his coffee-pot to tip over into the fire, and his bacon sizzling
in the frying-pan, as he elbowed his way into the crowd that huddled
around the Orderly.

"If there ain't more'n one letter for me," said Si softly to himself, "I
hope it'll be from Annabel; but, of course, I'd like to hear from Ma and
sister Marier, too!"

The Orderly, with a big package of letters in his hand, was calling
out the names, and as the boys received their letters they distributed
themselves through the camp, squatting about on rails or on the ground,
devouring with the greatest avidity the welcome messages from home. The
camp looked as if there had been a snowstorm.

Si waited anxiously to hear his name called as the pile letters rapidly
grew smaller, and he began to think he was going to get left.

"Josiah Klegg!" at length shouted the Orderly, as he held out two
letters. Si snatched them from his hand, went off by himself, and sat
down on a log.

Si looked at his letters and saw that one of them was addressed in a
pretty hand. He had never received a letter from Annabel before, but he
"felt it in his bones" that this one was from her. He glanced around to
be certain nobody was looking at him, and gently broke the seal, while
a ruddy glow overspread his beardless cheeks. But he was secure from
observation, as everybody else was similarly intent.

"Dear Si," the letter began. He didn't have to turn over to the bottom
of the last page to know what name he would find there. He read those
words over and over a dozen times, and they set his nerves tingling
clear down to his toe-nails. Si forgot his aches and blisters as he read
on through those delicious lines.

[Illustration: IT'S FROM ANNABEL 081 ]

She wrote how anxious she was to hear from him and how cruel it was of
him not to write to her real often; how she lay awake nights thinking
about him down among those awful rebels; how she supposed that by
this time he must be full of bullet-holes; and didn't he ge' hungry
sometimes, and wasn't it about time for him to get a furlough? how it
was just too mean for anything that those men down South had to get up a
war; how proud she was of Si because he had 'listed, and how she watched
the newspapers every day to find some thing about him; how she wondered
how many rebels he had killed, and if he had captured any batteries
yet--she said she didn't quite know what batteries were, but she read a
good deal about capturing 'em, and she suppose