led to gather some few facts as to his characteristics
as a man and a brother. Can you tell me of anything that would interest
those who may attend?"

"O, I don't know," said the orderly. "The deceased was a liar, a thief,
and a drunkard. He would steal anything that was not chained down. He
would murder a man for a dollar. He was the worst nigger that ever was.
If there was a medical college here that wanted bodies, it would be a
waste of money to bury him. But when he was sober he could bake beans
for all that was out, and there was no man that could boil corned mule
so as to take the taste of the saltpetre out, as he could."

This was not a very good send off for my first funeral, but I clung to
the good qualities possessed by the late lamented. Though he might have
been a bad man, all was not lost if he could bake beans well, and boil
the salt horse or corned mule that soldiers had to eat, so they were
appetizing. Many truly good men of national reputation, could not have
excelled him in his chosen specialties, and I made a memorandum of that
for future use. I made further inquiries in the company, and found that
the deceased had a bad reputation, owed everybody, had five wives living
that he had deserted, and was suspected of having murdered two or three
colored men for their money. His death was caused by delirium tremens.
He had stole a jug of whisky from the major's tent, laid drunk a week,
and when the whisky was gone he had tremens, and had gone to the horse
doctor for something to quiet his nerves, and the horse doctor had given
him a condition powder to take, to be followed with a swallow of mustang
liniment, and the man died.

This was the information I got to use in my remarks at the grave of the
deceased, and I went back to my tent to think it over. I thought perhaps
I had better work in the horse doctor for mal-practice, in my discourse,
and thus get even with him for sending me to the general after a
furlough. While I was thinking over the things I would say, and trying
to forget the bad things about the man, the orderly sent word that the
funeral cortege was ready to proceed to the bone yard. I looked down the
company street and saw the remains being lifted into a cart, and I went
out and put the saddle on my mule, and with a mental prayer that the
confounded mule wouldn't get to kicking till the funeral was over,
started to do the honors at the grave of the late company cook.

CHAPTER V.