I won't."

"Hoshpital! Kape clear av the hoshpital, Char-les, dear. Sure, they'd
cut a man's leg off behind the ears av him for to cure him av
indigestion."

"Is it going to rain all night, Barney?"

"It is, bad 'cess to it; and to-morrow and the day afther, I'm
thinkin'. The blackness av night is outside; be jabers! you could cut
it like turf with a shpade! If it wasn't for the ould fort flamin' out
wanst in a whoile, I'd be thinkin' I'd never an oi in my head, barrin'
the fires in the tints far an' near gives a bit of dimness to the
dark. Phwat time is it?"

"Quarter to twelve, Barney."

"Troth, then, the relief will be soon coming. I must be thramping the
mud av Virginia to save the Union. Good-night, byes. I come to give
yez the good word. Kape your heart light an' aisy, Char-les, dear.
D'ye moind the turkeys and the pois? Faith, it's meself that has the
taste for thim dainties!"

"I don't believe I'll be able to eat a mite of the Thanksgiving," says
Charley, as we hear Barney _squ-ush_ away; "but just to see the brown
on a real old brown home turkey will do me a heap of good."

"You'll be all right by Thursday, Charley, I guess; won't you? It's
only Sunday night now."

Of course I cannot remember the very words of that talk in the night,
so many years ago. But the coming of Barney I recollect well, and the
general drift of what was said.

Charley turned on his bed of hay-covered poles, and I put my hand
under his gray blanket to feel if his legs were well covered by the
long overcoat he lay in. Then I tucked the blanket well in about his
feet and shoulders, pulled his poncho again to its full length over
him, and sat on a cracker-box looking at our fire for a long time,
while the rain spattered through the canvas in spray.

My "buddy" Charley, the most popular boy of Company I, was of my own
age,--seventeen,--though the rolls gave us a year more each, by way of
compliance with the law of enlistment. From a Pennsylvania farm in the
hills he came forth to the field early in that black fall of '64,
strong, tall, and merry, fit to ride for the nation's life,--a mighty
wielder of an axe, "bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade."

We were "the kids" to Company I. To "buddy" with Charley I gave up my
share of the hut I had helped to build as old Bader's "pard." Then the
"kids" set about the construction of a new residence, which stood
farther from the parade ground than any hut in the row except the bi