if you don't
skip out o' here this minute, I'll bust your head as I would a punkin."

Groundhog retreated a few steps, but still kept up a show of
determination.

"What are you foolin' with the ole hayseed for?" said another teamster,
coming up behind Groundhog. "Slap the old hawbuck over, snatch up the
kittle and run with it. I'll do it if you don't."

"Go for 'em, Deacon; I'm with you. We kin lick both of 'em," shouted
Shorty, who had been awakened by the noise of the dispute, and came
tottering out, trying to raise a stick of wood for a club.

At that moment a rebel cannon roared on Lookout Mountain, just over
them, and the wicked screech of a shell cleft the air. Both of the team
sters dropped on the ground in a paralysis of fear.

"The rebels 've got a new battery planted on the mountain," said Shorty,
turning to study the smoke that drifted away, in order to get its
location.

"The shell struck right over there, and hain't bursted yet," said the
sick boy, looking up from sipping his broth, and pointing to a spot a
short distance away. "I can hear the hissing of the fuse."

The teamsters sprang up like jacks-in-the-box, and ran with all the
power of their legs. By the time the explosion came they were hundreds
of yards away.

A column of dirt and stones was thrown up, of which a little sprinkle
reached the fire. Thousands of voices yelled derisively at the rebel
gunner.

"They're shootin' wuss and wuss every day," remarked Shorty, after
judicially considering the shot and making comparison with its
predecessors. "They'll git so after awhile that they can't hit the
Tennessee Valley."

"Shorty," said the Deacon, "take this revolver and watch that kittle
while I wash Si's face, and git him ready for his breakfast. If you
let anybody git away with it you lose your breakfast. If I ever go into
restaurantin' for a bizniss, I'm goin' to find a quieter neighborhood
than Chattanoogy. I ain't exactly grumblin', so to speak, but there's
enough excitement before breakfast every mornin' to last me a full
year."

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Si Klegg, Book 4 (of 6), by John McElroy

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