s one of the "non-commish."

Like every other man who put on the army blue and marched away so bold,
"With gay and gallant tread," Si could not tell whether he was going to
amount to anything as a soldier until he had gone through the test of
being under fire. There were many men who walked very erect, talked
bravely, drilled well, and made a fine appearance on dress parade,
before they reached "the front," but who wilted at the "zip" of bullets
like tender corn blades nipped by untimely frost. And a good many of
them continued in that wilted condition. Perhaps they really couldn't
help it. An inscrutable Providence had seen fit to omit putting any
"sand in their gizzards," as the boys expressed it.

It must be confessed that Si was somewhat unduly elated and puffed up
over, his own achievements as a skirmisher and his success in climbing
the ladder of military rank and fame. It is true, it wasn't much of
a fight they had that day, but Si thought it was pretty fair for a
starter, and enough to prove to both himself and his comrades that he
wouldn't be one of the "coffee coolers" when there was business on hand.

Si was sorry that his regiment did not get into the fight at Perryville.
The 200th Ind. belonged to one of the two corps of Buell's army that
lay under the trees two or three miles away all through that October
afternoon, while McCook's gallant men were in a life-and-death struggle
against overwhelming odds. It bothered Si as much to understand it all
as it did 30,000 other soldiers that day.

Si responded with alacrity when he was detailed for guard duty. He had
walked a beat once or twice as a common tramp, and had not found it
particularly pleasant, especially in stormy weather; but now he was a
peg higher, and he thought as Corporal he would have a better time. He
had already observed that the rude winds of army life were tempered,
if not to the shorn lambs, at least to the officers, in a degree
proportionate to their rank. The latter had the first pick of
everything, and the men took what was left. The officers always got the
softest rails to sleep on, the hardtack that was least tunneled through
by the worms, the bacon that had the fewest maggots, and the biggest
trees in a fight.

"Forward--March!" shouted the officer in command, when the detachment
was ready. Si stepped off very proudly, thinking how glad his good old
mother and sister Marier and pretty Annabel would be if they could see
him at that