d
overflowed the bottoms. Men ordered on picket duty climbed up into the
stable-loft and went to bed. Twice, on black, drenching nights, word
came from the farmhouse that the enemy, commanded by a certain Col.
Ulysses Grant, was in the neighborhood, and the Hannibal division went
hastily slopping through mud and brush in the other direction, dragging
wearily back when the alarm was over. Military ardor was bound to cool
under such treatment. Then Lieutenant Clemens developed a very severe
boil, and was obliged to lie most of the day on some hay in a
horse-trough, where he spent his time denouncing the war and the mistaken
souls who had invented it. When word that "General" Tom Harris, commander
of the district--formerly telegraph-operator in Hannibal--was at a
near-by farm-house, living on the fat of the land, the army broke camp
without further ceremony. Halfway there they met General Harris, who
ordered them back to quarters. They called him familiarly "Tom," and told
him they were through with that camp forever. He begged them, but it was
no use. A little farther on they stopped at a farm-house for supplies. A
tall, bony woman came to the door.

"You're Secesh, ain't you?"

Lieutenant Clemens said: "We are, madam, defenders of the noble cause,
and we should like to buy a few provisions."

The request seemed to inflame her.

"Provisions!" she screamed. "Provisions for Secesh, and my husband a
colonel in the Union Army. You get out of here!"

She reached for a hickory hoop-pole [5] that stood by the door, and the
army moved on. When they reached the home of Col. Bill Splawn it was
night and the family had gone to bed. So the hungry army camped in the
barn-yard and crept into the hay-loft to sleep. Presently somebody
yelled "Fire!" One of the boys had been smoking and had ignited the hay.

Lieutenant Clemens, suddenly wakened, made a quick rotary movement away
from the blaze, and rolled out of a big hay-window into the barn-yard
below. The rest of the brigade seized the burning hay and pitched it out
of the same window. The lieutenant had sprained his ankle when he
struck, and his boil was still painful, but the burning hay cured him
--for the moment. He made a spring from under it; then, noticing that the
rest of the army, now that the fire was out, seemed to think his
performance amusing, he rose up and expressed himself concerning the war,
and military life, and the human race in general. They helped him in,
t