, and if he don't keep away from you I'll bust his eer when I git home, if I ever do. Whattle you do if I shouldn't ever see you agin? But you no this glorus Govyment must be pertected, and the bully Stars and Strips must flote, and your Si is goin to help do it.

  "My pen is poor, my ink is pale, My luv for you shall never fale.

  "Yours, aflfeckshnitly, Si Klegg."