d come and arrest us all
and bring us to headquarters, where the colonel could reprimand the
corporal, etc. I threw a kiss to the colonel and started out on the
road. It was about a mile to the picket post, and I had time to reflect
on my position. This was putting down the rebellion at a great rate.
I was an ostensible female, liable to be insulted at any moment, but I
would maintain the dignity of my alleged sex if I didn't lay up a cent.
I put on a proud, haughty look, full of purity and all that, and as I
neared the picket post, I saw the corporal step out into the road, and
as I came up he told me to halt. I halted, and handed him my pass, but
he said it was a forgery, and ordered me to dismount. I turned on the
water, from my eyes, and began to cry, but it run off the bad corporal
like water off a duck.

"None of your sniveling around me," said the vile man. "Get down off
that horse."

"Sir," I said, with well feigned indignation, "you would not molest a poor
girl who has no one to defend her. Let me go I prithe."

I had read that, "Let me go I prithe," in a novel, and it seemed to
me to be the proper thing to say, though I couldn't hardly keep from
laughing.

"Prithe nothing," said the corporal. "What you got in that bustle?"
said the corporal.

"Bustle," I said, blushing so you could have touched a match to my face.
"Why speak of such a thing in the presence of a lady. I want you to let
me go or I shall think you are real mean, so now. Please, Mr. Soldier,
let me go," and I smiled at him and winked with my left eye in a manner
that ought to have paralyzed a marble statue. "O, what you giving us,"
said the vile man. "Get down off that horse and let me go through you
for quinine. Do you hear?"

I was afraid if he helped me down he would see my boots or pants, which
would be a give-away. So I gathered my dress in my hands and jumped down
in pretty good shape. I had sparred with the corporal several times in
camp, and I knew I could knock him out easy, and I made up my mind that
the first indignity he offered me I would just "lam him one. It was all
I could do to keep from pasting him in the nose, when I first landed on
the ground, but I had a part to play, and it would not do to go off half
cocked. So I looked sad, pouted my lips, and wondered if he would kiss
me, and feel the beard where I had been shaved.

"Now, shuck yourself," said he.

"Do what? I asked, with apparent alarm.

"Peel," said he, as he