nt another sich a tussle," meditated
the Deacon. "I never heerd any thing sound so murderin' wicked as them
bullets. A painter's screech on a dark night or a rattler's rattle
wuzzent to be compared to 'em. It makes my blood run cold to think o'
'em. Then, if that feller that shot at me had wobbled his gun a little
to the left, Josiah Klegg's name would 've bin sculped on a slab o'
white marble, and Maria would 've bin the Widder Klegg. I wish the war
wuz over, and Si and Shorty{246} safe at home. But their giddy young
pates are so full o' dumbed nonsense that there hain't no room for
scare. But, now that I'm safe through it, I wouldn't 've missed it for
the best cow on my place. After all, Providence sends men where they are
needed, and He certainly sent me out there.

"Then, I'll have a good story to tell the brethren and sisters some
night after prayer meetin's over. It'll completely offset that story
'bout my comin' so near gittin' my head shaved. How the ungodly{247}
rapscallions would've gloated over Deacon Klegg's havin' his head shaved
an' bein' drummed out o' camp. That thing makes me shiver worse'n the
whistlin' o' them awful bullets. But they can't say nothin' now. Deacon
Klegg's bin a credit to the church."

They were nearing camp. The Captain of Co. Q ordered:

"Corporal Klegg, take your wagon up that right-hand road to the
Quartermaster's corral of mules, and bring me a receipt for it."

Si turned the wagon off, and had gone but a few hundred yards, when he
and Shorty saw a house at a little distance, which seemed to promise to
furnish something eatable. He and Shorty jumped off and cut across the
fields toward it, telling the Deacon they would rejoin him before he
reached the picket-line, a mile or so ahead.

The Deacon jogged on, musing intently of the stirring events of the day,
until he was recalled to the things immediately around him by hearing a
loud voice shout:

"Stop, there, you black scoundrel! I've ketched ye. I'm gwine to blow
your onery head off."

He looked up and saw a man about his own age, dressed in butternut
homespun, and riding a fine horse. He wore a broad-brimmed slouch
hat, his clean-shaven face was cold and cruel, and he had leveled a
double-barreled shotgun on a fine-looking negro, who had leaped over
from the field into the middle of the road, and was standing there
regard ing him with a look of intense disappointment and{248} fear.

[Illustration: I'M GWINE TER KILL YE,