Si Klegg

“ The Government had just offered some very tempting gold-interest bonds, of which he wanted a swad.
"'Tain't right to let them green boys have their hull $13 a month to waste in foolishness," he said. "Some good man should gather it up and make a right use of it."
Like Indiana farmer boys of his class. Si Klegg was cleanly but not neat. Thanks to his mother and sisters, his Sunday clothes were always "respectable," and he put on a few extra touches when he expected to meet Annabel. ”

“ No people in the whole world live better than the prosperous Indiana farmers, and Mrs. Klegg was known far and wide for her housewifely talents. The snowy table linen, the spotless dishes, the tastefully-prepared food would have done credit to a royal banquet. Hungry as he was, the abashed Shorty fidgeted in his chair, and watched Si begin before he ventured to make an attack. The mother and girls were too busy plying Si with questions and anticipating his wants to notice Shorty's embarrassment. ”

“ Do you think that two of you'll be able to manage Poke Bolivar? If you're not sure I'll get another man to help you. I think that I had better, anyway."
"O, go along with you," said Shorty scornfully. "Don't worry about us and Mr. Bolivar. I'd stack Si Klegg up against any man that ever wore gray, in any sort of a scrimmage he could put up, and I'm a better man than Si. You just favor us with a meeting with Mr. Bolivar, and then git out o' the way. If it wasn't for dividing up fair with my partner here I'd go out by myself and tackle Mr. Bolivar. ”

“ Poor little Pete, badly excited as to what was happening to his best friend, was nervously fumbling his gun and eyeing the Aid.
"Si Klegg, go off and mind your own business, and let me attend to mine," yelled Shorty, struggling to free himself from his partner's iron grasp. "Am I goin' to be run over by every pin-feather snipe from West Point? I'll break him in two."
"Sergeant," commanded the Aid, reaching to take the field-glasses from Shorty's hand; "buck and gag that man at once. Knock him down if he resists. Knock him down, I say." ”

“ They was lost by sheer, dumbed carelessness, that me and you and the boys should knowed better than to've allowed. That's all there is of it, and that's what I'm goin' to report, if I have to."
"Great Jehosephat," exploded Shorty; "you kin certainly be the stubbornest mule over nothin', Si Klegg, that I ever seen. We've done fightin' enough to excuse sich a report, or any that we've a mind to make."
"Nothin' kin justify a lie," persisted the obdurate Si.
"Holy smoke! bigger men than you—lots bigger—have squared up their accounts that way. ”

“ Whenever an infantryman threw away such an opportunity it is safe to assume that there was some good reason for it.
But the idea of riding for a few days and letting his blisters get well was too much for Si Klegg. Besides, he thought if there was any one thing he could do better than another it was driving a team. He had been doing it on his father's farm all his life. It is true, he didn't know much about mules, but he imagined they were a good deal like horses.
"I'm your man!" spoke up Si cheerfully.
"All right," said the Orderly. "Company, Right—Face! Break ranks—March!" ”

“ Those in the second and all following numbers appeared in The National Tribune when the editor, John McElroy, resumed the story in 1897, 12 years after the first publication, and continued it for the unprecedented period of seven years, with constantly growing interest and popularity. They gave "Si Klegg" a nation-wide and enduring celebrity. Gen. Lew Wallace, the foremost literary man of his day, pronounced "Si Klegg" the "great idyll of the war." ”

“ I've bin down there once, and learned something. I'm goin' to take nothin with me but my Bible, a couple o' clean shirts, and my razor. A wise man learns by experience."
Mother and girls were inconsolable, for each had something that they were sure "Si would like," and would "do him good," but they knew Josiah Klegg, Sr., well enough to understand what was the condition when he had once made up his mind.
"If Si and Shorty's able to be moved," he consoled them with, "I'm going to bring them straight back home with me, and then you kin nuss and coddle them all you want to." ”

“ He was broken in upon by Maria's voice as she came in at the head of a bevy of other girls:
"Si Klegg, ain't you ever comin' out? What's akeepin' you? We're tired waitin' for you, and w're comin' right in. What're you doin' to them ragamuffins that you've bin gatherin' up? Tryin' to patch 'em up into decent-lookin' men? Think it'll be like mendin' a brush-fence—makin' bad worse. Where on earth did you gather up sich a gang o' scare-crows? I wouldn't waste my days and nights pickin' up sich runts as them. When I go manhuntin' I'll gether something that's worth while." ”

“ CHAPTER IV. THE AWFUL HARDTACK THE HARD AND SOLID STAFF OF MILITARY LIFE.
"APPETITE'S a queer thing," said Si to Shorty one day, when both were in a philosophical mood. "It's an awful bother when you haven't it, and it's a great deal worse when you have it, and can't get anything for it." "Same as money," returned sage Shorty. During the first few months of Si Klegg's service in the army the one thing that bothered him more than anything else was his appetite. ”

“ Mebbe we'll feel more like work after we've eaten something."
"Si Klegg," said Shorty sternly, but settling down himself on the other side of the fire, "I never knowed124 you to flop down before. You've always bin, if any thing, forwarder than me. I was in hopes now that you'd take me by the back o' the neck and try to shake some o' this laziness out o' me."
"Wait till the rations come," repeated Si listlessly. "Mebbe we'll fell livelier then. The shelter we've fixed up'll keep out the coarsest o' the rain, anyway. Most o' the boys ain't got none." ”

“ Before starting in the morning strict orders had been read to the regiment forbidding straggling, for any reason, under the most terrifying pains and penalties.
"Them fellers that's been in the service longer 'n we have think they're smart," said Si Klegg, as he and Shorty plodded on, both already a little blown. "Well show 'em that we can hoof it jest as fast as they can, and jest as fur in a day!" ”

“ We'll start when some young sardine with shoulder-straps finishes his breakfast, and stop when John Morgan tears up the track. If you didn't feed your hog's any better'n this train runs, old Hayseed, they'd starve to death in a month."
"He ain't jest what you'd call perlite," thought Mr. Klegg, as he meditatively chewed for a little while longer. "But mebbe that's the way in the army. Probably Si's got jest that way, too." ”

“ CHAPTER XIII. THE JEW SPY WRITES SHORTY HAS AN ADVENTURE WITH A LONE, LORN WIDDER LADY."
"I WONDER what has become of our Jew spy, Shorty?" said Si, as he and Shorty sat on the bank of Duck River and watched the rebel pickets lounging under the beeches on the other side. "We hain't heard nothin' of him for more'n a month now."
"He's probably hung," answered Shorty. "He was entirely too smart to live long. A man can't go on always pokin' his finger into a rattlesnake's jaw without gittin' it nipped sooner or later."
"I'm looking fur a man called Si Klegg," they heard behind them. ”

“ These papers do magnify everything so, and make no end of fuss over little things as well as big ones, I was very much alarmed at first, for fear Si might be really badly hurt."
This was too much for Maria. Her company manners slid off like a drop of water from a cabbage leaf, and she answered hotly:
"I'd have you know. Miss Widgeon, the papers don't magnify the matter. They don't make a fuss over nothing. They don't begin to tell all the truth. None o' them can. My brother was nearer dead than any man who ever lived. Nothing but the favor of God and Klegg grit pulled him through. ”

“ The 200th was turned into a cornfield, where the men sank over their shoetops in mud, and were ordered to bivouac for the night. The wagons didn't get up at all. How they passed the slowly-dragging hours of that dismal night will not be told at this time. Indeed, bare mention is enough to recall the scene to those who have "been there."
In the morning, when the company was ordered out for drill, Si Klegg was standing before the sputtering fire trying to dry his steaming clothes, every now and then turning around to give the other side a chance. ”

“ Shorty began to regard the Deacon and Si as superior beings, and to stand in such awe of Mrs. Klegg and the girls that he became as tongue-tied as a bashful school-boy in their presence. It amazed him to hear Si, when the girls would teaze him, speak to them as sharply as brothers sometimes will, and just as if they were ordinary mortals.
"Si, you orter to be more careful in talkin' to your sisters," he remonstrated when they were alone.
"You've bin among rough men so long that you don't know how to talk to real ladies."
"O, come off," said Si, petulantly. "What's a-eatin you. ”

“ The Deacon Gives Abe a Lesson in Wood Chopping 269
PREFACE
"Si Klegg, of the 200th Ind., and Shorty, his Partner," were born years ago in the brain of John McElroy, Editor of THE NATIONAL TRIBUNE.
These sketches are the original ones published in THE NATIONAL TRIBUNE, revised and enlarged some what by the author. How true they are to nature every veteran can abundantly testify from his own service. Really, only the name of the regiment was invented. There is no doubt that there were several men of the name of Josiah Klegg in the Union Army, and who did valiant service for the Government. ”

“ He said he heard the Captain say he would let Si out the next day.
CHAPTER VII. IN THE AWKWARD SQUAD SI HAS MANY TRIBULATIONS LEARNING THE MANUAL OP ARMS.
WHEN Si Klegg went into active service with Co. Q of the 200th Ind. his ideas of drill and tactics were exceedingly vague. He knew that a "drill" was something to make holes with, and as he understood that he had been sent down South to make holes through people, he supposed drilling had something to do with it. He handled his musket very much as he would a hoe. A "platoon" might be something to eat, for all he knew. ”

“ If there's anything that ain't jest right he'll see it quicker'n litenin'. Ye know we hain't had any inspections yet, an' the Cap'n wants us to be the boss company. So ye've got to scratch around lively in the mornin'."
"Say," said Corporal Klegg, after the company had broken ranks, "seems to me there wa'n't no use in the Orderly tellin' us to 'scratch around,' fer we're doin' that purty much all the time, now that the graybacks is gittin' in their work on us."
Shorty smiled faintly at what he seemed to consider a rather feeble joke, even for Si. ”

“ Not quite half the men faced the wrong way, turning to the left instead of the right, which was doing pretty well for a starter.
"Get around there, Klegg, and the rest of you fellows! Can't ye ever learn anything."
Si was so particularly awkward that the Captain put him at the tail-end of the company. Then he tried the right face again, and as the boys seemed to get around in fair shape he commanded:
"Right shoulder shift arms! Forward—March!"
The company started off; but the Captain was not a little surprised, on looking back, to see Si marching: off in the opposite direction. ”

“ This Sergeant, who seems to be in command, refuses to go with me."
"I tell you, Major," said Si, who recognized the officer as belonging to his brigade, "there was nobody killed, or even badly hurt. These little roosters got up a school-yard scrap all about a mistake; it was all over in a minute. There's the man they say was killed, settin' over there on that pile o' lumber smokin' his pipe."
"You're Si Klegg, aren't you, of the 200th Ind.?" asked the Major.
"Yes, Major," answered Si, saluting. "And you're Maj. Tomlinson, of the 1st Oshkosh. This is my pardner. Shorty." ”

“ Klegg reprovingly. "It's a sin to speak so lightly o' death o' a feller-creature."
"Well, if he's a feller-creature o' mine," returned the sprightly Maria, "the Lord made a slack-twisted job of him some dark night out o' remnants, and couldn't find no gumption to put in him. He gave him an alligator's appetite instid. And ain't I tryin' to save his life? Besides, I'm nearly dead to see Si. I want to be the first to see him."
This aroused Amanda, but Maria stood on her rights as the elder sister, had her way, as she usually did, and drove away triumphantly fully two hours before train-time. ”

“ Not one could penetrate that little ridge of earth and rails, which in an hour grew into a strong rifle-pit against which the whole rebel brigade charged, only to sustain a bloody repulse.
The war would have lasted a good deal longer had it not been for the daily help of the ever-useful half-canteen.
CHAPTER III. THE OLD CANTEEN THE MANY AND QUEER USES TO WHICH IT WAS AT LAST PUT.
WHEN Josiah (called "Si" for short) Klegg, of the 200th Ind., drew his canteen from the Quartermaster at Louisville, he did not have a very high idea of its present or prospective importance. ”

“ He hated above all things to quarrel with Shorty, but the Wabash Valley, that gardenspot of earth, that place where lived his parents, and sister, and Annabel but the subject was too sore to think about.
Presently an Aid came galloping along the middle of the road, calling upon the men to make way for him. His horse's hoofs threw the mud in every direction, and Si caught a heavy spatter directly in his face.
"Confound them snips of Aids," said he angrily, as he wiped the mud off. "Put on more airs than if they was old Gen. Scott himself. Always pretend to be in such a powerful hurry. ”