Si Klegg, Book 4

by John McElroy

  CHAPTER XIX. TEDIOUS CONVALESCENCE

  THE DEACON COMMITS A CRIME AGAINST HIS CONSCIENCE.

  "YOU are the father of that boy in the far end of the tent," said theSurgeon coming up to the Deacon, who had stepped outside of the tent toget an opportunity to think clearly. "I'm very glad you have come, forhis life hangs by a thread. That thread is his pluck, aided by a superbconstitution. Most men would have died on the field from such a wound.Medicine can do but little for him; careful nursing much more; buthis own will and your presence and encouragement will do far more thaneither."

  "How about Shorty?" inquired the Deacon.

  "Shorty's all right if he don't get a setback. The danger from the blowon his head is pretty near past, if something don't come in to makefurther complications. He has been pulled down pretty badly by the lowfever which has been epidemic here since we have settled down in camp,but he seems to be coming out from it all right."

  "I've come down here to do all that's possible for these two boys. Now,how kin I best do it?" asked the Deacon.

  "You can do good by helping nurse them. You could do much more good ifthere was more to do with, but we lack almost everything for the propercare of the wounded and sick. We have 15,000 men in hospital here, andnot supplies enough for 3,000. When we will get more depends onjust what luck our cavalry has in keeping the rebels off our line ofsupplies."

  "Show me what to do, give me what you kin, and I'll trust in the Lordand my own efforts for the rest."

  "Yes, and you kin count on me to assist," chimed in Shorty, who hadcome up. "I won't let you play lone hand long, Deacon, for I'm gittin'chirpier every day. If I could only fill up good and full once more onhardtack and pork, or some sich luxuries, I'd be as good as new agin."

  "You mean you'd be put to bed under three feet of red clay, if you wereallowed to eat all you want to," said the Surgeon. "There's where thewind is tempered to the shorn lamb. If you could eat as much as you wantto eat, I should speedily have to bid good-by to you. For the present,Mr. Klegg, do anything that suggests itself to you to make these mencomfortable. I need scarcely caution you to be careful about their food,for there is nothing that you can get hold of to over-feed them. Butyou'd better not let them have anything to eat until I come around againand talk to you more fully. I put them in your charge."

  The Deacon's first thought was for Si, and he bestirred himself to dowhat he thought his wife, who was renowned as a nurse, would do were shethere.

  He warmed some water, and tenderly as he could command his strong,stubby hands, washed Si's face, hands and feet, and combed his hair.The overworked hospital attendants had had no time for this much-neededministration. It was all that they could do to get the wounded undersome sort of shelter, to dress their wounds, and prepare food. No wellman could be spared from the trenches for hospital service, for thesadly-diminished Army of the Cumberland needed every man who couldcarry a musket to man the long lines to repel the constantly-threatenedassaults.

  The removal of the soil and grime of the march and battle had aremarkably vivifying effect upon Si. New life seemed to pulse throughhis veins and brightness return to his eyes.

  "Makes me feel like a new man, Pap," he said faintly. "Feels better thananything I ever knowed. Do the same to Shorty, Pap."

  "Come here, Shorty, you dirty little rascal," said the Deacon, assuminga severely maternal tone, at which Si laughed feebly but cheerily, "andlet me wash your face and comb your hair."

  Shorty demurred a little at being treated like a boy, and protested thathe could wash himself, if the Deacon would get him some warm water; buthe saw that the conceit amused Si, and submitted to having the Deacongive him a scrubbing with a soapy rag, giving a yell from time to time,in imitation of an urchin undergoing an unwilling ablution. Si turnedhis head so as to witness the operation, and grinned throughout it.

  "I think you'd both feel still better if you could have your hair cut,"said the Deacon, as he finished and looked from one to the other. "Yourhair's too long for sick people, and it makes you look sicker'n youreally are. But I hain't got no shears."

  "I know I'd feel better if I was sheared," said Shorty. "Hain't neitherof us had our hair cut since we started on the Tullyhomy campaign, and Ithink I look like the Wild Man from Borneo. I think I know a feller thathas a pair o' shears that I kin borry."

  The shears were found and borrowed. Then ensued a discussion as to thestyle of the cut. The boys wanted their hair taken off close to theirheads, 'but the Deacon demurred to this for fear they would catch cold.

  "No, Si," he said; "I'm goin' to cut your hair jest like your motherused to. She used to tie one of her garters from your forehead downacross your ears, and cut off all the hair that stuck out. I hain't anygarter, but I guess I kin find a string that'll do jest as well."

  "There," said the Deacon, as he finished shearing off the superabundanthair, and surveyed the work. "That ain't as purty a job as if yourmother'd done it, but you'll feel lighter and cleaner, and be healthier.If hair was only worth as much as wool is now, I'd have enough to payme for the job. But I must clean it up keerfully and burn it, that thebirds mayn't git hold of it and give you the headache."

  The Deacon had his little superstitions, like a great many otherhard-headed, sensible men.

  "Well, Mr. Klegg," said the Surgeon, when he made his next round,"I must congratulate you on your patients. Both show a remarkableimprovement. You ought to apply for a diploma, and go into the practiceof medicine. You have done more for them in the two or three hours thanI have been able to do in as many weeks. If you could only keep up thispace awhile I would be able to return them to duty very soon. I have anidea. Do you see that corn-crib over there?"

  "The one built of poles? Yes."

  "Well, I have some things stored there, and I have been able to hold itso far against the soldiers, who are snatching every stick of wood theycan find, for their cabins, or for the breastworks, or firewood. Idon't know how long I'll be able to keep it, unless I have personalpossession. I believe you can make it into a comfortable place for thesetwo men. That will help them, you can be by yourselves, you can takecare of my things, and it will relieve the crowd in the tent."

  "Splendid idea," warmly assented the Deacon. "I'll chink and daub it,and make it entirely comfortable, and fix up bunks in it for the boys. Iknow they'll be delighted at the change. I wonder where Shorty is?"

  The Deacon had just remembered that he had not seen that individual forsome little time, and looked around for him with some concern. It waswell that he did. Shorty had come across the haversack that the Deaconhad brought, and it awakened all his old predatory instincts, sharpened,if anything, by his feebleness. Without saying a word to any body, hehad employed the time while the Surgeon and Deacon were in conversationin preparing one of his customary gorges after a long, hard march.

  He had broken up the crackers into a tin-cup of water which sat by hisside, while he was frying out pieces of fat pork in a half-canteen.

  "My goodness, man!" shouted the Deacon, spring ing toward him. "Are youcrazy? If you eat that mess you'll be dead before morning."

  He sprang toward him, snatched the half-canteen from his hand, and threwits contents on the ground.

  "That stuff's not fit to put into an ostrich's stomach," he said. "Mr.Klegg, you will have to watch this man very carefully."

  "Can't I have none of it to eat?" said Shorty, dejectedly, with tears ofweakness and longing in his eyes.

  "Not a mouthful of that stuff," said the Surgeon; "but you may eat someof those crackers you have soaked there. Mr. Klegg, let him eat abouthalf of those crackers no more."

  Shorty looked as if the whole world had lost its charms. "Hardtackwithout grease's no more taste than chips," he murmured.

  "Never mind, Shorty," said the Deacon, pityingly; "I'll manage to findyou something that'll be better for you than that stuff."

  The Surgeon had the boys carried over to the corncrib, and the Deaconwent to work to make it as snug as possible.
All the old training ofhis pioneer days when literally with his own hands, and with the rudestmaterials, he had built a comfortable cabin in the wilderness of theWabash bottoms for his young wife came back to him. He could not see abrick, a piece of board, a stick, or a bit of iron anywhere without thethought that it might be made useful, and carrying it off. As there wereabout 40,000 other men around the little village of Chattanooga withsimilar inclinations, the Deacon had need of all his shrewdness insecuring coveted materials, but it was rare that anybody got ahead ofhim. He rearranged and patched the clapboards on the roof until itwas perfectly rain-tight, chinked up the spaces between the poles withstones, corncobs and pieces of wood, and plastered over the outside withclay, until the walls were draft proof. He hung up an old blanket for adoor, and hired a teamster to bring in a load of silky-fine beech leaveswhich, when freshly fallen, make a bed that cannot be surpassed. These,by spreading blankets over them, made very comfort able couches for Si,Shorty and himself.

  Then the great problem became one of proper food for the boys. Dailythe rations were growing shorter in Chattanooga, and if they hadbeen plentiful they were not suited to the delicate stomachs of thoseseriously ill. Si was slowly improving, but the Deacon felt that thething necessary to carry him over the breakers and land him safely onthe shores of recovery was nourishing food that he could relish.

  He had anxiously sought the entire length of the camp for somethingof that kind. He had visited all the sutlers, and canvassed thescanty stocks in the few stores in Chattanooga. He had bought the soleremaining can of tomatoes at a price which would have almost boughtthe field in which the tomatoes were raised, and he had turned over theremnant lots of herring, cheese, etc., he found at the sutler's, withdespair at imagining any sort of way in which they could be worked up tobecome appetizing and assimilative to Si's stomach.

  "What you and Si needs," he would say to Shorty, "is chicken and fresh'taters. If you could have a good mess of chicken and 'taters every dayyou'd come up like Spring shoats. I declare I'd give that crick bottommedder o' mine, which hasn't it's beat on the Wabash, to have mother'scoopful o' chickens here this minute."

  But a chicken was no more to be had in Chattanooga than a Delmonicobanquet. The table of the Major-General commanding the Army of theCumberland might have a little more hardtack and pork on it thanappeared in the tents of the privates, and be cooked a little better,but it had nothing but hardtack and pork.

  The Deacon made excursions into the country, and even ran great risksfrom the rebel pickets and bushwhackers, in search of chickens. Butthe country had been stripped, by one side or the other, of everythingeatable, and the people that remained in their cheerless homes weredependent upon what they could get from the United States Commissary.

  One day he found the Herd-Boss in camp, and poured forth his troubles tohim. The Herd-Boss sympathized deeply with him, and cudgeled his brainsfor a way to help.

  "I'll tell you what you might do," he said at length, "if you care totake the risk. We're goin' back with some teams to Bridgeport to-morrowmornin'. You might git in one of the wagons and ride back 10 or 15 milesto a little valley that I remember that's there, and which I think lookslike it hain't bin foraged. I was thinkin' as we come through the otherday that I might git something goo'd to eat up there, and I'd try itsome day. No body seems to 've noticed it yit. But it may be chock fullo' rebels, for all I know, and a feller git jumped the moment he setsfoot in it."

  "I'll take my chances," said the Deacon. "I'll go along with youto-morrer mornin'."

  The Deacon found that a ride in a wagon was not such an unqualifiedfavor as he might have thought. The poor, half-fed, overworked muleswent so slowly that the Deacon could make better time walking, and hewas too merciful to allow them to pull him up hill.

  The result was that, with helping pry the stalled wagons out and work inmaking the roads more passable, the Deacon expended more labor than ifhe had started out to walk in the first place.

  It was late in the afternoon when the Herd-Boss said:

  "There, you take that path to the right, and in a little ways you'llcome out by a purty good house. I hain't seen any Johnnies around inthis neighborhood since I've bin travelin' this route, but you'd betterkeep your eye peeled, all the same. If you see any, skip back to theroad here, and wait awhile. Somebody 'll be passin' before long."

  Thanking him, the Deacon set out for the house, hoping to be able toreach it, get some fowls, and be back to Chattanooga before morning. Ifhe got the chickens, he felt sanguine that he could save Si's life.

  He soon came in sight of the house, the only one, apparently, for miles,and scanned it carefully. There were no men to be seen, though the houseappeared to be inhabited. He took another look at the heavy revolverwhich he had borrowed from the Surgeon, and carried ready for use in thepocket of Si's overcoat, and began a strategic advance, keep ing wellout of sight under the cover of the sumachs lining the fences.

  Still he saw no one, and finally he became so bold as to leave hiscovert and walk straight to the front door. A dozen dogs charged at himwith a wild hullabaloo, but he had anticipated this, and picked up astout hickory switch in the road, which he wielded with his left handwith so much effect that they ran howling back under the house. He kepthis right hand firmly grasping his revolver.

  An old man and his wife appeared at the door; both of them shoved backtheir spectacles until they rested on the tops of their heads, andscanned him searchingly. The old woman had a law-book in her hand, andthe old man a quill pen. She had evidently been reading to him, and hecopying.

  The old man called out to him imperiously:

  "Heah, stranger, who air yo'? An' what d'yo' want?"

  The tone was so harsh and repellant that the Deacon thought that hewould disarm hostility by announcing himself a plain citizen, likethemselves. So he replied:

  "I'm a farmer, and a citizen from Injianny, and I want to buy somechickens for my son, who's sick in the hospital at Chattanoogy."

  "Injianny!" sneered the old man. "Meanest people in the world live inInjianny. Settled by scalawags that we'uns run outen Tennessee bekasethey'uns wuz too onery to live heah."

  "Citizen!" echoed the woman. "They'uns heap sight wuss'n the soldjers.Teamsters, gamblers, camp-followers, thieves, that'll steal the coppersoff en a dead man's eyes. I had a sister that married a man that beather, and then run off to Injianny, leavin' her with six children tosupport. All the mean men go to Injianny. Cl'ar out. We don't wantnobody 'round heah, and specially no Injiannians. They'uns is a pizunlot."

  "Yes, cl'ar out immejitly," commanded the old man. "I'm a Jestice of thePeace, and ef you don't go to wunst I'll find a way to make yo'. We've alaw agin able-bodied vagrants. Cl'ar out, now."

  "Come, have a little sense," said the Deacon, not a little roiled atthe abuse of his State. "I'm just as respectable a man as you dare be.I never stole anything. I've bin all my life a regler member o' theBaptist Church strict, close-communion, total-immersion Baptists. All Iwant o' you is to buy some o' them chickens there, and I'll give you afair price for 'em. No use o' your flaring up over a little matter o'bizniss."

  "I don't believe a word of hit," said the woman, who yet showed thatshe was touched by the allusion to the Baptist Church, as the Deacon hadcalculated, for most of the people of that section professed to be ofthat denomination. "What'll yo' gi' me for them chickens?"

  The bargaining instinct arose in the Deacon's mind, but he repressed it.He had no time to waste. He would make an offer that at home would beconsidered wildly extravagant, close the business at once and get backto Chattanooga. He said: "I'll give you a dollar apiece for five."

  "HE TOOK ANOTHER LOOK AT HIS HEAVY REVOLVER." 254]

  "Humph," said the woman contemptuously. "I don't sell them for no dollarapiece. They'uns 's all we got to live on now. If I sell 'em I must gitsomethin' that'll go jest as fur. You kin have 'em at $5 apiece."

  "Betsy," remonstrated the old man, "I'm afeard this 's wrong, and as aMagistrate I should
n't allow hit. Hit's traffickin' with the inemy."

  "No, hit hain't," she asserted. "He's not a soljer. He's a citizen, anddon't belong to the army. Besides, he's a Baptist, and hit hain't so badas ef he wuz a Presbyterian, or a shoutin' Methodist. Most of all, I'mnearly dead for some coffee, and I know whar I kin git a pound o' raylecoffee for $10."

  The Deacon had been pondering. To his thrifty mind it seemed like awaste to give a crisp, new $5 bill for such an insignificant thing as achicken. Like Indiana farmers of his period, he regarded such thingsas chickens, eggs, butter, etc., as "too trifling for full-grown mento bother about. They were wholly women-folks' truck." He fingered thebills in his bosom, and thought how many bushels of wheat and pounds ofpork they represented. Then he thought of Si in the hospital, and how alittle chicken broth would build him up. Out came five new $5 bills.

  "Here's your money," he said, thumbing over the bills clumsily andregretfully.

  The old woman lowered her spectacles from the top of her head, andscrutinized them.

  "What's them?" she asked suspiciously.

  "Why, them's greenbacks Government money the very best kind," explainedthe Deacon. "You can't have no better'n that."

  "Don't tech hit! Don't have nothin' to do with it!" shouted the oldman. "Hit's high treason to take Federal money. Law's awful severe aboutthat. Not less'n one year, nor more'n 20 in the penitentiary, for acitizen, and death for a soljer, to be ketched dealin' in the inemy'smoney. I kin turn yo' right to the law. Ole man, take yo' money andcl'ar off the place immejitly. Go out and gather up yo' chickens, Betsy,and fasten 'em in the coop. Go away, sah, 'or I shell blow the horn forhelp."

  "I wuz talkin' 'bout Confederit money," said the woman, halfapologetically. "I wouldn't tech that 'ere stuff with a soap-stick. Yo'dbetter git away as quick as yo' kin ef yo' know what's good for yo'."

  She went into the yard to gather up her flock, and the Deacon walkedback into the road. When out of sight he sat down on a rock to meditate.There was not another house in sight anywhere, and it was rapidlygrowing dark. If he went to an other house he would probably have thesame experience. He had set his heart on having those chickens, and hewas a pretty stubborn man. Somehow, in spite of himself, he parted thebushes and looked through to see where the woman was housing her fowls,and noted that it was going to be very dark. Then he blushed vividly,all to himself, over the thoughts which arose.

  "To think of me, a Deacon in the Baptist Church, akchelly meditatin'about goin' to another man's coop at night and stealin' his chickens?Could Maria ever be made to believe such a thing? I can't be lieve itmyself."

  Then he made himself think of all the other ways in which he might getchickens. They all seemed impossible. He turned again to those in thecoop.

  "Nothin' but measly dunhills, after all dear at a fip-and-a-bit, andyet I offered her a dollar apiece for 'em. If she'd bin a real Christianwoman she'd bin glad to 've given me the chickens for as sick as man asSi is. Gracious, mother'd give every chicken on the place, if it'd helpa sick person, and be glad o' the chance. They're both tough old rebels,anyhow, and their property oughtter be confiscated."

  He stopped and considered the morals of the affair a little further,and somehow the idea of taking the fowls by stealth did not seem soabhorrent as at first. Then, everything was overslaughed by thethought of going into camp with the precious birds, of cleaning one andcarefully stewing it, making a delicate, fragrant broth, the very smellof which would revive Si, and every spoonful bring nourishment andstrength.

  "Mebbe the army's demoralizin' me," he said to himself; "but Ibelieve it's a work o' necessity and mercy, that don't stand on niceconsiderations. I'm goin' to have five o' them chickens, or know thereason why."

  As has been before remarked, when Deacon Klegg made up his mindsomething had to happen. It was now quite dark. He took one of the $5bills out of his breast pocket and put it in a pocket where it wouldbe handy. He looked over at the house, and saw the old man and womansitting by the fire smoking. He picked up the hickory withe to keep offthe dogs, and made a circuit to reach the chicken-coop from the rear ofthe house. The dogs were quarreling and snarling over their supper, andpaid no attention to him, until he had reached the coop, when they cameat him full tilt.

  The Deacon dealt the foremost ones such vicious blows that the beastsfell as if they had been cut in two, and ran howling under the house.With a quickness and skill that would have done credit to any veteranin the army, he snatched five chickens from their roosts, wrung theirnecks, and gathered them in his left hand. Alarmed by the noise of thebarking and yelping, the old couple flung open the door and rushed outon the porch with shouts. The open door threw a long lane of brightlight directly on the Deacon.

  "Blow the horn, granddad blow the horn," screamed the woman. Her husbandsnatched the tin horn down from the wall, and put all his anger intoa ringing blast. It was immediately answered by a shot from a distanthill. Still holding his game in his left hand, the Deacon pulled the $5bill out of his pocket with his right, walked up to the porch, laid itat the woman's feet and put a stone on it.

  "There's full pay for your dumbed old dunghills, you cantankerousrebel," said he, as he disappeared into the darkness. "Go into thehouse and pray that the Lord may soften your heart, which is harder thanPharaoh's, until you have some Christian grace."

  When he reached the road he could hear the sound of hoofs gallopingtoward the house. He smiled grimly, but kept under the shadow of thetrees until he reached the main road leading to Chattanooga, where hewas lucky enough to find a train making its slow progress toward thetown, and kept with it until he was within our lines.