Again Shorty sent down the bullet screw, and again there was more tearing off of bits, and finally a mangled $20 bill was dragged forth and laid aside for Mandy to repair. "Ike Englehardt sent that to his mother to help take his sister through the Normal School, so's she kin become a teacher. She'll git that all right. But I've broken my bullet screw in that wrastle. It snapped clean off, and I've got the worst job of all now to get out $100 in two 50's that Abe Trelawney sent his mother to meet that mortgage on her little house. Abe's bin savin' it up for months, and I was more anxious about it than any other, and so I put it down first. Si, let me have your bullet-screw."

"Hain't got none. Lost mine weeks ago, while we was on the Tullahomy march."

"Great Jehosephat! what am I goin' to do?" groaned Shorty, the sweat starting out on his fore head. "Now's the time for Providence to help out, if He's goin' to. I'm at the end o' my string."

"Supper's ready, boys; come on in," announced the sweet, motherly voice of Mrs. Klegg. She seconded her invitation with her arm around Si and a kiss on his cheek. "Father, bring Shorty, unless he'd rather walk with the girls."

Shorty was altogether too bashful to take advantage of the direct hint. Si's lively sisters filled him with a nervous dread of his social shortcomings. He grew very red in the face, hung back from them, and caught hold of the Deacon's arm.

"Go slow with him, girls," whispered the Deacon to his daughters, after they were seated at the table. "He's a mighty good boy, but he ain't used to girls."

"He's rather good looking, if he does act sheepish," returned Mandy.

"Well, he ain't a mite sheepish when there's serious business on hand,"

returned the father. "And next to ourselves, he's the best friend your brother has."

It had been many years since the wandering, rough-living Shorty had sat down to such an inviting, well-ordered table. Probably he never had.

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 antic.i.p.ating his wants to notice Shorty's embarra.s.sment.

Si was making a heroic effort to eat everything in sight, to properly appreciate all the toothsome things that loving hands were pressing upon him, and to answer the myriad of questions that were showered upon him, and to get in a few questions of his own at the same time. He just found time to ask Shorty:

"Say, this is great this 's like livin', ain't it?"

And Shorty replied with deep feeling: "Just out o' sight. How in the world'd you ever come to enlist and leave all this?"

The neighbors began gathering in fathers, mothers and sisters of members of Co. Q, all full of eager questions as to their kindred, and this relieved Shorty, for he could tell them quite as well as Si.

The supper ended, the problem of the money in the gun again loomed up.

Everyone had an opinion as to how to extricate the valuable charge.

The women, of course, suggested hair-pins, but these were tried without success. A gimlet taken from its handle and secured to the ramrod, refused to take hold.

Somebody suggested shooting the gun across a pond of water, and getting the money that way, but it was decided that the force of the Springfield seemed too great for any body of water in the neighborhood. Then Jabe Clemmons, the "speculative" genius of the neighborhood, spoke up:

"Gentlemen, I've an idee. Deacon, how much is in that small haystack of your'n?"

"'Bout 10 tons," answered the Deacon.

"Jest about. Well, I'll pay you the regular market price for it, and give $100 to Miss Trelawney. Now, let this gentleman stand 50 feet from it and shoot his gun at it. He mustn't tell none of us where he aims at.

I'll sell you, gentlemen, that hay in 40 quarter-ton lots, commencing at the top, each man to pay $2 besides the regular price for a quarter ton o' hay, an' we'll draw numbers as to our turns in takin' the fodder."

"Looks somethin' like gamblin'," demurred the Deacon.

"No more'n church lotteries," answered Jabe, "since it's for a good purpose. Now, gentlemen, who wants to buy a quarter ton of Deacon Klegg's first-cla.s.s hay?"

At once he had replies enough to take the whole stack, but while he was writing down the names Deacon Klegg had another idea.

"I can't quite git my mind reconciled to gamblin', even for a good purpose," he said. "And I ain't sure about how the two 50's 'll strike the haystack. It'd be a sin if they were destroyed, as they are likely to be. I've another idee. My well there is 25 foot deep. Let's take the bucket out, and let Shorty shoot his gun straight down into the well.

I believe the money'll come out all right. If it don't I'll make it up myself, rather than be a party to a gamble."

"May blow the bottom o' your old well out," muttered Jabe Clemmons, who dearly loved anything in the shape of a game of hazard.

"I'll resk that," said the Deacon. "I kin dig an other well, if necessary."

The Deacon's proposal was carried. Shorty, holding the b.u.t.t of his gun carefully upright, fired down into the well. A boy was lowered in the bucket, and soon announced by a joyful cry that he had gotten the bills.

Upon being brought up and examined they were found to be uninjured, ex cept by a slight singeing at the edges.

"Providence's agin managin' things," murmured Shorty gratefully; "but the Deacon's gumption helped out."

All the money for those not present to receive it in person was turned over to the Deacon, and then for the first time the boys felt relieved of a great responsibility.

"There are two trains goin' east," said the Deacon, in response to their inquiries as to the facilities for returning. "The through express pa.s.ses here at 3:15, and it'll git you to Jeffersonville early in the morning. The accommodation pa.s.ses about day break, and it'll git you there in the evenin', if it makes connections, which it often doesn't."

"We must go on the through express," said Si firmly. There was a loud outcry by the mother and sisters, but the father recognized the demands of military discipline.

Si began to fidget to get away from the crowd of eager inquirers, which Mandy noticing, she found opportunity to whisper:

"Don't fret. She'll be here presently."

Si's face burned. He had thought his secret well-kept, but here his sisters read his thoughts like an open book. He had wanted to go to Annabel, and have a few golden minutes alone with her. Just what for just what he would say or do he did not in the least know he could not imagine. Only he felt that in some way the main interest of his life depended on seeing her somewhere remote from curious eyes and listening ears. He wanted to go to her, not to have her come to him, and meet him in such a throng as was gathered at his home.

While these thoughts were coursing through his mind he heard Maria call:

"Si, come here into my room. I want to show you the purtiest thing you ever saw."

While Mandy was a most correct young woman, she could not withstand giving a significant wink to those around, to which they responded with knowing smiles. These, fortunately, Si did not see. He arose at once, the people made way, and he was led by Maria to her room. She opened the door and said:

"There, now, kiss me for a loving sister."

It was a fervent kiss that Si rewarded her with, for, there, rising from her chair as the door opened, dressed in her best, and her face wreathed with smiles and blushes, stood Annabel.

"Since you are so mean about goin' away so soon, you can only have 10 minutes together; make the most of it," laughed Maria, and she scudded back to the sitting-room.

Si stood for an instant dazed. How beautiful she was far more so than his recollections had painted her. She had blossomed out from the school-girl into the mature woman, and every feature ripened. Fair as his home seemed in contrast with the country he had left, she seemed still fairer in contrast with any woman he had ever seen. Where were the thousand things that, brooding by the campfire and lying in his tent, he thought over to say to her when they met? All forgotten or dismissed as inappropriate. He simply stood and gazed at her. She re covered herself first, and said teasingly:

"Well, how do you do? Ain't you going to speak? Ain't you glad to see me?"

Si could only step forward and take her hand, and murmur:

[Ill.u.s.tration: 'ANNABEL, HOW PURTY YOU LOOK.' 173]

"Annabel, how purty you look. How you've growed, and all purtier. I'm awfully glad to see you. That's what I most wanted to come home for."

Then his face burned with new blushes to think how much he had said.

They sat down, he still holding her hand, with his eyes fixed upon her face. Somehow, in the mysterious telegraphy of first love, they so fully understood one another that words were unnecessary.

Speechless, but fuller of happiness than they ever dreamed was possible in the world, they sat with clasped hands until Maria came back, calling out: