The Red Acorn | Page 8

looked down upon, and he connected their
bad luck in some way with their condition in life. Doubtless some one
had to go where there was danger of being shot, as some one had to dig
ditches and help to pry wagons out of the mud, but there was something
rather preposterous in the thought that anything of this kind was
incumbent upon him.
The mutterings of the men against an officer, who would not share their
hardships and duties, did not reach his ears, nor yet the gibes of the
more earnest of the officers at the "young headquarter swells," whose
interest and zeal were nothing to what they would have taken in a
fishing excursion.
It came about very naturally and very soon that this continual
avoidance of duty in directions where danger might be encountered was
stigmatized by the harsher name of cowardice. Neither did this come to

his knowledge, and he was consequently ignorant that he had delivered
a fatal stab to his reputation one fine morning when, the regiment being
ordered out with three days' rations and forty rounds of cartridges, the
sergeant who was sent in search of him returned and reported that he
was sick in his tent. Jacob Alspaugh expressed the conclusion instantly
arrived at by every one in the regiment:
"It's all you could expect of one of them kid-glove fellers, to weaken
when it came to serious business."
Harry's self-sufficiency had left so little room for anything that did not
directly concern his own comfort, that he could not understand the
deadly earnestness of the men he saw file out of camp, or that there was
any urgent call for him to join them in their undertaking.
"Bob Bennett's always going where there's no need of it," he said to a
companion, as he saw the last of the regiment disappear into the woods
on the mountain side. "He could have staid back here with us just as
well as not, instead of trudging off through the heat over these devilish
roads, and probably get into a scrape for which no one will thank him."
"Yes," said Ned Burnleigh, with his affected drawl, "what the devil's
the use, I'd like to know, for a fellah's putting himself out to do things,
when there's any quantity of other fellahs, that can't be better employed,
ready and even anxious to do them."
"That's so. But it's getting awful hot here. Let's go over to the shade,
where we were yesterday, and have Dick bring us a bucket of cold
spring water and the bottles and things."
---
"Abe!" said Jake Alspaugh to his file-leader--a red-headed,
pock-marked man, whose normal condition was that of outspoken
disgust at every thing--"this means a fight."
"Your news would've been fresh and interesting last night," growled
Abe Bolton. "I suppose that's what we brought our guns along for."
"Yes; but somebody's likely to get killed."
"Well, you nor me don't have to pay their life insurance, as I know on."
"But it may be you or me,"
"The devil'd be might anxious for green wood before he'd call you in."
"Come, now, don't talk that way. This is a mighty serious time."
"I'll make it a durned sight seriouser for you if you don't keep them
splay feet o'your'n offen my heels when we're marching."

"Don't you think we'd better pay, or--something?"
"You might try taking up a collection."
"Try starting a hymn, Jake," said a slender young man at his right
elbow, whose face showed a color more intimately connected with the
contents of his canteen than the heat of the day. "Line it out, and we'll
all join in. Something like this, for example:
'Hark, from the tombs a doleful sound Mine ears attend the cry. Ye
living men, come view the ground Where you must shortly lie.'"
Alspaugh shuddered visibly.
"Come, spunk up, Jake," continued the slender young man. "Think how
proud all your relations will be of you, if you die for your country."
"I'm mad at all of my relations, and I don't want to do nothing to please
'em," sighed Jake.
"But I hope you're not so greedy as to want to live always?" said the
slender young man, who answered roll-call to Kent Edwards.
"No, but I don't want to be knocked off like a green apple, before I'm
ripe and ready."
"Better be knocked off green and unripe," said Kent, his railing mood
changing to one of sad introspection, "than to prematurely fall, from a
worm gnawing at your heart."
Jake's fright was not so great as to make him forego the opportunity for
a brutal retort:
"You mean the 'worm of the still,' I s'pose. Well, it don't gnaw at my
heart so much as at some other folkses' that