good ready for
startin'. You must eat all you kin, for you'll need all you kin hold
before the day's over."

Si was employed the same way in quieting down the rest, seeing that
every one was properly clothed and had all his equipments, and then
he gathered them around a little fire to boil their coffee and broil a
piece of fresh beef for their breakfast. He had the hardest work getting
them to pay attention to this, and eat all they could. They were so
wrought up over the idea that the battle would begin at any minute
that the sound of a distant bugle or any noise near would bring them up
standing, to the utter disregard of their meal.

"Take it cool, boys, and eat all you kin," he admonished them. "It's
generally a long time between meals sich times as these, and the more
you eat now the longer you kin go without."

But the boys could not calm themselves.

"There, ain't that rebel cavalry galloping and yelling?" one exclaimed;
and they all sprang to their feet and stared into the darkness.

"No," said Shorty, with as much scorn as he could express with his
mouthful of the last issue of soft bread that he was to get. "Set down.
That's only the Double Canister Battery goin' to water. Their Dutch
bugler can't speak good English, his bugle only come to this country at
the beginning o' the war, and he's got a bad cold in his head besides.
Nobody kin understand his calls but the battery boys, and they won't
have no other. They swear they've the best bugler in the army."'

"Set down! Set down, I tell you," Si repeated sternly, "and swaller all
the grub you kin hold. That's your first business, and it's just as much
your business as it is to shoot when you're ordered to. You've got to
lay in enough now to run you all day. And all that you've got to listen
for is our own bugle soundin' 'Fall in!' Don't mind no other noise."

They tried to obey, but an instant later all leaped to their feet, as a
volley of mule screechers mixed with human oaths and imprecations came
up from a neighboring ravine.

"There! There's the rebels, sure enough," they ejaculated, dropping
their coffee and meat and rushing for their guns.

"Come back and set down, and finish your breakfast," shouted Si. "That
ain't no rebels. That's only the usual family row over the breakfast
table between the mules and the teamsters."

"Mules is kickin' because the teamsters don't wash their hands and put
on white aprons when they come to wait on 'em," sugge