Christmas Eve on Lonesome | Page 7

citizens and be close
to our base o' supplies, suh. That's what I'll do!"
"Gineral Richmond" groaned, and when in the next breath the mighty
captain casually inquired if that uniform of his had come yet, Flitter
Bill's fat body nearly rolled off his chair.
"You will please have it here next Monday," said the captain, with
great firmness. "It is necessary to the proper discipline of my troops."
And it was there the following Monday--a regimental coat, gray jeans
trousers, and a forage cap that Bill purchased from a passing Morgan
raider. Daily orders would come from Captain Wells to General Flitter
Bill Richmond to send up more rations, and Bill groaned afresh when a
man from Callahan told how the captain's family was sprucing up on
meal and flour and bacon from the captain's camp. Humiliation
followed. It had never occurred to Captain Wells that being a captain
made it incongruous for him to have a "general" under him, until
Lieutenant Skaggs, who had picked up a manual of tactics somewhere,
cautiously communicated his discovery. Captain Wells saw the point at
once. There was but one thing to do--to reduce General Richmond to
the ranks--and it was done. Technically, thereafter, the general was
purveyor for the Army of the Callahan, but to the captain himself he
was--gallingly to the purveyor--simple Flitter Bill.
The strange thing was that, contrary to his usual shrewdness, it should
have taken Flitter Bill so long to see that the difference between having
his store robbed by the Kentucky jay-hawkers and looted by Captain
Wells was the difference between tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee, but,

when he did see, he forged a plan of relief at once. When the captain
sent down Lieutenant Boggs for a supply of rations, Bill sent the
saltiest, rankest bacon he could find, with a message that he wanted to
see the great man. As before, when Captain Wells rode down to the
store, Bill handed out a piece of paper, and, as before, the captain had
left his "specs" at home. The paper was an order that, whereas the
distinguished services of Captain Wells to the Confederacy were
appreciated by Jefferson Davis, the said Captain Wells was, and is,
hereby empowered to duly, and in accordance with the tactics of war,
impress what live-stock he shall see fit and determine fit for the good
of his command. The news was joy to the Army of the Callahan.
Before it had gone the rounds of the camp Lieutenant Boggs had spied
a fat heifer browsing on the edge of the woods and ordered her
surrounded and driven down. Without another word, when she was
close enough, he raised his gun and would have shot her dead in her
tracks had he not been arrested by a yell of command and horror from
his superior.
"Air you a-goin' to have me cashiered and shot, Lieutenant Boggs, fer
violatin' the ticktacks of war?" roared the captain, indignantly. "Don't
you know that I've got to impress that heifer accordin' to the rules an'
regulations? Git roun' that heifer." The men surrounded her. "Take her
by the horns. Now! In the name of Jefferson Davis and the Confederate
States of Ameriky, I hereby and hereon do duly impress this heifer for
the purposes and use of the Army of the Callahan, so help me God!
Shoot her down, Bill Boggs, shoot her down!"
Now, naturally, the soldiers preferred fresh meat, and they got
it--impressing cattle, sheep, and hogs, geese, chickens, and ducks,
vegetables--nothing escaped the capacious maw of the Army of the
Callahan. It was a beautiful idea, and the success of it pleased Flitter
Bill mightily, but the relief did not last long. An indignant murmur rose
up and down valley and creek bottom against the outrages, and one
angry old farmer took a pot-shot at Captain Wells with a squirrel rifle,
clipping the visor of his forage cap; and from that day the captain began
to call with immutable regularity again on Flitter Bill for bacon and
meal. That morning the last straw fell in a demand for a wagon-load of

rations to be delivered before noon, and, worn to the edge of his
patience, Bill had sent a reckless refusal. And now he was waiting on
the stoop of his store, looking at the mouth of the Gap and waiting for it
to give out into the valley Captain Wells and his old gray mare. And at
last, late in the afternoon, there was the captain coming--coming at a
swift gallop--and Bill steeled himself for the onslaught like a knight in
a joust against a charging antagonist. The captain saluted
stiffly--pulling up sharply and making no move to dismount.
"Purveyor," he said, "Black Tom has just sent word that he's a-comin'
over hyeh this