st him
a week. The pretty Annabel--the neighbor's daughter who had solemnly
promised Si that she wouldn't go with any other fellow while he was
away--came around to see Si off and brought him a rich fruit cake.

"I made that for you," she said.

"Bully for you!" said Si, for he felt that he must begin to talk like a
soldier.

The first day or two after reaching Louisville the 200th received
rations of "soft bread." But that didn't last long. It was only a way
they had of letting the fresh soldier down easy. Orders came to get
ready to pull out after Bragg, and then Si'a regiment had its first
issue of army rations. As the Orderly pried open a box of hardtack and
began to distribute them to the boys, exclaimed:

"Them's nice-looking soda crackers. I don't believe the grub is going to
be so bad, after all."

Si had never seen a hardtack before.

"Better taste one and see how you like it!" said one of Buell's ragged
Indiana veterans, who had come over to see the boys of the 200th and
hear the latest news from "God's country."

It happened that this lot was one of extra quality as to hardness. The
baker's watch had stopped, or he had gone to sleep, and they had been
left in the oven or dry-kiln too long. Si took one of them and carried
it to his mouth. He first tried on it the bite which made such havoc
with a quarter section of custard pie, but his incisors made no more
impression upon it than if it had been a shingle.

"You have to bear on hard," said the veteran, with a grim smile.

"Je-ru-sa-lem!" exclaimed Si after he had made two or three attempts
equally barren of results.

Then he tried his "back teeth." His molars were in prime order, and his
jaw power was sufficient to crack a hickory nut every time. Si crowded
one corner of the hardtack as far as he could between his "grinders,"
where he could get a good "purchase" on it, shut his eyes and turned
on a full head of steam. His teeth and jaws fairly cracked under the
strain, but he couldn't even "phase" it.

"If that ain't old pizen!" said Si. "It beats anything I ever seen up in
the Wabash country."

But his blood was up, and laying the cracker upon a log, he brought the
butt of his gun down upon it like a pile-driver.

[Illustration: HE TRIES THE BUTT OF HIS GUN ON IT 041 ]

"I thought I'd fix ye," he said, as he picked up the fragments, and
tried his teeth upon the smaller ones. "Have I got to eat such stuff as
that?" with a despairing look at h