I don't want to never see the measly, muddy, agery ditch
agin'. Why, they have the ager so bad out there that it shakes the
buttons off a man's clothes, the teeth out of his head, the horns off
the cows. An' as for milk-sickness."

"Shorty!" thundered Si, "stop right there. If you wasn't my pardner I'd
fight you this minute. I kin join in jawin' about the officers an' the
{17}Government. A great deal of your slack that I can't agree with I kin
put up with, but you mustn't say nothin' against my home in the Wabash
Valley. That I won't stand from no man. For fear that I may lose my
temper I'm goin' away from you till you're in better humor."

With that Si strode on ahead, feeling as cross and uncomfortable
internally as he was ill-at-ease externally. He hated above all things
to quarrel with Shorty, but the Wabash Valley, that gardenspot of earth,
that place where lived his parents, and sister, and Annabel but the
subject was too sore to think about.

Presently an Aid came galloping along the middle of the road, calling
upon the men to make way for him. His horse's hoofs threw the mud in
every direction, and Si caught a heavy spatter directly in his face.

"Confound them snips of Aids," said he angrily, as he wiped the mud
off. "Put on more airs than if they was old Gen. Scott himself. Always
pretend to be in such a powerful hurry. Everybody must hustle out of
their way. I think that fool jest did that on purpose."

The rain kept pouring down with tormenting persistence. Wherever Si
looked were drenched, de pressed-looking men; melancholy, steaming
horses; sodden, gloomy fields; yellow, rushing streams, and boundless
mud that thousands of passing feet were churning into the consistency of
building-mortar.

Si had seen many rainy days since he had been in the army, but this was
the first real Winter rain {18}he had been out in.

Jabe Belcher, the most disagreeable man in Co. Q, was just ahead of him.
He stepped into a mudpuddle, slipped, threw the mud and water over Si,
and his gun, which he flung in the effort to save himself, struck Si on
the shoulder.

[Illustration: THE AID SPATTERS MUD ON SI 18]

"Clumsy lunkhead!" roared Si, as ill-tempered now as anybody. "Couldn't
you see that puddle and keep out of it? You'd walk right into the
Cumberland River if it was in front of you. Never saw such a bat-eyed
looney in my life."

"If the Captain wasn't lookin'," retorted Belcher, "I'd shut up both of
them dead-mack