been cussed at before in his entire life.
True, Ma never hesitated about taking a willow switch to him when he
was a young 'un, or a stob of kindling when he got older. But she
always whupped him in a gentle fashion, never losing her temper and
always explaining with each whistling swing of switch or club, just
what he'd done wrong and why this was for the good of his immortal
soul.

Thinking about Ma, Jed got homesick. He closed his eyes and looked
around for Ma. She was stirring a pot of lye ashes over the fireplace
and when she felt Jed in the cabin she closed her eyes. "Sonny," she
said, "you in trouble?"

Lying on his bunk at Fort McGruder, Jed smiled happily and thought
back an answer. "Nope, Ma. Jest got to wonderin' what you wuz doing."

Whatever Ma was going to say was lost amid the yells and growls of the
men in the barracks as the electricity went off. "Who turned the
lights off?" Fisher cried from the top bunk. "It's not 'lights out'
time yet."

* * * * *

The noise jerked Jed back to the present and his eyes opened. The
lights came on.

"Where are the dice," one of the crapshooters barked. "I rolled a
seven just when the lights went out."

The noise died down and the game resumed. Fisher lay back on his bunk
and went back to his book. Jed's mind reached out for home again.
"Ma," he called out, "you say something?"

The lights went out and the yells went up throughout the two-story
barracks.

Jed opened his eyes and the lights came on.

At the end of the barracks, Corporal Weisbaum came out of his sacredly
private room and surveyed the recruits. "Awright," he roared, "so
which one of you is the wise guy making with the lights?"

"So nobody, corporal," a recruit sitting on the end bunk answered. "So
the lights went out. Then they come back on. So who knows? Maybe the
Army ain't paying its light bills. I had a landlady back in Brooklyn
who usta do the same thing anytime I got late with her rent mon...."

"Shaddup," Weisbaum snarled. "Maybe it was power trouble. But if it
happens again and I find out one of you monkeys is bein' smart, the
whole platoon falls out and we'll get a little night air exercising."
He stalked back into his room and slammed the door.

The barracks buzzed angrily for a few moments. Jed sat up and peered
up at Fisher.

"That there officer shorely don't talk very nice, you know that
Harry," Jed said.

Fisher laid down the book and peered