Si Klegg His Transformation From A Raw Recruit To A Veteran Part 4

CHAPTER VI. DETAILED AS COOK--SI FINDS RICE ANOTHER INNOCENT

WITH A GREAT DEAL OF CUSSEDNESS IN IT.

IT WOULD have been very strange, indeed, if Si Klegg had not grumbled loudly and frequently about the food that was dished up to him by the company cooks. In the first place, it was as natural for a boy to grumble at the "grub" as it was for him to try to s.h.i.+rk battalion drill or "run the guard." In the next place, the cooking done by the company bean-boiler deserved all the abuse it received, for as a rule the boys who sought places in the hash foundry did so because they were too lazy to drill or do guard duty, and their knowledge of cooking was about like that of the Irishman's of music:

"Can you play the fiddle, Pat?" he was asked. "Oi don't know, sor-r-r--Oi niver tried."

Si's mother, like most of the well-to-do farmers' wives in Indiana, was undoubtedly a good cook, and she trained up her daughters to do honor to her teachings, so that Si undoubtedly knew what properly-prepared food was. From the time he was big enough to spank he had fared sumptuously every day. In the gush of patriotic emotions that prompted him to enlist he scarcely thought of this feature of the case. If it entered his mind at all, he felt that he could safely trust all to the goodness of so beneficent a Government as that for the preservation of which he had offered himself as a target for the rebels to shoot at. He thought it no more than fair to the brave soldiers that Uncle Sam should furnish professional cooks for each company, who would serve everything up in the style of a first-cla.s.s city restaurant. So, after Si got down among the boys and found how it really was, it was not long till his inside was a volcano of rebellion that threatened serious results.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SI FALLS OUT WITH HIS FOOD 055 ]

When, therefore, Si lifted up his voice and cried aloud, and spared not--when he said that he could get as good coffee as that furnished him by dipping his cup into a tan-vat; when he said that the meat was not good soap-grease, and that the potatoes and beans had not so much taste and nutrition in them as so much pine-shavings, he was probably nearer right than grumblers usually are.

"Give it to 'em, Si," his comrades would Say, when he turned up his loud bazoo on the rations question. "They ought to get it ten times worse.

When we come out we expected that some of us would get shot by the rebels, but we didn't calculate that we were going to be poisoned in camp by a lot of dirty, lazy potwrastlers."

One morning after roll-call the Orderly-Sergeant came up to Si and said:

"There's been so much chin-music about this cooking-business that the Captain's ordered the cooks to go back to duty, and after this everybody'll have to take his regular turn at cooking. It'll be your turn to-day, and you'll stay in camp and get dinner."

When Co. Q marched out for the forenoon drill. Si pulled off his blouse and set down on a convenient log to think out how he should go to work.

Up to this time he had been quite certain that he knew all about cooking that it was worth while to know. Just now none of his knowledge seemed to be in usable shape, and the more he thought about it the less able he seemed to be to decide upon any way of beginning. It had always appeared very easy for his mother and sisters to get dinner, and on more than one occasion he had reminded them how much better times they had staying in the house cooking dinner than he had out in the harvest field keeping up with the reaper. At this moment he would rather have kept up with the fastest reaper in Posey County, on the hottest of July days, than to have cooked the coa.r.s.e dinner which his 75 comrades expected to be ready for them when they returned, tired, hot and hungry, from the morning drill.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SI THINKS IT OVER 057 ]

He went back to the barracks and inspected the company larder. He found there the same old, coa.r.s.e, greasy, strong, fat pork, a bushel or so of beans, a few withered potatoes, sugar, coffee, bread, and a box of rice which had been collected from the daily rations because none of the cooks knew how to manage it. The sight of the South Carolina staple recalled the delightful rice puddings his mother used to make. His heart grew buoyant.

"Here's just the thing," he said. "I always was fond of rice, and I know the boys will be delighted with it for a change. I know I can cook it; for all that you've got to do is to put it in a pot with water and boil it till it is done. I've seen mother do that lots o' times.

"Let's see," he said, pursuing his ruminations.

"I think each boy can eat about a cupful, so I'll put one for each of 'em in the kettle."

"There's one for Abner," he continued, pouring a cupful in for the first name on the company-roll; "one for Acklin, one for Adams, one for Barber, one for Brooks," and so on down through the whole well-known list.

"It fills the old kettle tol'bly full," he remarked, as he scanned the utensil after depositing the contribution for Williams, the last name on the roll; "but I guess she'll stand it. I've heard mother tell the girls that they must always keep the rice covered with water, and stir it well, so that it wouldn't burn; so here goes. Won't the boys be astonished when they have a nice mess of rice, as a change from that rusty old side-meat!"

He hung the kettle on the fire and stepped out to the edge of the parade-ground to watch the boys drilling. It was the first time he had had the sensation of pleasure of seeing them at this without taking part in it himself, and he began to think that he would not mind if he had to cook most of the time. He suddenly remembered about his rice and hurried back to find it boiling, bulging over the top like a small snowdrift.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TROUBLE BEGINS 059]

"I was afraid that kettle was a little too full," he said to himself, hurrying off for another campkettle, in which he put about a third of the contents of the first. "Now they're all right. And it'll cook better and quicker in two than one. Great Scott! what's the matter? They're both boiling over. There must be something wrong with that rice."

Pretty soon he had all the company kettles employed, and then all that he could borrow from the other companies. But dip out as much as he would there seemed no abatement in the upheaving of the snowy cereal, and the kettles continued to foam over like so many huge gla.s.ses of soda water. He rushed to his bunk and got his gum blanket and heaped upon it a pile as big as a small hayc.o.c.k, but the ma.s.s in the kettle seemed larger than it was before this was subtracted.

He sweat and dipped, and dipped and sweat; burned his hands into blisters with the hot rice and hotter kettles, kicked over one of the largest kettles in one of his spasmodic rushes to save a portion of the food that was boiling over, and sent its white contents streaming over the ground. His misery came to a climax as he heard the quick step of his hungry comrades returning from drill.

"Right face; Arms a-port; Break ranks--March!" commanded the Orderly-Sergeant, and there was a clatter of tin cups and plates as they came rus.h.i.+ng toward him to get their dinner--something to stay their ravenous stomachs. There was a clamor of rage, ridicule, wrath and disappointment as they took in the scene.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE RICE GETS THE BULGE 061 ]

"What's the matter here?" demanded the Captain, striding back to the company fire. "You young rascal, is this the way you get dinner for your comrades? Is this the way you attend to the duty for which you're detailed? Waste rations in some fool experiment and scatter good food all over the ground? Biler, put on your arms and take Klegg to the guard-houae. I'll make you pay for this nonsense, sir, in a way that you won't forget in a hurry, I'll be bound."

So poor Si marched to the guard-house, where he had to stay for 24 hours, as a punishment for not knowing, until he found out by this experience, that rice would "s-well." The Captain wouldn't let him have anything to eat except that scorched and half-cooked stuff cut of the kettles, and Si thought he never wanted to see any more rice as long as he lived.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SI MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF THE GUARD HOUSE 062 ]

In the evening one of the boys took Si's blanket to him, thinking he would want it to sleep in.

"I tell ye, pard, this is purty derned tough!" said Si as he wiped a tear out of the southwest corner of his left eye with the sleeve of his blouse. "I think the Cap'n's hard on a feller who didn't mean to do nothin' wrong!" And Si looked as if he had lost all his interest in the old flag, and didn't care a pinch of his burnt rice what became of the Union.

His comrade "allowed" that it was hard, but supposed they, had got to get used to such things. He said he heard the Captain say he would let Si out the next day.

CHAPTER VII. IN THE AWKWARD SQUAD

SI HAS MANY TRIBULATIONS LEARNING THE MANUAL OP ARMS.

WHEN Si Klegg went into active service with Co. Q of the 200th Ind.

his ideas of drill and tactics were exceedingly vague. He knew that a "drill" was something to make holes with, and as he understood that he had been sent down South to make holes through people, he supposed drilling had something to do with it. He handled his musket very much as he would a hoe. A "platoon" might be something to eat, for all he knew.

He had a notion that a "wheel" was something that went around, and he thought a "file" was a screeching thing that his father used once a year to sharpen up the old buck saw.

The fact was that Si and his companions hardly had a fair shake in this respect, and entered the field at a decided disadvantage. It had been customary for a regiment to be constantly drilled for a month or two in camp in its own State before being sent to the front; but the 200th was rushed off to Kentucky the very day it was mustered in. This was while the cold chills were running up and down the backs of the people in the North on account of the threatened invasion by Bragg's army. The regiment pushed after the fleeing rebels, but whenever Suell's army halted to take breath, "Fall in for drill!" was shouted through its camp three or four times a day. It was liable to be called into action at any moment, and it was deemed indispensable to begin at once the process of making soldiers out of those tender-footed Hoosiers, whose zeal and patriotism as yet far exceeded their knowledge of military things. Most of the officers of the 200th were as green as the men, though some of them had seen service in other regiments; so, at first, officers and non-commissioned officers who had been in the field a few months and were considered veterans, and who knew, or thought they knew, all about tactics that was worth knowing, were detailed from the old regiments to put the boys through a course of sprouts in company and squad drill.

One morning three or four days after leaving Louisville, word was pa.s.sed around that the regiment would not move that day, and the boys were so glad at the prospect of a day of rest that they wanted to get right up and yell. Si was sitting on a log, with his shoes off, rubbing his aching limbs and nursing his blisters, when the Orderly came along.

"Co. Q, be ready in 10 minutes to fall in for drill. Stir around, you men, and get your traps on. Klegg, put on them gunboats, and be lively about it."

"Orderly," said Si, looking as if he hadn't a friend on earth, "just look at them blisters; I can't drill to-day!"

"You'll have to or go to the guard-house," was the reply. "You'd better hustle yourself, too!"

Si couldn't think of anything to say that would do justice to his feelings; and so, with wailing and gnas.h.i.+ng of teeth, and a few muttered words that he didn't learn in Sunday school, he got ready to take his place in the company.

As a general combustion of powder by the armies of Buell and Bragg was hourly expected, it was thought best for the 200th to learn first something about shooting. If called suddenly into action it was believed the boys could "git thar," though they had not yet mastered the science of company and battalion evolutions. Co. Q was divided into squads of eight for exercise in the manual of arms. The man who took Si's squad was a grizzled Sergeant, who had been "lugging knapsack, box and gun"

for a year. He fully realized his important and responsible functions as instructor of these innocent youths, having at the same time a supreme contempt for their ignorance. "Attention, Squad!" and they all looked at him in a way that meant business.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "RIGHT SHOULDER s.h.i.+FT--ARMS!" 067 ]

"Load in nine times--Load!"

Si couldn't quite understand what the "in" meant, but he had always been handy with a shotgun, to the terror of the squirrels and c.o.o.ns up in Posey County, and he thought he would show the Sergeant how spry he was. So he rammed in a cartridge, put on a cap, held up his musket, and blazed away, and then went to loading again as if his life depended upon his activity. For an instant the Sergeant was speechless with amazement.

At length his tongue was loosened, and he roared out:

"What in the name of General Jackson are you doing, you measly idiot!

Who ordered you to load and fire your piece?"

"I--I th--thought you did!" said Si, trembling as if he had the Wabash ague. "You said for us to load nine times. I thought nine loads would fill 'er chuck full and bust 'er and I didn't see any way but to shute 'em oft as fast as I got 'em in."