e a nice winder for our house."

"Indeed it would," Shorty started to answer, but time was too precious
to waste in speech. In an instant he had shoved an old desk up to the
wall, mounted it, and handed the picture down to Si. They wrapped it up
in their overcoats, and started back for camp. They had seen enough of
Murfreesboro' for that day.

CHAPTER XIII. "HOOSIER'S REST"

SI AND SHORTY CHRISTEN THEIR PLACE AND GIVE A HOUSE-WARMING.

WITH a tin roof, a real door, a glazed window and a plank floor, Si and
Shorty's house was by far the most aristocratic in the cantonment of
the 200th Ind., if not the entire Winter quarters of the Army of the
Cumberland. A marble mansion, with all the modern improvements, could
not more proudly overshadow all its neighbors than it did.

Even the Colonel's was no comparison to it. A tent-fly had been made to
do duty for a roof at the Colonel's. It could not be stretched evenly
and tight. It would persistently sag down in spots, and each of these
spots became a reservoir from which would descend an icy stream. A
blanket had to serve as a door, and the best substitute for window glass
were Commissary blanks greased with fat from headquarters' frying-pan.
The floor, instead of being of clean, new plank, as Si's and Shorty's,
was made of the warped and weather-beaten boards of a stable, which had
been torn down by a fatigue detail.

Si and Shorty took as much pride and pleasure in their architecture as
any nabob over his million-dollar villa. They were constantly on the
alert for anything that would add to the comfort and luxury{151}
of their home. In their wanderings they chanced to come across an
old-fashioned bedstead in an out house. It was of the kind in which the
rails screw together, and the bed is held up by a strong cord crossing
and recrossing from one rail to another. This looked like real luxury,
and they at once appropriated it without any consultation with the
owner, whoever he may have been.

"It'd be a waste o' time, anyhow," remarked Shorty. "He's a rebel, and
probably over there in Bragg's army."

They made a tick out of the piece of wagon-cover, filled it with beech
leaves, and had a bed which surpassed their most extravagant ideas of
comfort in the army.

"Shorty," said Si, as they snugged themselves in the first night, "this
seems almost too much. Do you ever remember settin' the whole night on a
rail, with nothin' over us but clouds leakin' ice-water?"

"