to
the mistake, when the general said:

Sergeant, the colonel tells me that you can turn your hand to almost
anything. What line of business have you worked at previous to your
enlistment?

"Well, I guess there is nothing that is usually done in a country
village that I have not done. I have clerked in a grocery, tended bar,
drove team on a threshing machine, worked in a slaughter house,
drove omnibus, worked in a-saw-mill, learned the printing trade, rode
saw-logs, worked in a pinery, been brakeman on a freight train, acted as
assistant chambermaid in a livery stable, clerked in a hotel, worked on
a farm, been an auctioneer, edited a newspaper, took up the collection
in church, canvassed for books, been life-insurance agent, worked at
bridge-building, took tintypes, sat on a jury, been constable, been
deck-hand on a steamboat, chopped cord-wood, run a cider-mill, and drove
a stallion in a four-minute race at a county fair."

"That will do," said the general. "You will be placed in charge of a
pioneer corps, and you will go four miles south, on the road, where
a bridge has been destroyed across a small bayou, build a new bridge
strong enough to cross artillery, then move on two miles to a river you
will find, and look out a good place to throw a pontoon bridge across.
The first bridge you will build under an artillery fire from the rebels,
and when it is done let a squad of cavalry cross, then the pontoon
train, and a regiment of infantry. Then light out for the river ahead of
the pontoon train, with the cavalry. The pioneer corps will be ready in
fifteen minutes."

The colonel told me to hurry up, but I called him out of his tent and
asked him if I was really a sergeant, or if it was a mirage. He said if
I made a success of that bridge, and the command got across, and I was
not killed I would be appointed sergeant. He said the general would
try me as a bridge-builder, and if I was a success he would try me, no
doubt, in other capacities, such as driving team on a threshing machine,
and editing a newspaper.

When, I went on after my horse, being pretty proud. The idea of being
picked out of so many non-commissioned officers, and placed in charge of
a pioneer corps, and sent ahead of the army to rebuild a bridge that had
been destroyed, with a prospect of being promoted or killed, was glory
enough for one day, and I rode back to headquarters feeling that the
success of the whole expedition rested on me. If I built