that
night, and that they slipped away into the woods to lie down together.
The chirping of the birds at dawn wakened them, and as John sat up
rubbing his eyes, he heard a rifle's crack. They were at the edge of a
field, and half a mile from him, troops were marching by columns
across a clearing. The rifle-shot was followed by another, and
another, and then by a half-dozen. "Wake up, Bob--wake up--they's a
battle," he cried, and the two boys stumbled to their feet. The shots
were far in front of the marching soldiers, and the boys could not
make out what the firing meant. The line formed and ran up the hill,
and the boys saw the morning sun flashing on the guns of the enemy.
The battery roared, and the boys were filled with terror. They ran
through the woods like dogs until they came to the soldiers from
Sycamore Ridge. The boys crawled on their bellies to their friends,
and lay with their faces all but buried in the ground. The men were
lying at the edge of the timber talking, and Watts McHurdie was on his
back.

"What's the matter with you, Watts?" asked Oscar Fernald.

"Os," replied Watts, "I got a presentiment I'm goin' to be shot in the
rear. It will kill me to be shot in the back, and I've got a notion
that's how I am goin' to die."

The line laughed. Captain Ward, who was sitting a few paces in the
rear of the men, went over to Watts, and scuffled the man over with
his foot. A bullet went through Ward's hat before he got back to his
place. The men were sticking up ramrods and betting on the number of
minutes they would last. No ramrod stood more than ten minutes. Martin
Culpepper threw up his hat five times before a bullet hit it; but he
went bareheaded the rest of the day, and John Barclay, in sheer fear,
began to dig a hole under him. After he had been on his belly for an
hour, Henry Schnitzler got tired and rose. The men begged him to lie
down. But his only reply when they told him he was a fool was, "Vell,
vot of it?" And when they said he would be shot, he answered again,
"Vell, vot of it?" And when Jake Dolan cried, "You pot-gutted
Dutchman, sit down or there'll be a sauer-kraut shower in hell pretty
quick," Henry shook his fat sides a moment and laughed, "Vell, vot of
dot--altzo!" For an hour, that seemed ten, he moved back and forth on
the line, firing and joking, and then the spell broke and a bullet
took part of his jaw. As he dropped to his position, with the blood
gushing from his face, his eyes