ime to hand him a jar of
honey and a small crock of butter from their home supplies, which he
received with proper appreciation, and handed over to the grinning negro
boy he had picked up somewhere in Tennessee for a servant. They followed
the Lieutenant to where he had his squad of about 100 recruits gathered.
He said:

"Here, Klegg, you will act as Orderly-Sergeant, and Shorty and the rest
of you as Sergeants of this detachment. Here is the list of them, Klegg.
Make up a roll and call it whenever I order you to do so."

Si took the list and looked over the crowd. They were mainly boys of
about the same age and style as himself when he first enlisted, but he
thought he had never seen so green, gawky a lot in the world. Like him
then, every one was weighted down with a bundle of things that would
evidently be contributed to the well-being of the people along the line
of march.

It seemed to him that they stood around the platform in as ugly
crookedness as a lodgment of driftwood on a Wabash bottom after a
freshet.

"Where on the Wea prairies," muttered Shorty, "did Old Abe pick up that
job lot o' wind shaken, lopsided saplings? Must've bin pulled when green
and warped in the dryin'."

"Well, we've got to git 'em into some sort o' shape," answered Si. "You
must help."

"I help?" returned Shorty despairingly. "You'll need a West Point
perfessor and a hay-press to git that crowd into soldier shape. I ain't
once."

"Here, Sergeant," ordered Lieut. Bowersox, "line the men up, count them,
learn their names, and give them a little preliminary drill, while I go
to Headquarters and see the Colonel again about our transportation."

"Fall in, boys; fall in," commanded Si.

The crowd looked at him curiously. They knew that he wanted them to do
something, they were willing to do it, but they hadn't the slightest
idea what it was. They made a move by huddling up a little toward him.

"Fall in in two ranks, with the right here," shouted Si.

There was more inconsequent huddling, which seemed so purposely awkward
that it irritated Si, and he spoke sharply:

"Gosh all Krismuss, what's the matter with you lunkheads? Don't you know
nothing? You're dummer'n a lot o' steers."

"Guess we know 'bout as much as you did when you first enlisted," said
the smallest of the lot, a red-cheeked, bright-eyed boy, who looked as
if he should have been standing up before a blackboard "doing a sum" in
long division, instead of on his way