rought in verdant,
bashful boys like Si. He thought he could cow him as easily as he did
when Si had timidly ventured to ask His Greatness a modest question
or two as they were crossing the Ohio River. Wagonmasters were always
making just that kind of mistakes.

The other boys ran up to see the fun. The Wagonmaster made a rush for
Si with doubled fists, but Si quickly stepped to one side, and gave the
hulking fellow a tap on the butt of his ear that laid him over in
the mud. The other boys yelled with delight. Next to a Sutler, or a
conceited, fresh young Aid, the soldiers always delighted to see a
Wagonmaster get into trouble.

[Illustration: SI FLOORS THE WAGONMASTER. 154]

The Wagonmaster sprang up, ready for another round; but the boys raised
the cry that the Officer of the Day was coming, and both Si and the
Wagonmaster remembered that they had business in other parts of the
camp.

The next day Shorty said: "It's all right, Si; we could've kept that
scoop-shovel as long as we wanted to, but I thought that for many
reasons it'd better be got out of the regiment, so I've traded it to
them Maumee Muskrats for a Dutch oven they'd borrowed from their Major."

"Bully," answered Si. "I'd much rather have the Dutch oven, anyway."

Si produced a piece of board, which had been{154} painted white, and
evidently done duty as part of the door of a house in Murfreesboro',
looked at it critically, and then selected a piece of charcoal from the
fire, and sat down with an air of studious purpose. "What are you up to
now, Si?" asked Shorty curiously.

"Why," explained Si, "I've noticed, whenever we've bin in any big place,
that all the fine houses have signs or numbers, or something else onto
'em, to name 'em. I've bin thinkin' o' something for{155} our house. How
does 'Hoosier's Rest' strike you for a name?"

"Splendid," said Shorty. "Couldn't be better."

"And," continued Si, "I've got this board to make a sign to nail up over
the door. Do you know how to spell Hoosier, Shorty?"

"Blest if I do," answered Shorty. "It wasn't in our book. At least, we
never got to it, if it was. You see our spellin'-school broke up just
as we got to 'incompatible.' The teacher got too fond o' Nancy Billings,
that I was castin' sheep's eyes at myself. He got to givin' her easy
words, to keep her at the head o' the class, and pickin' hard ones for
me, to send me to the foot, where I'd be fur away from her. I wouldn't
stand it always, so me