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I had been in prison but a little while when a voice called out from a hole in the ground, as I was passing: "S-a-y, Sergeant! Won't you please take these shears and cut my toes off?" "What?" said I, in amazement, stopping in front of the dugout.
Late at night, when everybody would be lying down, and out of the way of shots, a window in the third story would open, a broomstick, with a piece nailed across to represent arms, and clothed with a cap and blouse, would be protruded, and a voice coming from a man carefully protected by the wall, would inquire: "S-a-y, g-uarr-d, what time is it?"
In the intense pause which followed as he waited with expectant, uplifted face a pause so deep even the sobbing sinners held their breath a dry, drawling, utterly matter-of-fact voice broke the tense hush. "S-a-y, Pill, ain't you a bearun' down on the boys a leetle too hard?" The preacher's extended arm fell as if life had gone out of it.
"S-a-y, Pill, ain't you a-bearun' down on the boys a leetle too hard?" The preacher's extended arm fell as if life had gone out of it. His face flushed and paled; the people laughed hysterically, some of them with the tears of terror still on their cheeks; but Radbourn said, "Bravo, Bacon!" Pill recovered himself. "Not hard enough for you, neighbor Bacon."
Again the gun cracked, and again there was no sound of anybody being hit. Again we could hear the sentry churning down another cartridge. The drums began beating the long roll in the camps, and officers could be heard turning the men out. The thing was becoming exciting, and one of us sang out to the guard: "S-a-y! What the are you shooting at, any how?"
A chat over the events of the day, and the prospect of the morrow, the wonderful merits of each man's horse, and the disgusting irregularities of the mails from home, lasted until the silver-voiced bugle rang out the sweet, mournful tattoo of the Regulations, to the flowing cadences of which the boys had arranged the absurdly incongruous words: "S-a-y D-e-u-t-c-h-e-r-will-you fight-mit Sigel!
Again the gun cracked, and again there was no sound of anybody being hit. Again we could hear the sentry churning down another cartridge. The drums began beating the long roll in the camps, and officers could be heard turning the men out. The thing was becoming exciting, and one of us sang out to the guard: "S-a-y! What the are you shooting at, any how?"
As he did so, he heard one boy call out to another in that piercing treble which boys employ in making their confidential communications to one another, across a street, "S-a-y-, did you know that Hank Glen 'd got back? and they say he looks pale yet?"
A chat over the events of the day, and the prospect of the morrow, the wonderful merits of each man's horse, and the disgusting irregularities of the mails from home, lasted until the silver-voiced bugle rang out the sweet, mournful tattoo of the Regulations, to the flowing cadences of which the boys had arranged the absurdly incongruous words: "S-a-y D-e-u-t-c-h-e-r-will-you fight-mit Sigel!
I had been in prison but a little while when a voice called out from a hole in the ground, as I was passing: "S-a-y, Sergeant! Won't you please take these shears and cut my toes off?" "What?" said I, in amazement, stopping in front of the dugout.
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