me.
But what's your idee about the roof?"{130}

"Why, do you see that there freight-car over there by the bridge"
(pointing to where a car was off the track, near Stone River), "I've
bin watchin' that ever since we begun buildin', for fear somebody else'd
drop on to it. The roof of that car is tin. We'll jest slip down there
with an ax after dark, an' cut off enough to make a splendid roof. I
always wanted a tin-roofed house. Old Jack Wilson, who lives near us,
had a tin roof on his barn, an' it made his daughters so proud they
wouldn't go home with me from meetin'. You kin write home that we have a
new house with a tin roof, an' it'll help your sisters to marry better."

"Shorty, that head o' your'n gits bigger every time I look at it."

Si and Shorty had the extreme quality of being able to forget fatigue
when there was something to be accomplished. As darkness settled
down they picked up the ax and proceeded across the fields to the
freight-car.

"There's someone in there," said Si, as they came close to it. They
reconnoitered it carefully. Five or six men, without arms, were
comfortably ensconed inside and playing cards by the light of a fire of
pitch-pine, which they had built upon some dirt placed in the middle of
the car.

"They're blamed skulkers," said Shorty, after a minute's survey of the
interior. "Don't you see they hain't got their guns with 'em? We won't
mind 'em."

They climbed to the top of the car, measured off about half of it, and
began cutting through the tin with the ax. The noise alarmed the men
inside. They jumped out on the ground, and called up:{131}

"Here, what're you fellers doin' up there? This is our car. Let it
alone."

"Go to the devil," said Shorty, making another slash at the roof with
the ax.

"This is our car, I tell you," reiterated the men. "You let it alone, or
we'll make you." Some of the men looked around for something to throw at
them.

Si walked to the end of the car, tore off the brake-wheel, and came
back.

"You fellers down there shut up and go back in side to your cards, if
you know what's good for you," he said. "You're nothing but a lot of
durned skulkers. We are here under orders. We don't want nothin' but a
piece o' the tin roof. You kin have the rest. If any of you attempts
to throw anything I'll mash him into the ground with this wheel. Do you
hear me? Go back inside, or we'll arrest the whole lot of you and take
you back to your regiments."

Si's a