an lay it to
me. Lots of the boys that wrote letters for wanted to detail all of
their calamities to their mothers and sisters and sweet-hearts, but I
worded the letters in a funny sort of way, so that the friends at home
would not be worried, and the answers the boys got would please them
very much. The hardest work I had was a couple of days writing letters
for a doctor, to relatives of boys who had died, detailing the sickness,
death and burial, and notifying friends that they could obtain the
personal effects of the deceased, clothing, money, pipes, knives, etc.,
by sending express charges. It always seemed to me that if I had been
running the government I would have paid the express charges on the
clothing of the boys who had died, if I didn't lay up a cent. Finally I
got well enough to go back to my regiment, and one day I showed up at
my company, and the first man I met saluted me and said, "Hello,
Lieutenant." I told him he did wrong to joke a sick man that way, and
I went on to find Jim. He was in our tent, greasing his shoes, and
he looked up with a queer expression on his face and said, "Hello,
Lieutenant."

"Look a here." I said, as I grasped his greasy hand, "what do you fellows
mean by calling me names, I have never done anything to deserve to be
made a fool of. Pard, what ails you anyway?"

"Didn't they tell you," said Jim, as he scraped the mud on his other
shoe with a stick. "The colonel has sent your name to the governor of
Wisconsin to be commissioned as second Lieutenant of the company. All
the boys are tickled to death, and they are going to whoop it up for you
when your commission comes. But this pup tent will not be good enough
for you then, and old Jim will have to pick up another pard. You won't
have to cook your bacon on a stick when you get your commsssion, and you
can drink out of a leather covered flask instead of a flannel covered
canteen. But by the great horn spoons I shall love you if you get to be
a Jigadier Brindle," and the old pard looked as though he wanted to cry
like a baby.

"Jim," I said, "I think the fellows are giving us taffy, and that there
is nothing in this Lieutenant business. But if there is, you will be my
pard till this cruel war is over, and don't you forget it," and I went
along the company street towards the colonel's tent, leaning on a cane,
and all the boys congratulated me, and I felt like a fool.

"Lieutenant, I am glad to see you back," said the Colonel, as