t'd give variety to your
pork and beans. He didn't seem to have much but canned goods, and his
prices wuz jest awful. But I wuz de termined to git something, and I
finally bought a jug o' genuine Injianny maple molasses, a chunk o'
cheese and a can o' peaches. I had to pay $5 for it. He said he had to
charge high prices on account o' freight rates, and I remembered that I
had some trouble in gittin' things down here, and so I paid him. He wuz
very peart and sassy, and it was take-it-or-leave-it-and-be-plaguey-
quick-about-it all the time. But I paid my $5, gathered the things up,
and started back to the house. I hadn't got more'n 100 rods away when I
met one o' these officers with only one o' them things in his shoulder
straps."

"A First Lieutenant," interjected Si.

"Yes, they called him a Lieutenant. He spoke very bossy and cross to
me, and hit my jug a welt with his sword. He broke it, and what do you
suppose was in it?"

[Illustration: HIT MY JUG A WELT WITH HIS SWORD 231]

"Whisky," said Si and Shorty simultaneously, with a shout of laughter.

"That's jest what it wuz. I wuz never so mortified in my life. I
couldn't say a word. The Lieutenant abused me for being a partner in
sellin' whisky to the soldiers me, Josiah Klegg, Patriarch of the Sons
o' Temperance, and a Deacon. While I wuz tryin' to tell him he jabbed
his sword into the can o' peaches, and what do you suppose was in that?"

"Whisky," yelled Si and Shorty, with another burst of laughter.

"That's jest what it wuz. Then one o' the Lieutenant's men jerked the
chunk o' cheese away and{283} broke it open. And what do you suppose was
in that?"

"Whisky, of course," yelled the boys in uncontrollable mirth.

"That's jest what it was. I wuz so dumfounded that I couldn't say a
word. They yanked me around in behind the squad, and told me they'd
shave my head and drum me out o' camp. The Lieutenant took his men up
to the grocery and tore it down, and ketched the feller that wuz keepin'
it. They put him alongside o' me, and tuk us up to the guard house. On
the way he whispered to me that they wuz likely to salt him, 'cause they
knowed him, but I'd likely git off easy. He'd made $500 clean out o' the
business already, and had it in his clothes. He'd pass it over to me to
keep till the racket wuz over, when he'd divide fair and square with me.
I told him that I'd rather burn my hand off than tech a dirty dollar o'
his money, but he dropt it into my overcoat