On Picket Duty, and Other Tales | Page 2

ready for a free fight with all the world.
Silence followed the last words, while the friendly moon climbed up
the sky. Each man's eye followed it, and each man's heart was busy
with remembrances of other eyes and hearts that might be watching and
wishing as theirs watched and wished. In the silence, each shaped for
himself that vision of home that brightens so many camp-fires, haunts
so many dreamers under canvas roofs, and keeps so many turbulent
natures tender by memories which often are both solace and salvation.
Thorn paced to and fro, his rifle on his shoulder, vigilant and soldierly,
however soft his heart might be. Phil leaned against the tree, one hand
in the breast of his blue jacket, on the painted presentment of the face
his fancy was picturing in the golden circle of the moon. Flint lounged
on the sward, whistling softly as he whittled at a fallen bough. Dick
was flat on his back, heels in air, cigar in mouth, and some hilarious
notion in his mind, for suddenly he broke into a laugh.
"What is it, lad?" asked Thorn, pausing in his tramp, as if willing to be
drawn from the disturbing thought that made his black brows lower and
his mouth look grim.
"Thinkin' of my wife, and wishin' she was here, bless her heart! set me
rememberin' how I see her fust, and so I roared, as I always do when it
comes into my head."

"How was it? Come, reel off a yarn and let's hear houw yeou hitched
teams," said Flint, always glad to get information concerning his
neighbors, if it could be cheaply done.
"Tellin' how we found our wives wouldn't be a bad game, would it,
Phil?"
"I'm agreeable; but let us have your romance first."
"Devilish little of that about me or any of my doin's. I hate sentimental
bosh as much as you hate slang, and should have been a bachelor to
this day if I hadn't seen Kitty jest as I did. You see, I'd been too busy
larkin' round to get time for marryin', till a couple of years ago, when I
did up the job double-quick, as I'd like to do this thunderin' slow one,
hang it all!"
"Halt a minute till I give a look, for this picket isn't going to be driven
in or taken while I'm on guard."
Down his beat went Thorn, reconnoitring river, road, and swamp, as
thoroughly as one pair of keen eyes could do it, and came back satisfied,
but still growling like a faithful mastiff on the watch; performances
which he repeated at intervals till his own turn came.
"I didn't have to go out of my own State for a wife, you'd better
believe," began Dick, with a boast, as usual; "for we raise as fine a crop
of girls thar as any State in or out of the Union, and don't mind raisin'
Cain with any man who denies it. I was out on a gunnin' tramp with Joe
Partridge, a cousin of mine,--poor old chap! he fired his last shot at
Gettysburg, and died game in a way he didn't dream of the day we
popped off the birds together. It ain't right to joke that way; I won't if I
can help it; but a feller gets awfully kind of heathenish these times,
don't he?"
"Settle up them scores byme-by; fightin' Christians scurse raound here.
Fire away, Dick."
"Well, we got as hungry as hounds half a dozen mile from home, and

when a farm-house hove in sight, Joe said he'd ask for a bite and leave
some of the plunder for pay. I was visitin' Joe, didn't know folks round,
and backed out of the beggin' part of the job; so he went ahead alone.
We'd come up the woods behind the house, and while Joe was foragin',
I took are connoissance. The view was fust-rate, for the main part of it
was a girl airin' beds on the roof of a stoop. Now, jest about that time,
havin' a leisure spell, I'd begun to think of marryin', and took a look at
all the girls I met, with an eye to business. I s'pose every man has some
sort of an idee or pattern of the wife he wants; pretty and plucky, good
and gay was mine, but I'd never found it till I see Kitty; and as she
didn't see me, I had the advantage and took an extra long stare."
"What was her good pints, hey?"
"Oh, well, she had a wide-awake pair of eyes, a bright, jolly sort of a
face, lots of curly hair tumblin' out of her net, a trig little figger, and a
pair of the neatest feet and ankles that ever stepped.