Forage-Master could be pursuaded to dole out to them.

The Deacon's next solicitude was to get the boys aboard a train that
would start out soon. This was a sore perplexity. All was rush and
bustle about the railroad yard. Trains were coming, being switched
hither and yon, unloaded, and reloaded, and going, in a way that was
simply bewildering to the plain farmer. Men in uniform and men in plain
clothes were giving orders, and these were obeyed, and everybody seemed
too busy to answer questions or give information.

"Naw; git out. Don't bother me with no questions, I tell you,"
impatiently said a man in citizen's clothes, who with arms outspread
was signalling the switching engines. "'Tain't my business to give
information to people. Got all I kin do to furnish brains for them
bull-headed engineers. Go to that Quartermaster you see over there in
uniform. The Government pays him for knowin' things. It don't me."

"I don't know anything about the different cars, my friend," said the
Quartermaster haughtily. "That's the business of the railroad people. I
simply order them to make up the trains for me, and they do the rest.
There's a Yard-Master over there. Go ask him."

"Blazes and brimstone," exploded the Yard-Master; "how in the devil's
name do you suppose I can tell anything about the trains going out? I'm
just pestered to death by such fool questions, while the life's being
worried out of me by these snoozers with sardine-labels on their
shoulders, who strut around and give orders, and don't know enough about
railroading to tell a baggage-check from a danger-signal. If they'd only
let me alone I'd have all these trains running in and out like shuttles
in a loom. But as soon's I get one arranged down comes a shoulderstrap
and orders something different. Go off and ask somebody that wears brass
buttons and a basswood head. Don't bother me. Get out of the way of that
engine there."

In despair, the Deacon turned to a man who wore a Major's
shoulder-straps.

"No," he answered; "I'm sorry to say that I cannot give you any
information. I'm only in command of the guards here. I haven't anything
to do with the trains. The Quartermasters run them, and they run them as
they run everything they have anything to do with--like the old man and
woman run their fulling mill on the Kankakee--that is, like--

"Dumb this mixin' o' military and civilian," said the irritated
Deacon, "It's worse'n mixin' religion and politics, and pr