o fight, they would be
very sure to take it. Here and there a man still carried his old squirrel
musket, with a rusted skillet handle stuck into the barrel, but when before
many days the skillet would be withdrawn, the load might be relied upon to
wing straight home a little later. On wet nights those muskets would stand
upright upon their bayonets, with muzzles in the earth, while the rain
dripped off, and on dry days they would carry aloft the full property of
the mess, which had dwindled to a frying pan and an old quart cup; though
seldom cleaned, they were always fit for service--or if they went foul what
was easier than to pick up a less trusty one upon the field. On the other
side hung the blankets, tied at the ends and worn like a sling from the
left shoulder. The haversack was gone and with it the knapsack and the
overcoat. When a man wanted a change of linen he knelt down and washed his
single shirt in the brook, sitting in the sun while it dried upon the bank.
If it was long in drying he put it on, wet as it was, and ran ahead to fall
in with his company. Where the discipline was easy, each infantryman might
become his own commissary.

Dan finished his corn, threw the husks over his head, and sat up, looking
idly at the irregular ranks. He was tired and sick, and after a short rest
it seemed all the harder to get up and take the road again. As he sat there
he began to bandy words with the sergeant of a Maryland regiment that was
passing.

"Hello! what brigade?" called the sergeant in friendly tones. He looked fat
and well fed, and Dan felt this to be good ground for resentment.

"General Straggler's brigade, but it's none of your business," he promptly
retorted.

"General Straggler has a pretty God-forsaken crew," taunted the sergeant,
looking back as he stepped on briskly. "I've seen his regiments lining the
road clear up from Chantilly."

"If you'd kept your fat eyes open at Manassas the other day, you'd have
seen them lining the battle-field as well," pursued Dan pleasantly, chewing
a long green blade of corn. "Old Stonewall saw them, I'll be bound. If
General Straggler didn't win that battle I'd like to know who did."

"Oh, shucks!" responded the sergeant, and was out of hearing.

The regiment passed by and another took its place. "Was that General Lee
you were yelling at down there, boys?" inquired Dan politely, smiling the
smile of a man who sits by the roadside and sees another sweating on the
ma