by John McElroy
CHAPTER XVI. IN A NEW WORLD
DEACON KLEGG HAS A LITTLE EXPERIENCE OF LIFE IN THE ARMY.
"Pap" said Si, by way of introduction, "this is Shorty, my pardner, andthe best pardner a feller ever had, and the best soldier in the Army ofthe Cumberland."
"Glad to see you, Mr. Klegg," said Shorty, reddening and grasping thefather's outstretched hand; "but you orter 've broke that boy o' your'no' lyin' when he was young."
"He never did lie," said the Deacon cheerfully, "and I don't believehe's lyin' now. I've heard a great deal o' you, Mr. Shorty, and I'm surehe's tellin' the truth about you."
"Drop the Mister, Pap," said Si. "We never call each other Mister here,except when we're mad."
Si took the carpetsack under his arm, and they trudged up toward ArmyHeadquarters.
Relieved of anxiety as to his own personal safety, and having found hisson, Deacon Klegg viewed everything around him with open-eyed interest.It was a wonderfully new and strange world into which the sober,plodding Indiana farmer had dropped. The men around him spoke the speechto which his ears were accustomed, but otherwise they were as foreign asif they had come from the heart of China.{193}
Their dress, their manners, their actions, the ways in which they werebusying themselves, had no resemblance to anything seen on the prosaicplains of the Wabash in his half-century of life there. The infantrysweeping over the fields in endless waves, the dashing cavalcades ofofficers and staffs, the bewildering whirl of light batteries dazedhim. Even Si awed him. It was hard to recognize in the broad-shouldered,self-assured young soldier, who seemed so entirely at home in hisstartling surroundings, the blundering, bashful hobbledehoy boy of a fewmonths before, whose feet and hands were constantly in the way, and intoeverything else that they should not be.
"Somehow, Si," he said, looking at his offspring with contemplative eye,"you seem to have growed like a cornstalk in July, and yit when I cometo measure you you don't seem no taller nor heavier than when you wentaway. How is it?"
"Don't know, Pap," Si answered. "I feel as if I'd had more'n 10 longyears o' growth since we crossed the Ohio River. Yit, you don't seem aminute older than when I went away."
"I didn't feel no older," returned the father, "until I got in thatguard-house last night. Then I could feel my hair gittin' grayer everyhour, and my teeth droppin' out."
"I'm afraid you didn't git much chance to sleep, Pap," said Sisympathetically.
"Loss o' sleep was the least part of it," said the Deacon feelingly."I kin stand a little loss o' sleep without any partickler bother. Itwasn't bein' kept awake so much as the way I was kept awake that bore onme."
"Why, what happened?" asked Si.
"Better ask what didn't happen," groaned his father. "Used to havesome mighty rough shivarees when I was a boy, and'd jest settled on theWabash. Lots o' toughs then, 'specially 'mong the flatboat-men, who'dnothin' to drink but new sod-cornwhisky, that'd fight in every spoonful.But for sure, straight-out tumultuousness that guard-house last nightgave six pecks for every bushel of a Wabash shivaree."
Shorty looked meaningly at Si. "Guard-house fellers's likely to be aructionary lot o' roosters. Awful sorry you got in among 'em. Was theyvery bad?"
"Well, I should say. When I was chucked in they wuz havin' a regularprize fight, 'cordin' to rules, as to whether Rousseau or Negley wuz thebest General. The Rousseau man got licked, and then the other Rousseaumen wuzzent satisfied, and proposed to lick all the Negley men in theguard-house; but the Sheridan men interfered, and made the Rousseau mencool down. They they turned their attention to me. They raised a rowabout a citizen being put in among them. It was a disgrace. The guardhouse was only intended for soldiers and gentlemen, and no place forcondemned civilians. Then some one said that I had been arrested as aKnight o' the Golden Circle, on my way to Bragg, with information fromthe Injianny Knights. Another insisted that he knowed me, and that I wuzVallandigham himself, brought down there to be sent through the lines.Then I thought sure they'd kill me on the spot. I begged and pledand denied. Finally, they organized a court-martial to try me for mylife.{194}
"They had an awful tonguey feller that acted as Prosecutin' Attorney, andthe way he blackguarded me was a shame. He said the word 'traitor'was wrote in every liniment o' my face; that I wuz a dyed-in-the-woolbutternut, and that the bag I'd brung along with me contained themuster-rolls of 100,000 Injiannians who'd bin swore in to fight for JeffDavis.
"The feller that they appinted to defend me admitted the truth of allthat the other feller'd said. He said that no one could look inmy Southern Injianny face without seem' Secession, treason andnigger-lovin' wrote there in big letters. He could only ask thehonorable court for mercy instid o' justice, and that I be shot instido' hung, as I deserved.
"When they asked me what I'd got to say in my own defense I told 'em thetruth, and said that I'd come down here to visit my son, who they allknowed they must know Si Klegg. o' the 200th Injianny Volunteers, whowas an officer, and had a house with a tin roof.
"Then they all got up and yelled. They said they knowed Si Klegg onlytoo well; that he wuz the meanest, oneriest soljer in the army, and thathe looked just like me. They had him in the guard house now. He'd binput in for stealin' a hoe-cake from a blind nigger half-way back toNashville durin' the battle.
"They brought up the dirtiest, scaliest lookin' man in the guard-house,and said that was Si Klegg, and that he resembled me so much that theywuz sure he wuz my son. They asked him if he reckernized me as his dad,and after they kicked him two{195} or three times he said he did, but hewuz goin' to cut his throat now, since they'd found it out. He couldn'tstand everything. Then they said they'd postpone execution on conditionthat I'd kneel down, drink a pint o' whisky, take the oath o' allegianceto Abe Lincoln, and sing 'We'll hang Jeff Davis on a sour-apple tree.'
"I told 'em I wuz perfectly willin' to take the oath to Abe Lincoln asoften as they pleased; that he wuz my man from start to finish; that Iwanted Jeff Davis hung the minit we ketched him. I'd sing the song ifthey'd learn it to me, though I've not sung anything but hymns for thelast 25 years. As for the whisky, I wouldn't tech it on no account, forI belonged to the Good Templars.
"They all seemed pacified with this except one man, who insisted that Ishould drink the whisky. One o' the Sheridan men knocked him down, andthen the fight between the Rousseau men and the Negley men broke outafresh, and the guard come in and quieted things. By the time they'ddone this they found that the man who had reckernized me as his fatherwuz tryin' to hang himself with a piece o' tent-rope. They cut him down,larruped him with the tent-rope, and then started another court to tryme for havin' sich a son. But some officer come in and took out theProsecutin' Attorney and the lawyer for the defense and the Presidin'Judge and bucked and gagged 'em. This cooled things down agin tillmornin'."
HIS HONOR AND THE 'ATTORNEY' BUCKED AND GAGGED.]
"We might walk over to the Provost-Marshal's," suggested Shorty, "andwatch for them fellers as they come out, and take a drop out o' some of'em."{196}
"It'll be a waste o' time," said Si, with a shrug of his shoulders."They'll all be doing hard labor for the next 30 days, and by thattime we'll likely have a good deal else to think about. Let's report atHeadquarters, and then take Dad over and show him our new house."
"Yes, I'm dying to see it," said the Deacon, "and{197} to git somewherethat I kin sit down in peace and quietness. Seems to me I haven't had amoment's rest for years, and I'm as nigh tuckered out as I ever wuz inmy life."
At the Army Headquarters was a crowd of officers, mounted anddismounted. Aids were arriving and departing, and there was a furorewhen some General commanding a corps or division came or went, whichimpressed the father greatly. Si and Shorty stood at "attention,"and respectfully saluted as the officers passed, and the Deacon triedawkwardly, but his best, to imitate their example. Two or three spruceyoung Orderlies attempted to guy him. but this thing came to a suddenstop when Shorty took one of them quietly by the ear, and said in a lowvoice:
<
br /> SHORTY ADMONISHES THE ORDERLY 198]
"Don't be brash, bub. If you only knowed it, you're givin' your measurefor a first-class, custom-made lickin', and I'm the artist to dothe job. That old man's my chum's father, and I won't allow no funnybusiness 'round where I am."
"We wuz ordered to report to Gen. Rosecrans," said Si to the Orderly onduty before the tent.
"What are you to report for?" asked a member of the staff, standingnear. "The General is very busy now, and can see no one. Who ordered youto report?"
"The General himself," said Si.
The sound of his voice reached Gen. Rosecrans, in side, and busy ashe was, arrested his attention. With the kindly thoughtfulness thatso endeared him to his soldiers he instantly remembered his promise,dropped his pen, and came to the door.{198}
"I ordered these men to report," he said to the Aid. "Bring me thatchecker-board which lies on my table."
The Aid did so. Gen. Rosecrans noticed the father, and, as usual, sawthe opportunity of doing a kindly, gracious thing.
"You have found your son, I see," he said to him. "Sorry that you had somuch trouble. That's a fine son you have. One of the very best soldiersin{199} my army. I congratulate you upon him. Boys, here is your boardand men. I may drop in some evening and see you play a game. I'll becareful to clean my feet, this time."
Si and Shorty got very red in the face at this allusion, and began tostammer excuses. The General playfully pinched Si's ear and said:
"Go to your quarters now, you young rascal, and take your father withyou. I hope he'll have a very pleasant time while he is in camp."
They saluted and turned away too full for utterance. After they had gonea little distance the Deacon remarked, as if communing with himself:
"And that is Gen. Rosecrans. Awful nice man. Nicest man I ever saw.Greatest General in the world. Won't this be something to tell Mariarand the girls. And the men down at the store. I'd 've come down here 40times jest to 've seen him and talked with him. What'd last night inthe guard house amount to, after all? A man must expect some troubleoccasionally. Wouldn't have no fun if he didn't. Say, Si, remember OldSusy's chestnut colt?"
"Yes," answered Si.
"I thought he had in him the makin' o' the finest horse in PoseyCounty."
"Yes," said Si.
"Well, he's turnin' out even better'n I thought he would. Shouldn'twonder if he could trot down somewhere nigh 2:40."
"You don't say so."
"Yes, indeed. You used to want that colt mighty bad, Si."{200}
"I remember that I did, Pap."
"Well, Si, I'll give you that colt, and take good care o' him till youcome home, for that 'ere checker board."
When they arrived at their house Si and Shorty arranged the things so asto give the Deacon a most comfortable rest after his trying experiences,and cooked him the best dinner their larder would afford. After dinnerthey filled him a pipe-full of kinni-kinnick, and the old gentleman satdown to enjoy{201} it while Si and Shorty investigated the contentsof the carpetsack. They found endless fun in its woeful condition. Thebutter and honey were smeared over everything, in the rough handlingwhich it had endured. They pulled out the shirt, the socks, the boots,the paper and books, and scraped off carefully as much as they could ofthe precious honey and butter.
"It's too good to waste the least bit," said Shorty, tasting it fromtime to time with unction. "Don't mind a hair or two in the butter, thistime, Si. I kin believe your mother is a good buttermaker. It's the bestI ever tasted."
"Well, the butter and the honey may be spiled," said Si, "but the otherthings are all right. My, ain't this a nice shirt. And them socks.Shorty, did you ever see such socks. Ever so much obliged to you, Pap,for these boots. Old Hank Sommers's make. He's the best shoemaker in theState of Injianny. No Quartermaster's cowhide about them. And--"
Si stopped. He had suddenly come across Anna bel's ambrotype. He triedto slip it into his pocket without the others seeing him. He edgedawkwardly to the door.
"You look over the rest o' the things, Shorty," he said, with ablush that hid his freckles. "I've got to go down and see theOrderly-Sergeant."
Shorty and the Deacon exchanged very profound winks.
