e seen anything in it
to justify this. He would have found it very commonplace, and full
of errors of spelling and of grammar. But Shorty saw none of these.
Shakspere could have written nothing so divinely perfect to him. He had
not replied to it sooner, because he had been industriously thinking of
fitting things to say in reply. Now he must answer at once, or postpone
it indefinitely, and that meant so much longer in hearing again from
her. He got out his stationery, his gold pen, his wooden inkstand,
secured a piece of a cracker box for a desk, and seated himself far
from Si as possible among the men who were writing by the light of the
pitch-pine in the bonfires. Then he pulled from his breast the silk
bandana, and carefully developed from its folds the pocket-book and
Maria's last letter, which he spread out and re-read several times.

Commonplace and formal as the letter was, there was an intangible
something in it that made him feel a little nearer the writer than ever
before. Therefor, he began his reply:

Dere Miss Maria Klegg:

"I talk mi pen in hand to inform you that our walkin'-papers has at last
come, and we start termorrer mornin' for Buzzard Roost to settle jest
whose to rool that roost. Our ideas and Mister Jo Johnston's differ
on that subjeck. When we git through with him hele no more, though he
probably won't be so purty as he is now."

[Illustration: LITTLE PETE'S AWFUL REBELS. 149]

He stopped to rest after this prodigious literary effort, and wipe the
beaded sweat from his brow. He saw little Pete Skidmore looking at him
with troubled face.

"What're you doin' up, Pete? Lay down and go to sleep."

"Say, Corpril, the Orderly said we wuz goin' to fight a whole passel of
rebel cavalry, didn't he?"

"Um-hum!" assented Shorty, cudgeling his brain as to what he should next
write.

"Them's them awful kind o' rebels, ain't they--the John Morgan
kind--that ride big horses that snort fire, and they have long swords,
with which they chop men's heads off?"

"A lot o' yellin', gallopin' riff-raff," said Shorty, with the usual
contempt of an infantryman for cavalry. "Ain't worth the fodder their
bosses eat."

"Ain't they terribler than any other kind o' rebels?" asked Pete,
anxiously.

"Naah," said Shorty, sharply. "Go to sleep, Pete, and don't bother me
with no more questions. I'm writin' a letter." He proceeded with his
literary effort:

"I was gladder than I kin tell you to git yore let