Just as he was beginning to properly appreciate his canteen, he learned
a sharp lesson, that comes to all of us, as to how much "cussedness"
there can be in the simplest things when they happen to go wrong. He
went out one day and got a canteen of nice sweet milk, which he
and "Shorty" Elliott heartily enjoyed. He hung the canteen upon the
ridge-pole of the tent, and thought no more about it until the next day,
when he came in from drill, and found the tent filled with an odor so
vile that it made him cough.

"Why in thunder don't the Colonel send out a detail to find and bury
that dead mule? It'll pizen the hull camp."

He had been in service just long enough to believe that the Colonel
ought to look out for and attend to everything.

"'Taint no dead mule," said Shorty, whose nose had come close to the
source of the odor. "It's this blamed canteen. What on earth have you
been putting in it. Si?"

"Ha'int had nothin' in but that sweet milk yesterday."

"That's just what's the matter," said the Orderly, who, having been in
the three-months' service, knew all about war. He had come in to detail
Si and Shorty to help unload Quartermaster's stores. "You must always
scald 'out your canteens when you've had milk in 'em. Don't you remember
how careful your mother is to scald her milk pans?"

After the company wagon had run over and hopelessly ruined the neat
little frying-pan which Si had brought from Posey County, he was in
despair as to how he should fry his meat and cook his "lobscouse."
Necessity is the mother of invention. He melted in two a canteen he
picked up, and found its halves made two deep tin pans, very light and
very handy. A split stick made a handle, and he had as good a frying-pan
as the one he had lost, and much more convenient, for when done using
the handle was thrown away, and the pan slipt into the haversack, where
it lay snug and close, instead of clattering about as the frying-pan did
when the regiment moved at the double-quick.

The other half of the canteen was useful to brown coffee, bake hoe-cake,
and serve for toilet purposes.

One day on the Atlanta campaign the regiment moved up in line to the
top of a bald hill. As it rose above the crest it was saluted with a
terrific volley, and saw that another crest across the narrow valley was
occupied by at least a brigade of rebels.

"We'll stay right here, boys," said the plucky little Colonel, who had
only worn Sergeant's stripes when the