Si Klegg
Chapter 24 : After all, Si was only a kid of a boy, like thousands of his comrades.'True, he wa

After all, Si was only a kid of a boy, like thousands of his comrades.'

True, he was past his majority a few months, but his environment from youth to his enlistment had so sheltered him that he was a boy at heart.

"The like precurse of fierce events and prologue to the omen coming on" had as yet made small impression upon him. Grim visaged war had not frightened him much up to that time. He was to get his regenerating baptism of blood at Murfreesboro a few weeks later. Just now Si Klegg was simply a boy grown big, a little over fat, fond of mother's cooking, mother's nice clean feather beds, mother's mothering, if the truth must be told. He had never in his life before been three nights from under the roof of the comfortable old house in which he was born. He had now been wearing the blue uniform of the Union a little more than three months, and had not felt mother's work-hardened hands smoothing his rebellious hair or seen her face or heard a prayer like she could make in all that three months.

"Shucks!" he said fretfully to himself as he looked back at the droning, half asleep brigade camp, and then off to the north, across the boiling yellow flood of waters that tumbled past the rocks far below him.

"A feller sure does git tired of doin' nothin'."

l.u.s.ty, young, and bred to an active life, Si, while he did not really crave hustle and bustle, was yet wedded to "keeping things moving." He had already forgotten the fierce suffering of his early marching--it seemed three years to him instead of three months back; he had forgotten the graybacks, the wet nights, the foraging expeditions, the extra guard duty and all that. There had been two days of soft Autumn suns.h.i.+ne in a camp that was almost ideal. Everything was cleaned up, mended up, and the men had washed and barbered themselves into almost dude-like neatness. Their heaviest duties had been lazy camp guard duty, which Shorty, growing indolent, had declared to be "dumned foolishness," and the only excitement offered came from returning foraging parties. There was no lurking enemy to fear, for the country had been cleared of guerrillas, and in very truth the ease and quietness of the days of inactivity was almost demoralizing the men.

There had been no Sunday services. The 200th Ind. was sprawled out on the ground in its several hundred att.i.tudes of ease, and those with whom they were brigaded were just as carelessly disposed.

As Si sauntered aimlessly back to look for Shorty, the early twilight began to close in as the sun slid down behind the distant hills.

Campfires began to glow as belated foragers prepared their suppers, and the gentle hum of voices came pleasantly to the ear, punctuated by laughter, often boisterous, but quite as often just the babbling, cheery laugh of carefree boys.

Si felt--well, Si was just plain homesick for mother and the girls, and one particular girl, whose front name was Annabel, and he almost felt as though he didn't care who knew it.

The air was redolent with the odor of frying meat. Mingled with this were vagrant whiffs of cooking potatoes, onions, chickens, and the fragrance of coffee steaming to blackest strength, all telling tales of skillful and successful foraging, and it all reminded Si of home and the odors in his mother's kitchen.

Si couldn't find Shorty, so he hunched down, silent and alone, beside his tent, a prey to the blue devils. It would soon be Christmas at home.

He could see the great apple bins in the cellar; the pumpkins in the hay in the barn; the turkeys roosting above the woodshed; the yards of encased sausages in the attic; he could even smell the mince meat seasoning in the great stone jar; the honey in the bee cellar; the huge fruit cake in the milk pan in the pantry; since he could remember he seen and smelled all these, with 57 varieties of preserves, "jells,"

marmalades, and fruit-b.u.t.ters thrown in for good measure at Christmas time. He had even contemplated with equanimity all these 21 Christmases, the dose of "blue pills" that inevitably followed over-feeding at Mother Klegg's, and now on his 22d Christmas he might be providing a target for a rebel bullet.

Suddenly Si noticed that the dark had come; the fragrance of tobacco from hundreds of pipes was filling the air, and from away off in the distance the almost Indian Summer zephyrs were bringing soft rythmic sounds like--surely--yes, he caught it now, it was that mighty soother of tired hearts--

"Jesus, lover of my soul, Let me to Thy bosom fly.

While the billows near me roll.

While the tempest still is high."

Si shut his eyes lest the tear drops welling suddenly up fall on his uniform, not stopping to think that in the gloom they could not be seen.

Miles away the singers seemed to be when Si caught the first sounds, but as the long, swinging notes reached out in the darkness, squad after squad, company after company, regiment after regiment took up the grand old hymn until Si himself lifted up his not untuneful voice and with the thousands of others was pleading--

"Hide me, oh, my Savior hide, 'Till the storm of life is past; Safe into the haven guide.

Oh, receive my soul at last."

and the song rose and swelled out and up toward heaven, and stole away off to the horizon till the whole vast universe seemed filled with the sacred melody. As the last words and their music faded out in s.p.a.ce.

Shorty lunged down beside Si.

"Say, Pard," he began banteringly, "you've missed yer callin'. Op'ry oughter have been yer trade."

"Oh, chop off yer chin music for a minute. Shorty," broke in Si. "In the dark here it seemed most as though I was at home in the little old church with Maria and Annabel and Pap and Mother, and us all singing together, and you've busted it--ah! listen!"

From not far away a bugler had tuned up and through the fragrant night came piercingly sweet--

"I will sing you a song of that beautiful land--"

Then near at hand a strong, clear, musical tenor voice took up the second line,

"The far away home of the soul,"

and almost instantly a deep, resonant ba.s.s voice boomed in--

"Where no storms ever beat on that glittering strand While the years of eternity roll,"

and soon a hundred voices were making melody of the spheres as they sang Philip Phillips's beautiful song.

"That was Wilse Hornbeck singin' tenor," said Si, as the song ended.

"And it was Hen Withers doin' the ba.s.s stunt," returned Shorty.

"You just oughter hear him do the ornamental on a mule whacker. Why, Si, he's an artist at cussing. Hen Withers is. Sodom and Gomorrah would git jealous of him if he planted himself near 'em, he's that wicked."

"Well, he can sing all right," grunted Si.

Just then Hen Withers, in the squad some 50 feet away broke into song again--

"Oh, say, can you see by the dawn's early light"

It welled up from his throat like the pipe from a church organ, and as mellow as the strains from a French horn. When the refrain rolled out fully 3,000 men were singing, yelling and shouting in frenzied fervor--

"And the Star Spangled banner.

In triumph shall wave, O'er the land of the free, And the home of the brave."

While Hen Withers rested on his well-earned laurels, a strong, clear voice, whose owner was probably thinking of home and the shady gloom of the walk through the grove to singing school with his sweetheart, trilled an apostrophe to the queen of light.

"Roll on, silvery moon, Guide the traveler on his way,"

but he had it pretty much to himself, for not many knew the words, and he trailed off into

"I loved a little beauty, Bell Brandon,"

then his music died out in the night.

It was now the "tenore robusto" who chimed in bells, on a new battle song that held a mile square of camp spellbound:

"Oh, wrap the flag around me, boys,

To die were far more sweet With freedom's starry emblem, boys.

To be my winding sheet.

In life I loved to see it wave

And follow where it led, And now my eyes grow dim, my hands

Would clasp its last bright shred.

Oh, I had thought to meet you, boys,