Si Klegg Experiences Of Si And Shorty On The Great Tullahoma Campaign Part 11

ON THE BANKS OF ELK RIVER.

"THIS is the glorious Fourth of July," remarked Si, as Co. Q broke ranks from reveille roll-call on the banks of Elk River, and he and Shorty turned anxious attention to the problem of getting a satisfactory breakfast out of the scanty materials at their command. "Up home they're gittin' ready for a great time. Yesterday mother and the girls cooked enough goodies to feed the whole company. Mother had Abe Lincoln split up a lot o' fine, dry hickory. Then she het up the big brick oven out by the Summer-kitchen, and she baked there a lot o' loaves o' her splendiferous salt-raisin' bread, the best in the whole country, if I do say it myself."

"Resemble this, Si?" asked Shorty, who was pawing around in his shrunken haversack, as he produced two dingy crackers and a handful of pieces, discolored by contact with the coffee and meat during the days of marching in the rain.

"And, then," continued Si, unmindful of the interruption, "after she took the bread out, smelling like a bouquet, she put in some biscuits, and then some dressed chicken, a young pig."

"Just like this," echoed Shorty, pulling out a rusty remnant of very fat commissary pork.

"Shet up, Shorty," said Si, angered at this reminder of their meager store, which was all that was left them for the day, since they had far out marched their wagons. "I won't have you makin' fun o' my mother's cookin'."

"Well, you shut up torturing me about home goodies," answered Shorty, "when we hain't got enough grub here to fill one undivided quarter-section o' one o' our gizzards, and there hain't no more this side o' the wagons, which are stalled somewhere in the Duck River hills, and won't be up till the katydids sing. I ain't making fun o' your mother's cookin'. But I won't have you tormenting me with gas about the goodies back home."

"I know it ain't right, Shorty," said Si. "It only makes us feel worse.

But I can't help thinkin'--"

"Jest go on thinkin'," sneered Shorty, "if you kin fill yourself up that way. I can't. You'd better set to studyin' how to make less'n quarter rations for one fill up two men for all day. There ain't no use goin'

a-foragin'. They call this country the c.u.mberland Barrens. There never was grub enough in it to half support the clay-eaters that live around here, and what there was the rebels have carried off. The only thing I kin think of is to cut up some ba.s.swood chips and fry with this pork.

Mebbe we could make 'em soft enough to fill up on." And Shorty gloomily shook out the last crumb from the haversacks into a tin of water to soak, while he fried the grease out of the fragment of pork in his half-canteen.

"And Pap," continued Si, as if determined to banish famine thoughts by more agreeable ones, "has had the trottin' team nicely curried, and their manes and tails brushed out, and hitched 'em to that new Studebaker-spring wagon he wrote about. They'll put all the good things in, and then mother and the girls'll climb in. They'll go down the road in great style, and pick up Annabel, and drive over to the Grove, where they'll meet all the neighbors, and talk about their boys in the army, and the Posey Bra.s.s Band'll play patriotic tunes, and old Beach Jamieson'll fire off the anvil, and then Parson Ricketts'll put on his gla.s.ses and read the Declaration o' Independence, and then some politician young lawyer from Mt. Vernon or Poseyville 'll make a sky-soaring, spread-eagle speech, and--"

"O, do come off, Si," said Shorty irritably. "You're only making yourself hungrier exercising your tongue so. Come here and git your share o' the breakfast and mind you eat fair."

Shorty had fried out the pork in the dingy, black half-canteen, poured the soaked crackers into the sputtering hot grease, and given the mess a little further warming and stirring. Then he pulled the half-canteen from the split stick which served for a handle, set it on the ground, and drew a line through it with his spoon to divide the food fairly into equal portions..

Meanwhile Si had strolled over a little ways to where an old worm fence had stood when the regiment went into camp. Now only the chunks at the corners remained. He looked a minute, and then gave a yell of delight.

"Here, Shorty," he called out; "here's something that beats your fried breakfasts all holler. Here's ripe blackberries till you can't rest, and the biggest, finest ones you ever saw. Come over here, and you can pick all you can eat in five minutes."

He began picking and eating with the greatest industry. Shorty walked over and followed his example.

"They are certainly the finest blackberries I ever saw," he agreed.

"Strange that we didn't notice them before. This country ain't no good for nothin' else, but it surely kin beat the world on blackberries. Hi, there! Git out, you infernal brute!"

This latt'er remark was addressed to a long-legged, mangy hound that had suddenly appeared from no where, and was nosing around their breakfast with appreciative sniffs. Shorty made a dive for him, but he cleaned out the half-canteen at one comprehensive gulp, and had put a good-sized farm between him and the fire before Shorty reached it. That gentleman fairly danced with rage, and swore worse than a teamster, but the breakfast was gone beyond recovery. The other boys yelled at and gibed him, but they were careful to do it at a safe distance.

"'Twasn't much of a breakfast, after all, Shorty," said Si, consolingly.

"The crackers was moldly and the pork full o' maggots, and the Surgeon has warned us time and again against eatin' them greasy fried messes.

All the doctors say that blackberries is very healthy, and they certainly taste nice."

Shorty's paroxysm of rage expended itself, and he decided it wisest to accept Si's advice.

"The berries is certainly fine, Si," he said with returning good humor.

"If I could've only laid a foundation of crackers and meat I could've built a very good breakfast out of 'em. I mis...o...b.., though, whether they've got enough substance and stick-to-the-ribs to make a meal out of all by themselves. However, I'll fill up on 'em, and hope they'll last till a grub-cart gets through. There ought to be one here before noon."

"One consolation," said Si; "we won't have to march on this peck. The Adjutant's just pa.s.sed the word that we're to rest here a day or two."

The rest of the regiment were similarly engaged in browsing off the blackberries that grew in wonderful profusion all around, and were really of extraordinary size. After filling themselves as full as possible of the fruit, Si and Shorty secured a couple of camp kettles and gave their garments a boiling that partially revenged themselves upon the insect life of Tennessee for the torments they endured in the Tullahoma campaign.

"The better the day the better the deed," remarked Shorty, as he and Si stood around the fire, clothed in nothing but their soldierly character, and satisfiedly poked their clothes down in the scalding water.

"Thousands must die that one may be free from graybacks, fleas, and ticks. How could be better celebrated the Fourth of July than by the wholesale slaughter of the tyrants who drain the life-blood of freemen and patriots? Now, that's a sentiment that would be fine for your orator who is making a speech about this time to your folks in Injianny."

By this time they were hungry again. The black berries had no staying power in proportion to their filling qualities, and anxiously as they watched the western horizon, no feet of the mules bringing rations had been seen beautiful on the mountains.

They went out and filled up again on blackberries, but these seemed to have lost something of their delicious taste of those eaten earlier in the morning.

They went back, wrung out their clothes, and put them on again.

"They'll fit better if they dry on us," remarked Shorty. "And I'm afraid we'll warp, splinter and check if we are exposed to this sun any longer after all the soakin' we've bin havin' for the past 10 days."

Comfortably full abdominally, with a delicious sense of relief from the fiendish insects, the sun shining once more brightly in the sky, and elated over the brilliant success of the campaign, they felt as happy as it often comes to men.

The scenery was inspiring. Beyond Elk River the romantic c.u.mberland Mountains raised their picturesque peaks and frowning cliffs into a wondrous cloud-world, where the radiant sunshine and the pearly showers seemed in endless struggle for dominion, with the bright rainbows for war-banners. When the sunshine prevailed, filmy white clouds flags of truce floated lazily from peak to peak, and draped themselves about the rugged rocks. It was an ever-changing panorama of beauty and mystery, gazing on which the eye never wearied.

"Bragg's somewhere behind them mountains, Shorty," said Si, as the two lay on the ground, smoked, and looked with charmed eyes on the sky line.

"The next job's to go in there and find him and lick him."

"I don't care a durn, if it's only dry weather," answered Shorty. "I kin stand anything but rain. I'd like to soldier awhile in the Sahara Desert for a change. h.e.l.lo, what's that? A fight?"

A gun had boomed out loudly. The boys p.r.i.c.ked up their ears, took their pipes from their mouths and half raised in antic.i.p.ation of the bugle-call. An other shot followed after an interval, and then a third and fourth.

"They're firing a National salute at Division Headquarters in honor of the Fourth of July," explained the Orderly-Sergeant.

Everybody jumped to his feet and cheered

Cheered for the Fourth of July;

Cheered for the United States of America;

Cheered for President Abraham Lincoln;

Cheered for Maj.-Gen. Wm. S. Rosecrans.

Cheered for the Army of the c.u.mberland;

Cheered for the Corps Commander;

Cheered for the Division Commander;

Cheered for the Brigadier-General;

Cheered for the Colonel of the 200th Ind.;

Cheered for their Royal Selves.

"Whew, how hungry that makes me," said Shorty as the cheering and the firing ended, and he studied the western horizon anxiously. "And not a sign yit of any mule-team comin' up from the rear. They must have religious scruples agin travelin' on the Fourth o' July. Well, I s'pose there's nothin' to do but hunt up some more blackberries.

But blackberries is like mush. They don't seem to stay with you much longer'n you're eatin' 'em."