muddy and gloomy,
and about this time many of the boys had home-sickness bad. A genuine
case of downright home-sickness is most depressing. I had some touches
of it myself, so I can speak from experience. The poor fellows would sit
around in their tents, and whine, and talk about home, and what good
things they would have there to eat, and kindred subjects, until
apparently they lost every spark of energy. I kept away from such cases
all I could, for their talk was demoralizing. But one rainy day while in
camp at Owl creek I was in our big Sibley tent when some of the boys got
well started on their pet topics. It was a dismal day, the rain was
pattering down on the tent and dripping from the leaves of the big oak
trees in the camp, while inside the tent everything was damp and mouldy
and didn't smell good either. "Jim," says one, "I wish I could jest be
down on Coon crick today, and take dinner with old Bill Williams; I'll
tell you what I'd have: first, a great big slice of fried ham, with
plenty of rich brown gravy, with them light, fluffy, hot biscuits that
Bill's wife could cook so well, and then I'd want some big baked Irish
'taters, red hot, and all mealy, and then----" "Yes, Jack," interrupted
Jim, "I've et at old Bill's lots of times, and wouldn't I like to be
with you? You know, old Bill always mast-fed the hogs he put up for his
own eatin', they jest fattened on hickory nuts and big white- and
bur-oak acorns, and he'd smoke his meat with hickory wood smoke, and oh,
that meat was jest so sweet and nutty-like!--why, the meat of corn-fed
hogs was nowhere in comparison." "Yes, Jim," continued Jack, "and then
I'd want with the biscuits and 'taters plenty of that rich yaller butter
that Bill's wife made herself, with her own hands, and then you know
Bill always had lots of honey, and I'd spread honey and butter on one of
them biscuits, and----" "And don't you remember, Jack," chimed in Jim,
"the mince pies Bill's wife could make? They were jest stuffed with
reezons, and all manner of goodies, and----" But here I left the tent in
disgust. I wanted to say, "Oh, hell!" as I went out, but refrained. The
poor fellows were feeling bad enough, anyhow, and it wouldn't have
helped matters to make sarcastic remarks. But I preferred the shelter of
a big tree, and enduring the rain that filtered through the leaves,
rather than listen to this distracting talk of Jack and Jim about the
flesh-pots of old Bill Williams. But while on t