fat pig came wabbling and grunting toward his post, it was to
Si like a vision of manna to the children of Israel in the wilderness.
A wild, uncontrollable desire to taste a fresh spare-rib took possession
of him. Naturally, his first idea was to send a bullet through the
animal, but on second thought he saw that wouldn't do at all. It would
"give him away" at once, and, besides, he had found that a single shot
on the picket-line would keep Buell's entire army in line-of-battle for
a whole day.

Si wrote to his mother that his bright new bayonet was stained with
Southern blood, and the old lady shuddered at the awful thought. "But,"
added Si, "it was only a pig, and not a man, that I killed!"

"I'm so glad!" she exclaimed.

[Illustration: AS MARIA PICTURED SI USING HIS BAYONET 034 ]

By the time Si had been in the service a year there was less zeal in the
enforcement of orders of this kind, and Si had become a very skillful
and successful forager. He had still been unable to reach with his
bayonet the body of a single one of his misguided fellow citizens,
but he had stabbed a great many pigs and sheep. In fact, Si found his
bayonet a most useful auxiliary in his predatory operations. He could
not well have gotten along without it.

Uncle Sam generally furnished Si with plenty of coffee--roasted and
unground--but did not supply him with a coffee mill. Si thought at first
that the Government had forgotten something. He saw that several of the
old veterans of '61 had coffee mills, but he found on inquiry that they
had been obtained by confiscation only. He determined to supply himself
at the first opportunity, but in the meantime he was obliged to 'use his
bayonet as a substitute, just as all the rest of the soldiers did.

We regret to say that Si, having thrown away his "Baxter's Call to the
Unconverted" in his first march, and having allowed himself to forget
the lessons he had learned but a few years before in Sunday-school, soon
learned to play poker and other sinful games. These, at night, developed
another use for the bayonet. In its capacity as a "handy" candlestick it
was "equaled by few and excelled by none." The "shank" was always ready
to receive the candle, while the point could be thrust into the ground
in an instant, and nothing more was necessary. This was perhaps the
most general sphere of usefulness found by the bayonet during the war.
Barrels of candle-grease flowed down the furrowed sides of this we