is veteran friend. "I'd just as
soon be a billy-goat and live on circus-posters, fruit-cans and old
hoop-skirts."

"You'll get used to it after a while, same's we did. You'll see the time
when you'll be mighty glad to get even as hard a tack as that!"

Si's heart sank almost into his shoes at the prospect, for the taste of
his mother's pie and Annabel's fruit cake were yet fresh in his mouth.
But Si was fully bent on being a loyal, obedient soldier, determined
to make the best of everything without any more "kicking" than was the
inalienable right of every man who wore a uniform.

For the first time in his life Si went to bed hungry that night.
Impelled by the gnawings of his appetite he made repeated assaults upon
the hardtack, but the result was wholly insufficient to satisfy the
longings of his stomach. His supper wasn't anything to speak of. Before
going to bed he began to exercise his ingenuity on various schemes to
reduce the hardtack to a condition in which it would be more gratifying
to his taste and better suited to the means with which nature had
provided him for disposing of his rations. Naturally Si thought that
soaking in water would have a beneficial effect. So he laid five or six
of them in the bottom of a camp-kettle, anchored them down with a
stone, and covered them with water. He thought that with the aid of a
frying-pan he would get up a breakfast that he could eat, anyway.

Si felt a little blue as he lay curled up under his blanket with his
head pillowed on his knapsack. He thought some about his mother, and
sister Maria, and pretty Annabel, but he thought a good deal more
about the beef and potatoes, the pies and the puddings, that were so
plentifully spread upon the table at home.

It was a long time before he got to sleep. As he lay there, thinking and
thinking, there came to his mind some ether uses to which it seemed to
him the hardtack might be put, which would be much more consistent
with its nature than to palm it off on the soldiers as alleged food. He
thought he could now understand why, when he enlisted, they examined his
teeth so carefully, as if they were going to buy him for a mule. They
said it was necessary to have good teeth in order to bite "cartridges"
successfully, but now he knew it was with reference to his ability to
eat hardtack.

Si didn't want to be killed if he could help it.

While he was lying there he determined to line one of his shirts with
hardtacks, and he w