s in hopes now that
you'd take me by the back o' the neck and try to shake some o' this
laziness out o' me."

"Wait till the rations come," repeated Si listlessly. "Mebbe we'll fell
livelier then. The shelter we've fixed up'll keep out the coarsest o'
the rain, anyway. Most o' the boys ain't got none."

When the rations arrived, Si and Shorty had energy enough to draw,
cook and devour an immense supper. Then they felt more tired than ever.
Shorty had managed to tear off a big piece of the wagon cover while he
was showing much zeal in getting the rations distributed quickly. He
got the company's share in this, and helped carry it to the company, but
never for a minute relaxed his hold on the coveted canvas. Then he took
it back to his fire. Si and he spent what energy they had left in making
a tolerable tent of it, by stretching it over their shelter. They tied
it down carefully, to keep anybody else from stealing it off them, and
Shorty took the additional precaution of fastening a strip of it around
his neck. Then they crawled in, and before night come on they were
sleeping apparently as soundly as the Seven of Ephesus.

{126}

CHAPTER XI. WINTER QUARTERS

THEY BUILT THEM A HOUSE AND GOT IN OUT OF THE RAIN.

THE NEXT day Sunday after the battle dawned as clear, bright and
sparkling as only a Winter's day can dawn in Tennessee, after a
fortnight of doleful deluges. Tennessee Winter weather is like the
famous little girl with the curl right down in the middle of her
forehead, who,

"When she was good, she was very, very good,
And when she was bad, she was horrid."

After weeks of heart-saddening down-pour that threatened to drench life
and hope out of every breathing thing, it will suddenly beam out in a
day so crisp and bright that all Nature will wear a gladsome smile and
life become jocund.

When the reveille and the Orderly-Sergeant's brogans aroused Si and
Shorty the latter's first thought was for the strip of canvas which he
had secured with so much trouble from the wagon-cover, and intended to
cherish for future emergencies. He felt his neck and found the strip
that he had tied there, but that was all that there was of it. A sharp
knife had cut away the rest so deftly that he had not felt its loss.

Shorty's boiler got very hot at once, and he began blowing off steam.
Somehow he had taken an especial fancy to that piece of canvas, and his
wrath was hot against the man who had stolen it.