d it was something all the
soldiers did; how she hoped he wouldn't forget her, and she'd like to
see how he looked, now that he was a real soldier, and her father had
sold the old "mooley" cow, and Sally Perkins was engage to Jim Johnson,
who had stayed at home, and as for herself she wouldn't have anybody but
a soldier about the size of Si, and 'Squire Jones's son had been trying
to shine up to her and cut Si out, but she sent him off with a flea in
his ear.

"Yours till deth, Annabel."

The fact that there was a word misspelt now and then did not detract in
the least from the letter, so pleasing to Si. In fact, he was a little
lame in orthography himself, so that he had neither the ability nor the
disposition to scan Annabel's pages with a critic's eye. Si was happy,
and as he began to cast about for his supper he even viewed with
complacence his bacon burned to a crisp and his capsized coffee-pot
helplessly melting away in the fire.

"Well, Si, what does she say?" said his friend Shorty.

"What does who say?" replied Si, getting red in the face, and bristling
up and trying to assume an air of indifference.

"Just look here now. Si," said Shorty, "you can't play that on me. How
about that rosy-cheeked girl up in Posey County?"

It was Si's tender spot. He hadn't got used to that sort of thing yet,
and he felt that the emotions that made his heart throb like a sawmill
were too sacred to be fooled with. Impelled by a sudden impulse he smote
Shorty fairly between the eyes, felling him to the ground.

The Orderly, who happened to be near, took Si by the ear and marched him
up to the Captain's quarters.

"Have him carry a rail in front of my tent for an hour!" thundered the
Captain. "Don't let it be a splinter, either; pick out a good, heavy
one. And, Orderly, detail a guard to keep Mr. Klegg moving."

[Illustration: SI CARRIES A RAIL 083 ]

Of course, it was very mortifying to Si, and he would have been almost
heartbroken had he not been comforted by the thought that it was all for
her! At first he felt as if he would like to take that rail and charge
around and destroy the whole regiment; but, on thinking it over, he made
up his mind that discretion was the better part of valor.

As soon as Si's hour was up, and he had eaten supper and "made up" with
Shorty, he set about answering his letter. When, on his first march, Si
cleaned out all the surplusage from his knapsack, he had hung on to a
pretty portfolio t